Donald Trump claimed without offering further details that he would “de-escalate a little bit” his immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota as he appeared to give lip service to quelling the backlash to two fatal shootings by federal agents, even as the raids continued without pause.
The president did not say whether he would direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or US border patrol agents to change tactics. Federal immigration raids continued in the state on Wednesday just as they have since the shootings, including an incident on Tuesday during which agents appeared to attempt to enter the consulate of Ecuador in Minneapolis without a warrant.
The fallout from the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday has continued to dog the White House even as Trump travelled to a rally in Iowa to deliver remarks about the economy in the hopes of bolstering Republicans ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The president has hedged his views on the killing of Pretti, telling reporters at the Iowa event that he did not think Pretti was an “assassin”, the term used by his senior White House adviser Stephen Miller almost immediately after the killing despite multiple videos contradicting it. Nevertheless, Trump blamed Pretti for carrying a gun that he was licensed to possess.
Outrage has spread nationwide over the apparent lies told by administration officials – the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, called Pretti, an ICU nurse at the local veterans’ hospital, a “domestic terrorist”. There has also been pushback from gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association that have argued for Pretti’s legal right to carry a firearm.
A third round of No Kings protests is being planned for 28 March – galvanized by the killing of two US citizens in back-to-back incidents in the immigration operation in Minnesota, but in protest more broadly against Trump’s efforts to expand and consolidate power. Organized by a constellation of groups around the country, the demonstration is expected by some to draw as many as 9 million people, which would make it the largest protest in US history.
“This is in large part a response to a combination of heinous attacks on our democracy and communities coming from the regime, and a sense that nobody’s coming to save us,” said Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the non-profit Indivisible.
On Capitol Hill, the top three House Democrats came out in support of a growing effort to impeach Noem. Federal agents have refused to allow Minnesota investigators to examine the crime scene despite the governor, Tim Walz, alleging that the federal groups “don’t even have a crime lab”, and there has been a notable lack of an independent civil rights investigation by the justice department.
The fast-changing nature of the situation also appears to have caught Trump off-guard at times. He insisted on Tuesday that he was waiting for the results of a “very honorable and honest investigation” into Pretti’s shooting, which is being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of the US border patrol.
Following his suggestion that he was on the “same wavelength” with Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, and Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, after the weekend, Trump on Wednesday expressed frustration in a Truth Social post that Frey would not help federal immigration officers.
“Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’” Trump wrote. “Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!”
Trump also initially appeared to penalize Noem for falsely portraying Pretti as a “domestic terrorist”, replacing her lieutenant, the US border patrol commander Gregory Bovino, with Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan. Noem’s job nevertheless appeared to be safe after she met with Trump in the Oval Office to complain that she had been unfairly blamed, alleging that her remarks had been scripted by Miller.
Miller, meanwhile, after immediately attacking Pretti following his death, has now turned to blaming Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for supposedly presenting the White House with inaccurate information, and laid the blame with Bovino.
“The White House provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors,” Miller said.
“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol.”
A preliminary report by CBP’s internal watchdog, transmitted to lawmakers on Tuesday, said he was shot by two US border patrol agents while resisting arrest. The report also made no mention of Noem’s initial claims that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement”, nor that he had been “brandishing” a gun when he was tackled by agents and shot roughly 10 times in the back.
