The unconscionable murder of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse, by federal agents on a street in the US city of Minneapolis, after he had already been thrown to the ground, marks a fresh low in President Donald Trump’s campaign involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
By all accounts, including eyewitnesses (except the official version), the victim was filming a violent crackdown on people of colour and was attempting to rescue a woman facing pepper spray when he was shoved down and shot dead by border patrol agents. Independent media accounts and video footage contradict the official claim that Pretti was intent on a massacre because he was found to have a weapon. The gun was legally permitted, carried on his person, not brandished, and was seized by agents.
A symbol of a darker America
This killing, coming soon after the death of Renee Good in an equally egregious shooting, has become a symbol of urban America’s descent into a dark and dystopian time. Today, masked agents in military gear, often protected by chemical masks, are laying siege to local communities in cities. Images of a five-year-old with a backpack and a legal immigrant wearing only a robe being marched into the winter cold present an America bereft of constitutional idealism.
Minnesota, home to the twin cities of Minneapolis–St Paul, has emerged as a specific target of the Trump administration. The President has a record of scapegoating the state’s Somali immigrant community, led by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — most recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos — as corrupt, as well as Democratic Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate.
Rule of law replaced by fear
An unhinged campaign targeting people of colour and carried out by violent masked agents, operating largely beyond the pale of law and without due process, can only be described as malign. If the objective were to weed out criminals among illegal immigrants, it could have been done through warrants and in coordination with state and city administrations.
Instead, people have been picked up from streets, cars, workplaces and even court precincts, and sent to detention centres, with no regard for individual circumstances. Some of those detained are US citizens.
Erosion of accountability
Following the Minneapolis killings, the federal government even prevented state law enforcement from conducting investigations, choosing instead to keep the cases under the Department of Homeland Security, which has already pronounced adverse verdicts against both Pretti and Good.
At the global level, Trump has made it clear that he considers international law to be of little value, justifying military actions in Venezuela and Iran. Domestically, the US Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to America’s image as a beacon of freedom by accepting presidential immunity for core actions.
A fragile hope
The remaining hope is that freely held midterm elections to the US Congress and state governorships may yet steer the country back toward constitutionalism.
