On
January 24, federal
agents
murdered a registered nurse, Alex Pretti,
37, working in the intensive care unit at
the Minneapolis VA Health Care System,
which serves veterans. This was the
second fatal shooting this month in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. A nonfatal
shooting had also occurred as a result of
a major crackdown in Minnesota by
federal agents. Pretti was a graduate of
the University of Minnesota, where he
had been a junior scientist for more than
a decade. Trump administration officials
wasted no time demonizing him. On his
Truth Social platform, President Donald
Trump accused state officials of “inciting
insurrection.” Deputy Chief of Staff
Stephen Miller accused Pretti of
attempted murder on X (also known as
Twitter), border
patrol commander
Gregory
Bovino argued that Pretti’s
second
amendment rights did not
apply in this case.
Director of Homeland Security Kristi
Noem referred to Pretti as an illegal
immigrant
with a violent criminal
history who
attempted to assault ICE
officials
despite
solid evidence refuting
such
a claim immediately following his
death.
ICE agents are fiercely and brazenly
enacting their Gestapo agenda
throughout the state of Minnesota and,
more recently, Maine. On January 22 in
Minneapolis, ICE’s detention of Liam
Ramos, a five-year-old boy wearing a
Spider-Man backpack, rapidly emerged
as the definitive image of the Trump
administration’s draconian immigration
enforcement practices. A masked agent
manipulated five-year-old Liam, a
supremely innocent child, into knocking
on the door of his own home before
immediately shipping him across the
country and incarcerating him. Enraged
critics, local politicians, governors,
senators, and civilians highlighted Liam’s
ordeal as irrefutable evidence that the
administration’s mass deportation
campaign is hardly interested in tackling
and targeting criminals. Instead, it is a
program designed to evoke and instill
fear and terror within children and their
families. The young child and his father
are now in a detention center in Texas,
while the
mother and his brother remain
in
Columbia Heights facing the dilemma
of being a broken family. Indeed, one
can only imagine the intense
psychological trauma this young child
has endured because of our
government’s overbearing, regressive
tactics. Witnessing photos
of tiny
Liam bundled up against the brutal cold,
looking clueless and frightened, would
make even the most indifferent and
heartless person perform some deep soul
searching and repair their moral
compass.
Amid all the sinister drama, the Trump
administration has tried to depict its
unjustified deportations as an evacuation
of violent criminals from the nation.
However, statistics
demonstrate that the
majority
of arrested individuals possess
no
criminal record at all. The
administration’s attempts to discredit
anyone
who dares to criticize bands of
inadequately
trained federal thugs as the
enemy
are bereft of any level of
conscientiousness. Despite such
disingenuous efforts, there has been bi-
partisan criticism toward the
administration’s stance.
Governors
Phil Scott,(Vermont) Kevin
Still
(Oklahoma), senators Bill Cassidy
(Louisiana)
and Thom Tillis North
Carolina),
James Comer (R-KY),, former
house
Georgia member Marjorie Taylor
Greene,
Michael Baumgartner (R-WA),
Michael
McCaul(R-TX) are among the
republican politicians who are challenging
Trump officials on their allegations.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison
referred to the administration’s narrative
of events as flat
out insane.
Additionally, independent analyses
by The
New York Times, The
Wall Street
Journal, The
Associated Press, CBS
News and other organizations conclude
that all videos contradict the Trump
administration’s description of the
murder.
In November 2024, Americans voted for
Trump because he told them he would
lower
food prices, return
manufacturing
jobs
to the nation, and provide affordable
health
care. He has failed to deliver on
any of these, but he and his advisors
have succeeded in managing to
transform Minneapolis and St. Paul into a
state where unrestrained chaos reigns.
They have arrogantly dismissed the
horrific
murder of an innocent American
mother and an intensive
care nurse,
referring to both victims as domestic
terrorists. Meanwhile, photos of Liam’s
eyes, filled with fear and confusion,
emotions no child should ever endure,
have sent chills down many Americans’
spines. Americans are distressed and
horrified. It’s
essential that federal
immigration
officers be astute to the
reality
that they, like everyday citizens,
must
adhere to the confines of the law
and
are not granted carte blanche license
of
impunity from doing so.
One can only pose the following question
to all the MAGA voters who screamed at
the top of their lungs at the notion of
immigration policies and brazenly
advocated “IMMEDIATE MASS
DEPORTATION”: Was this the sort of
violent, callous, monstrous activity you
voted for or endorsed? Did you not see,
in your mind’s eye, the frightened
expression of a blameless child who was
being dragged away from their family?
For a segment of you diehard, nativist,
and isolationist right wingers, the
administration is behaving exactly as you
desire. You probably want ICE
aggressiveness to continue. But what
about the rest of you who are generally
anti-immigration and are put off, if not
downright revolted, by such wanton
Gestapo-like tactics? Some people would
disagree, but I believe you must feel
some degree of sympathy within your
soul.
It has been three weeks since the horrific
murder of Renee Good, a 37-year-old
woman and a mother of three children,
by an armed agent. Since then, footage
of violent arrests and assaults by ICE
operatives dispatched to specific states
by an administration claiming to
reestablish “law and order” has become
disturbingly routine. Nevertheless, the
dystopian images of an unarmed man
having several bullets pumped into his
body or a small child finding himself in
the crosshairs still have the ability to jolt
the conscience. I, like many Americans,
are feverishly asking one question: When
will such gut-wrenching carnage end?
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