Congressional Republicans showed signs of wavering on US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the wake of another shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota.
While the weakening resolve was far from a full break with Trump, it signals growing unease with the administration’s aggressive actions as Democrats threaten another government shutdown and November’s midterm elections come into view. Until now, Republicans have backed Trump, as he deploys federal agents and National Guard to US cities.
Hundreds of videos have shown the agents using pepper spray, shoving, punching and kicking protesters who have stayed largely peaceful and are recording the agents’ actions. On Saturday, agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a nurse at a VA hospital, while he was subdued and on his knees after they discovered a gun he had a permit to carry.
Photo: AP
“We’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“I don’t like any shooting,” he added. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun.”
US House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer suggested on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures that Trump should consider going “to another city and then maybe let the people of Minneapolis decide” how to proceed on immigration.
He also defended immigration agents.
New York Republican Andrew Garbarino, the chairman of the House Homeland Security panel, has requested public testimony from top immigration officials, telling them in a letter on Saturday that Congress “has an important responsibility to ensure the safety of law enforcement and the people they serve and protect.”
Other Republicans who have previously broken with Trump on other matters — including retiring Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Thomas Massie — were more frank.
“There must be a thorough and impartial investigation into yesterday’s Minneapolis shooting, which is the basic standard that law enforcement and the American people expect following any officer-involved shooting,” Tillis wrote on X.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul also called in a post on X for an investigation “both to get to the bottom of these incidents and to maintain Americans’ confidence in our justice system.”
US Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said on CNN’s State of the Union that the agents involved in Pretti’s killing were “most likely” being placed on administrative leave and sent from Minneapolis.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana also broke sharply from the White House’s messaging and demanded “a full joint federal and state investigation.”
Cassidy called the events in Minneapolis “incredibly disturbing” and said the credibility of and homeland security are at stake.
“We can trust the American people with the truth,” Cassidy said.
However, silence from other leaders, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, suggest that many in the party are still weighing how to respond to Pretti’s killing.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer vowed late on Saturday to block a massive spending package next week unless Republicans strip funding for the Department of Homeland Security, dramatically increasing the risk for a partial US government shutdown.
Democratic opposition to the funding package potentially affects not just Homeland Security, but also the departments of defense, labor, education, state, Treasury and health and human services.
None of the Republicans speaking on Sunday mentioned the looming shutdown fight.
The spending legislation needs votes from at least seven Democrats to pass the Senate.
Several moderates in the party quickly announced on Saturday they would oppose the bill.
At least one other American, Renee Good, was killed by an ICE agent when he stopped her for partly blocking a street with her car, claiming she tried to run him over.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling — and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer said. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”
Forcing a shutdown risks hard-fought Democratic victories in the spending deal, including reversing many Trump cuts to medical research, foreign aid, education grants and mass transit. However, the situation in Minnesota has alienated key Democratic senators.
Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who voted to end the last shutdown, said in statements on Saturday they would oppose funding for homeland security without changes.
Rosen said she would oppose funding “until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said the resistance is not about his party or politics.
“It’s about our country and our Congress, and what we need to do to impose some safeguards on an out-of-control agency which is imbued with a culture of lawlessness and seems to be committing murder in Minneapolis,” he said.
Former US president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, called Pretti’s killing a “heartbreaking tragedy.”
“It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault,” they said in a statement.
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