This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | Every Democratic member of Congress from Colorado called for U.S. Secretary of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem to resign after Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The legislators say U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is a lawless, rogue agency terrorizing Americans.
In a press call U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood hosted Tuesday, Democrats from Colorado said the Trump administration has lied repeatedly about what happened to Pretti on Saturday and called for mass reforms of immigration enforcement in the U.S.
“What is happening is not what we were sold by (President) Donald Trump about deporting the most dangerous people,” Pettersen said.
Pretti’s death came just two weeks after ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. The killings have sparked nationwide outrage, while Trump’s top advisers rushed to spread false information about Pretti and Good, both of whom the administration smeared as “domestic terrorists” hours after they were killed.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent was involved in a shooting near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona Tuesday. An off-duty ICE agent shot and killed Keith Porter on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles. More than 50 people have died while in ICE or CBP custody under Noem, according to Democrats on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee. The immigration enforcement operations are part of Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver said Noem was never qualified to lead Homeland Security, and her performance is worse than DeGette expected when she was selected and confirmed.
“She’s cruel and she’s lawless. She refused a court order. She violated public trust. She has no regard for human life or dignity,” DeGette said.
Others on the call included U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, House Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse of Lafayette and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Aurora.
If Noem does not resign, Democratic leaders in the House have indicated they will move forward with articles of impeachment against her.
Pettersen said ICE in its current form has “completely lost the public trust.” If reforms are not made to hold ICE to “strict standards,” the agency must be dismantled, DeGette said.
“There are some enforcement mechanisms that an agency can and should provide at the border, but ICE has gone far, far beyond that, as we’re seeing in Minneapolis and many other U.S. cities,” DeGette said.
Crow said 2025 was the “most lethal year” to be in ICE custody in decades, and recent actions from the agency are “a feature, not a bug” of what the Trump administration envisioned for immigration enforcement. The administration built ICE into a “rogue agency” to “terrorize communities and abuse Americans for the purpose of suppressing dissent and asserting control and power over communities that they perceive as unfriendly.”
Pettersen said the recent deaths and the Trump administration’s immediate defense of those killings are shocking. She said Pretti, who was a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, was “murdered by our own government” and the administration is “spreading horrific lies about who he was and what happened.”
Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, live in Pettersen’s district, which covers an area west and southwest of metro Denver. They released a statement calling their son “a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends.”
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” their statement said. “Alex (was) clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.”
DHS is operating lawlessly with no accountability, Bennet said. ICE agents should be prohibited from wearing masks and detaining children, and warrants must be required, he added.
“No person in America should have to wonder whether masked men in unmarked cars carrying guns might snatch them from the street, detain their children or kill them on the side of the road,” Bennet said.
The U.S. Senate this week must vote on a government funding package to avoid a partial government shutdown, but Democrats in the chamber have said they will not support more funding for Homeland Security without additional constraints on federal immigration enforcement.
“If there is a shutdown, it’s going to be because President Trump is so far outside the mainstream of conventional American approaches to the Constitution and law enforcement that he’s unwilling to allow those rules to apply to ICE, and I think that would be a huge mistake on his part,” Bennet said.
Hickenlooper and Bennet said they will not support the legislation in its current form. Bennet called the measure “a blank check” to Noem without sufficient guardrails, transparency or oversight. While Hickenlooper said he sees some Republican senators siding with Democrats to reform ICE operations, Bennet said he is “far less optimistic” and does not see Republicans being willing to stand up to Trump.
Donald Trump has over the last decade fashioned himself as an arbitor of practices he sees as wimpy or not tough enough. He encouraged law enforcement to be rougher when they arrest somone. He encouraged his fans to rough up protesters at his rallies. He denigrates people who are undocumented and worse, he lumps criminals and people who are here and are following existing immgration laws together. These actions embolden the worst actors in law enforcement and ICE! Words and off-the-cuff remarks have real consequences. Jason Crow is absolutely correct when he says ICE was built to instill fear and run over communities. Just yesterday, my daughter, a Science teacher at a Jeffco school, said that she received a notice that ICE was setting up at a Target store 1 mile from her school. One of her students asked her if she would turn her into ICE. I called my daughter after school and she wept about the student and the palpable fear that these ICE raids cause everywhere. Again, this is the purpose of these raids! Trump wants to instill fear in future immigrant populations ostensibly to “save” America. What he and Noem really want is to make America white again! I guess that when Noem wrote that she shot a puppy for being, in her words, worthless, it caught Trumps attention and registered on his “tough enough” meter!.
Mikey – In my opinion, the problem in our society today is that there is not enough fear in those guilty of wrong-doing. This is why crime has run amuck. This is why adolescents are out of control. I am hopeful that if there is enough fear in the illegal community, they will take the $2000 and self-deport. They don’t even need to walk back. We will fly them home at taxpayer’s expense.
Crime has not “run amok”. Even if it had, undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a MUCH lower rate than our own citizens, so scapegoating is resorted to.
Trump lies endlessly. Trump asked why we couldn’t just shoot these aliens in the legs. But then, he’s stupid. I don’t know what your excuse is.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. When I grew up people left their doors unlocked when they left the house. They didn’t need to lock their cars. You could go for a walk after dark without fear. Today, your vehicle is likely to be stolen if it is a popular model and not in the garage. If you go on a trip, when you return to DIA, your vehicle is likely to be gone or have its catalytic converter cut off. When you make it home, you may have been robbed or have squatters in your house. Smash and grab robberies were largely unknown. “Hit and runs” rarely happened. There were no “car-jackings.” Prison beds were much fewer in number and not packed to the hilt. It is a totally different world. Criminality is now commonplace.