Community members placed “I Voted” stickers on a pole next to the memorial for Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents during the federal immigration surge in Minneapolis last January.
Tim Evans/AFP via Getty Images
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Tim Evans/AFP via Getty Images
The morning after Tuesday’s midterms was gloomy and rainy in Minneapolis, but people still gathered at the spot where Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a Virginia nurse and U.S. citizen, last January. All week, community members have been coming here to put their “I Voted” stickers on the memorial.
Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and was her close friend for nearly 17 years, quietly watched as a woman added her sticker to a street light completely covered in red stickers.
“I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here,” she said. “It means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex too.”
A few blocks away, people left their stickers showing that an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mother of three and a U.S. citizen, just weeks before Pretti’s death. In Houston, they left them where an ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and Mexican immigrant, in July.
Adams says these stickers, and this week’s election results, send a clear message to Congress: “You work for us, and please continue these values we hold dear…We want to be seen, heard, cared for, and for our neighbors to be cared for.” »
The deaths of Pretti and Good during ICE’s Minneapolis surge marked a pivotal moment for the country, sparking an intense public backlash over President Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts. But federal law enforcement officials have gave little indication they are making progress in the investigation into their deaths, or the deaths of at least seven more people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. DHS did not respond to an NPR request regarding the status of these investigations.
Now, after Democrats’ big victory this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the subject of new investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can subpoena key players in Trump’s mass deportation plan, forcing them to testify under oath before the House.
That could include White House border czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others.
Congress can also require internal documents such as use of force reports.
“They can dissect these individual shootings and really tease out the story of what happened,” says Naureen Shah, who directs the ACLU’s immigration policy work.
Democrats have already held parallel hearings on the ICE shooting, during which they summoned family members and witnesses.
But Shah says Congress can now ask key questions of top decision-makers: What orders were given to immigration agents on the ground? How did the training of these officers take place?
Who made the decision to portray Good and Pretti as threats, including calling Pretti a “potential assassin” and a domestic terroristwhen the video showed the opposite?
“It’s like we can turn on the tap and discover so much more,” Shah says. “There’s an aspect of this that is really about sort of reckoning with the possibility that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you make that calculation if you don’t actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?”
Democratic leaders have already declared this to be their plan.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told NPR in a statement that Congress would use “every tool” at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it was time for the agency to “start answering to the American people.”
California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, who is expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has pledged to tackle DHS and ICE abuses in a manner two word statement: “Attorney standing.”
Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding that the agency “comply with all record preservation requirements.”
Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social networks that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should “clear” their schedules.
In response to thisDHS General Counsel James Percival said Democrats were “more interested in political shenanigans than governing” but said the agency was prepared to “deal with this nonsense.”
There are significant limits to what congressional Democrats can do with their majority when it comes to holding ICE accountable, says Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Major changes, like regaining agency funding, would require a veto-proof majority, which Democrats do not have.
“You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and, in fact, a knee-jerk defensiveness about their conduct,” Moran says.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson told NPR that “if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left-wing policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”
Democrats, the statement added, “should remember that we still control the federal government and all its powers.”
But that’s not true. Congress has its own powers, one of which is the ability to compel testimony. Moran says further investigation into the shootings could still serve important purposes, such as making evidence available to states to use in their own criminal investigations.
Minnesota officials, for example, are battling with the federal government. to obtain evidence linked to the murders of Pretti and Good.
Brent Ganger, Renee Good’s brother, says it will be difficult to hear more information about his sister’s death, “but I think it’s also very important for us to understand what happened that day. I don’t want history to keep repeating itself.”
It was painful, he said, to watch immigration officials kill more people after his sister. He thought his death would be a turning point. In a way, this could have been the start of a project. After the Minneapolis wave, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.
Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling through Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister’s memorial site, complete with “I Voted” stickers.
“I was very grateful to see this administration removed from the country. It made me feel great support for my whole family,” he says.
The next morning, at home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister’s favorite breakfast.
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