Michiganders braved temperatures in the teens on Sunday to protest the latest fatal shooting by federal immigration officials in Minnesota.
In dueling news conferences over the weekend, federal and state officials offered starkly different messages about the immigration crackdown that has swept across Minneapolis and surrounding cities.
Both sides claimed the moral high ground Sunday in the wake of another shooting death by federal agents.
“Which side do you want to be on?" Governor Tim Walz asked the public. "The side of an all-powerful federal government that could kill, injure, menace and kidnap its citizens off the streets, or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such government?” — a reference to Saturday's shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
At the same time, Border Patrol senior official Gregory Bovino turned blame for the shooting to Pretti, the nurse who was killed, saying he chose to interfere with law enforcement officers.
“When someone makes the choice to come into an active law enforcement scene, interfere, obstruct, delay or assault law enforcement officer and — and they bring a weapon to do that. That is a choice that that individual made,” he told reporters.
Video shot by bystanders and reviewed by The Associated Press appears to show Pretti with with only a phone in his hand as he steps between an immigration agent and a woman on the street. No footage appears to show him with a weapon.
During the scuffle, agents appear to disarm him after discovering he is carrying a holstered 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, and then open fire several times. Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
In Michigan Sunday, as a light snow fell, more than a hundred people stood on street corners in Midland demanding justice for Pretti, and an end to the ICE tactics they said led to his death.
“We just have to get up off of our couches, get out onto the streets, and make it clear that we as citizens are not going to put up with this kind of action anymore,” said Sarah Schulz, an organizer of Sunday’s protest in Midland.
Protesters held rallies against ICE in Detroit and Grand Rapids over the weekend as well.
Democratic members of Michigan’s congressional delegation are taking aim at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s funding this week.
Both of the state's U.S. senators said they will vote against the Department of Homeland Security funding bill that's before the chamber this week, citing recent fatal ICE shootings of American citizens. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“This is what President Trump meant when he said he wanted to go after 'the enemy within,'” said Slotkin, “This is part of a continued, coordinated assault on our constitutional rights — with specific focus on individuals and groups who disagree with this president.”
Senator Gary Peters said the funding bill "lacks necessary reforms to immigration enforcement." He said current immigration enforcement operations "are not protecting our homeland security or making American communities safer. They are causing chaos and fear. They are violating Americans’ constitutional rights."
On the House side, Representative Haley Stevens said she’s cosponsoring a bill to divert ICE funding to local law enforcement.
“Donald Trump’s ICE is out of control — this situation requires real reform and real accountability,” said Stevens.
Meanwhile, Trump has demanded that every Democratic governor and mayor cooperate with his administration on immigration enforcement. Otherwise, he accused them stoking the “flames of division, chaos and violence.”
“Democrats are putting illegal alien criminals over taxpaying, law-abiding citizens, and they have created dangerous circumstances,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
