A key House Republican called on President Trump Sunday to begin yanking ICE agents out of Minneapolis — warning the chaos will only “get worse” after protester Alex Pretti was fatally shot by a federal agent a day earlier.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) suggested a de-escalation was needed after the 37-year-old ICU nurse was gunned down — especially if “there’s a chance of losing more … innocent lives.”
“If I were President Trump, I would almost think about, OK, if the mayor and the governor are going to put our ICE officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of losing more, you know, innocent lives or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide, ‘Do we want to continue to have all of these illegals? Are we going to allow our governor, attorney general and mayor to get away with this?’” Comer told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Elsewhere Sens. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called for a full investigation into Pretti’s killing, warning the credibility of the federal government was at stake.
“The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth,” Cassidy said in an X statement.
Ricketts described the fatal shooting as “horrifying.”
“My support for funding ICE remains the same. Enforcing our immigration laws makes our streets safer. It also protects our national security. But we must also maintain our core values as a nation, including the right to protest and assemble,” he said on X.
Here’s the latest on the Minneapolis ICE agent shooting:
“I expect a prioritized, transparent investigation into this incident.”
Elsewhere, Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott said in a scathing statement that it was “not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government.”
“Enough … At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership,” said Scott.
“At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans. Again, enough is enough.”
Trump himself told the Wall Street Journal Sunday that his administration was “reviewing everything” about the shooting “and will come out with a determination.”
“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump added. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”
The president also told the outlet that federal immigration authorities would leave the Twin Cities “at some point,” with “a different group” of federal law enforcement to carry out a sweeping benefits fraud probe centered on Minneapolis’ Somali diaspora.
