By Hank Russell
With the second fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent within a month, many elected officials, including New York’s governor, have called for the removal of Kristi Noem from her leadership role with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and her subsequent impeachment.
On January 24, Alex Pretti, who worked as a nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital in Minneapolis, was shot dead by an ICE officer. DHS officials said Pretti approached the agents while possessing a handgun and became very violent when they tried to take his gun.
This is the second fatal shooting involving an ICE agent in Minneapolis this month. On January 7, an ICE officer shot Renee Good while she was in her SUV. Autopsy results indicate that Good was shot four times, including once in the head. The DHS claimed Good was trying to run over the officer who was standing in front of her car.
On January 25, Hochul held a press conference denouncing the shootings as “a continuation of a pattern of deadly violence” and called for Noem to resign.
“Donald Trump’s handpicked leader of the Department of Homeland Security has proven to be unable and unwilling to follow the law to stop these killings,” Hochul said. “Kristi Noem has referred to these peaceful protestors as ‘domestic terrorists’ and lied about the shooting victims being the aggressors. She told law enforcement officers to put on masks and military fatigues to basically treat the American public as the enemy.”
Hochul said Noem “has shown a profound disregard for human life and created a culture where people feel unrestrained in how they’re handling encounters with the people in this country.” She also stated that Noem “has forfeited her right to lead, and I’m calling on her to resign as Secretary of Homeland Security or Donald Trump to do the right thing and just fire her. And if not, she must be removed or impeached.”
Hochul is not alone. U.S. Representative Laura Gillen (D-Garden City), who recently voted for continued funding of DHS, also signed onto a resolution calling for Noem’s impeachment.
“Another U.S. citizen has been killed at the hands of ICE and there must be accountability, which is why Secretary Noem must be impeached immediately,” she wrote on social media. “Under her leadership, ICE has targeted U.S. citizens and children and killed Americans. She is not focused on safety or border security; she’s focused on chaos and self-promotion, undermining local law enforcement and stoking violence as a result. The American people deserve better.”
However, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive running against Hochul for governor, told Spectrum News’ Errol Morris on his show Inside City Hall that Nassau “has the most comprehensive agreement with ICE in the United States,” adding that 3,000 arrests were made by ICE in the county alone.
“We’re doing this because we want to make our communities safer and we’ve done that. We’re the safest community in the nation, according to US News & World Report.”
Blakeman defended ICE, saying the officers are “doing a good job” and they are making “very, very, very few mistakes, and we haven’t had any in Nassau County.”
He pointed out that he laid out some ground rules for ICE. “I told them, ‘You’re not going into houses of worship, you’re not going into daycare centers, you’re not going into schools,’ and, basically, they adhered to that,” he said.
When asked if what is happening in Minneapolis could happen in Nassau, Blakeman replied, “No. What you’re seeing in Minneapolis is staged. It’s paid professional agitators. We know that because we share a database with other law enforcement agencies.”
He called the demonstrators “anti-American” and people “who want to cause trouble. We don’t have those issues here.”
“While ICE officers are facing a staggering 1,300 percent spike in assaults, too many politicians would rather defend criminals and attack the men and women who are enforcing our laws and did nothing while Joe Biden facilitated an invasion of tens of millions of illegal aliens into our country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek. “It’s time they focus on protecting the American people, the work this Department is doing every day under Secretary Noem’s leadership.”