By Ariana Figueroa
States Newsroom
WASHINGTON — The top leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee showed a play-by-play video leading up to the fatal shooting in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers, as they grilled the heads of two federal immigration agencies about the incident during an oversight hearing Thursday.
Chairman Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said there needs to be accountability following the deaths of Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse and Renee Good, a mother of three and poet, in January at the hands of immigration agents.
“The thousands of people in the streets in Minneapolis and in Minnesota and the millions of viewers who witnessed the recent deaths, it’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost,” Paul said. “To restore trust in (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol, they must admit their mistakes, be honest and forthright with their rules of engagement and pledge to reform.”
Paul and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the panel, questioned ICE acting Director Todd Lyons and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott about immigration officers’ use of force tactics and whether the agents followed de-escalation procedures.
“You have to look at what your rules are for drawing weapons, because it appears to me they’re not using the same standards as the police,” Paul said of immigration agents.
It was the second congressional oversight hearing for Scott and Lyons this week.
Democrats and Republicans are at a stalemate over funding for the agency for fiscal year 2026, with Democrats demanding changes in immigration enforcement tactics after the deadly encounters in Minneapolis.
The shutdown will not stop President Donald Trump’s mass deportation push, however. Even if an agreement to fund DHS is not reached by Friday and the agency is closed, ICE still has $75 billion in funding from the tax and spending package from last year.
Minutes into Thursday’s hearing, border czar Tom Homan announced that immigration enforcement operations would end in Minneapolis after two months.
Pretti pepper sprayed, held down
Paul and Peters showed the leaders of CBP and ICE a New York Times video analysis leading up to the shooting of Pretti, who was pepper sprayed and tackled to the ground by multiple immigration officers. He was held down and at least 10 shots can be heard on video.
Lyons and Scott declined to comment on the clips shown, saying there are multiple ongoing investigations. Scott said the FBI, CBP and ICE were conducting their own investigations.
Paul expressed his frustration with that answer and pointed to the lead-up to Pretti’s encounters with federal officers. The video shows a woman yelling at a federal immigration officer. She is shoved to the ground and Pretti goes to help her up.
“No one in America believes shoving that woman’s head, in the face, in the snow, was de-escalation,” Paul said.
Paul asked if an appropriate response to someone yelling is to shove them to the ground.
Scott said it was not, but that he couldn’t comment on the specific video.
Paul said that in the video it’s clear that Pretti is using his hand to protect his face from pepper spray.
“He is retreating at every moment,” Paul said. “He’s trying to get away, and he’s being sprayed in the face. I don’t think that’s de-escalatory. That’s an escalatory thing.”
Paul said an investigation needs to be done quickly.
Scott said there is body camera footage from the officers involved in Pretti’s shooting that will be released to the public.
“I don’t think this should take months and months and years and years,” Paul said. “There needs to be a conclusion.”
Peters pointed to how immigration officers are seen beating Pretti with a pepper spray canister. He asked Scott if that was an appropriate response.
“What I’m seeing is a subject that’s also not complying, he’s not following any guidance. He’s fighting back nonstop,” Scott said, adding that he couldn’t answer Peters’ question because the investigation was ongoing.
Peters then questioned Scott and Lyons on why DHS Secretary Kristi Noem quickly labeled Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists.” He asked the men if they had given her any briefing or additional information for her to have drawn that conclusion.
Both said they had not.
Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin also told Lyons that she was concerned about statements made by Trump about sending immigration agents to polling locations ahead of the midterm elections.
“There’s no reason for us to deploy to a polling facility,” he said.
Minnesota withdrawal
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford informed the first panel, which brought Minnesota leaders to the nation’s capital, of Homan’s announcement that the surge would be ending in Minneapolis.
The first panel included GOP Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota; Minnesota House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat; and the commissioner of the Department of Corrections for the state of Minnesota, Paul Schnell.
Lankford said there needs to be better coordination between local and federal law enforcement, such as 287(g) agreements. In those partnerships, which are voluntary, local law enforcement will notify ICE if they arrest someone who is in the country unlawfully and hold that person until federal immigration officers can arrive.
“So the position that my office has taken is that, if you are a sheriff who wants to pursue 287(g), you must have the support of your county board,” Ellison said, adding that seven counties have such agreements.
One Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, blamed the deaths of Pretti and Good not on the immigration agents who killed them. He said they occurred because Ellison urged Minnesotans to exercise their First Amendment rights.
“Two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way,” Johnson said to Ellison. “And now you are exploiting those two martyrs. You ought to feel damn guilty about it.”
In response, Ellison said, “It was a nice theatrical performance but it was all lies.”
‘Occupied by the federal government’
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim noted that the number of ICE agents, about 3,000, initially sent to Minneapolis, significantly dwarfed the local police, which is roughly under 600. He asked Ellison how it felt in Minneapolis to have that many federal immigration agents in the city.
“It felt like we were being occupied by the federal government,” Ellison said.
During the second panel, Kim asked Lyons if ICE is planning to conduct a similar operation in other cities.
Lyons said the agency would, and said he learned lessons from the deportation drive in Minneapolis.
“We look at lessons learned,” Lyons said. “The problem, I believe, is the … agitators and the coordination on the protest side. People can go out there and protest, but why are we going to encourage individuals to go out there and impede and put themselves in harm’s way? I think that’s the lesson learned from this.”
Ariana Figueroa covers the capital for States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is reprinted from the Kentucky Lantern under a Creative Commons license.