Tim Walz urges Trump to remove agents from Minnesota: ‘You can end this’ | Tim Walz
Minnesota governor Tim Walz called on Donald Trump on Sunday to withdraw federal agents from Minnesota, a day after U.S. Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was monitoring a crackdown on immigrants.
“What’s the plan, Donald Trump?” Walz asked. press conference. “What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state?”
“President Trump, you can end this today. Take these people back; do humane, focused, effective immigration control; you have all of our support to do it,” Walz said. “Please show some kindness, pull these people away.”
Walz, who is not seeking re-election this year, made an impassioned appeal to the US public, many of whom are torn between supporting immigration control and opposing its implementation inland under the Trump administration.
As both sides of the debate sought to claim the moral high ground following the killings of Pretti and Renee Good 17 days ago, Walz spoke publicly, saying that even if he once stood for ICE operations, it was now time to stand up against them.
“Which side do you want to be on?” Walz asked. “The side of a very powerful federal government that can kill, injure, threaten and kidnap its citizens off the streets, or the side of a nurse who died in a VA hospital while witnessing such a government,” he said, referring to Pretti.
Earlier, border patrol commander Gregory Bovino had preached a sermon about individual choice in a veiled reference to Pretti. “When someone chooses to come to an active law enforcement scene, interfere with, impede, delay, or attack law enforcement, and brings a weapon to do so; that is a choice that person makes.”
The competing moral appeals come amid growing doubt about the narrative that Pretti posed a direct threat to federal agents and that they were acting defensively following multi-perspective video evidence that showed Pretti never brandished a gun and appeared to have cleared a weapon he was licensed to carry moments before agents opened fire on him at close range.
Bovino said Sunday that he would not speculate about the attack and planned to wait for the federal investigation report. The previous day, the border patrol commander made a sweeping, unfounded claim that Pretti had threatened a “massacre” before being disarmed. Officials with Minnesota’s criminal arrests bureau said state investigators were blocked from the scene of the shooting.
Walz accused federal agents of “disappearing evidence.”
In his appeal, Walz also cited video evidence that contradicted claims by federal authorities, saying: “You know what you saw, and then you hear the most powerful people in the world tell you what you were looking at, that this was a domestic terrorist … tarnishing his name within minutes of this happening.”
The governor’s comments came hours after U.S. attorney Pam Bondi accused Minnesota officials of refusing to enforce the rule of law.
“You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and end the chaos in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote. letter To Walz. “Fortunately, there are common-sense solutions to these problems that I hope we can achieve together.”
Bondi pressed Walz to release information about the state’s welfare programs and voter rolls. Both have faced allegations from federal authorities that state Democratic lawmakers allowed them to be manipulated or exposed to billions of dollars in welfare fraud.
“I am confident that these simple steps will help restore law and order in Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans,” Bondi said.
Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara stated that Pretti appeared to be exercising his first and second amendment rights when he was fatally shot. Chef said Washington Post: “Many of these videos make clear that this is not what professional policing looks like in this country today.”
While Minnesota continues to be in the spotlight, rising tensions between local and federal law enforcement have also emerged in Maine. Last week, Kevin Joyce, the sheriff of Cumberland County, Maine, warned ICE agents that “Bush League policing”After the labor officer detained a corrections officer during a traffic stop.
The agency said last week in Maine that “Capture Operation of the Day”, said it would target “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”
But a visibly angry sheriff said at a news conference after one of the correctional facility troopers was bundled into a car by ICE agents, leaving his car open and empty, saying it was “a show of force, a demonstration of what they’re trying to do.”
Joyce added that although he once supported ICE removing undocumented immigrants with criminal records, he no longer thinks so. “We were told a completely different story than what happened,” he said.
