Beyond the Border: A second killing in Minneapolis, evidence of racial profiling and underground support networks for those in hiding
Here's what happened this week in immigration news.
Written by Kate Morrissey, Edited by Lauren J. Mapp
Welcome to another edition of Beyond the Border, which summarizes immigration news from across the country in a weekly roundup. Did I miss something? Message me via kate@daylightsandiego.org or on Instagram.
A second killing in Minneapolis
Federal immigration officials shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday morning, Mother Jones reported. PBS NewsHour interviewed his mentor about who he was.
NPR reported that video and eyewitnesses contradicted the story put out by the federal government about what happened. The New York Times published a timeline of the killing. On the outlet's Instagram account, a photographer shared his experience being at the scene.
The National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups expressed outrage over the killing after they learned that he had a legal permit to carry a weapon, The Guardian reported. Republican politicians have joined in calls for an investigation into the killing, PBS reported. The New York Times reported that the two officials who shot Pretti are on leave.
CNN reported that Pretti had a previous encounter with ICE that left him with a broken rib a week before he was killed.
Following Pretti's killing, a lawyer who helped Jonathan Ross, the officer who killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, quit the Minnesota governor's race and denounced ICE violence in the state, Mother Jones reported.
The White House sent Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino back to El Centro, California, and sent some Border Patrol agents home, bringing Tom Homan, the administration's “border czar,” to replace Bovino, the BBC reported. The Atlantic referred to the change for Bovino as a demotion and losing his job. The Guardian took a look at Bovino's “rise and fall.”
The Marshall Project found patterns in the way immigration agencies behave after their staff kill someone.
For Voice of San Diego, I wrote about how the video of Pretti's killing reminded me of one in San Diego years ago — that of Anastasio Hernández Rojas.
ICE in Minnesota
CNN posted a video on its Instagram account of Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley in Minnesota saying that police officers of color are reporting to his department that they've been stopped by immigration officials.
CNN posted a video to its Instagram of immigration officials’ violence in Minneapolis, including a moment when one pepper sprays a person in the face who is already pinned to the ground by other officials.
A Somali American U.S. citizen spoke out after ICE officials detained her for two days and called her a racial slur, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
Fox 9 reported that ICE illegally detained a St. Paul snowplow driver.
Slate published a first person account of a Minnesota resident who patrols for ICE activity and who was arrested by federal officials.
Sahan Journal reported that ICE detained a 2-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis and sent them to a detention facility in Texas despite a judge ordering the girl released.
An Uber driver's video went viral after he filmed his interaction with Border Patrol agents whose remarks indicated that they had racially profiled him, The Intercept reported. Mother Jones reported on another viral video of a U.S. citizen and Minnesota resident who resisted answering questions when profiled by immigration officials.
An FBI supervisor resigned after unsuccessfully trying to investigate the killing of Renee Good, The Guardian reported.
A federal judge in Minnesota ordered the acting head of ICE to appear in court after the government defied several orders to provide bond hearings to people in immigration custody, The Washington Post reported.
Last Friday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Minnesota to protest ICE, including a group of clergy at an airport who were later arrested, Reuters reported.
NPR told the story of community members in Minneapolis coming together to get menstrual pads for an undocumented 12-year-old girl who was afraid to leave her house because of immigration raids in her neighborhood.
A cafe in Minneapolis posted on Instagram that it will offer free food to anyone except ICE officers.
ICE in Maine
The Washington Post reported that ICE launched an operation in Maine.
ICE officers in Portland, Maine, followed a mother home after she dropped one of her four children off at school and arrested her, The Maine Monitor reported.
CNN posted a video on its Instagram account of federal immigration officials detaining a corrections officer recruit in Portland, Maine.
Immigration officials in Maine detained a Colombian civil engineer who is in the country on a work visa after finishing a graduate program, The Maine Monitor reported. The officials smashed the man’s window and left the car running.
Detention and deportation around the country
ICE detained a 5-year-old boy in Minnesota and sent him with his father to Texas, The Guardian reported. CNN posted a video of the family's attorney explaining that they were following the rules to pursue their asylum claim. The Guardian later reported that a judge had blocked the child's deportation.
PBS News Hour reported that immigrant families held at a Texas facility are served food with worms and mold and are facing other inhumane conditions. The Associated Press reported that many of those detained protested Saturday, chanting, “Libertad !” or Freedom! Journalist Lidia Terrazas posted an interview on her Instagram with immigration attorney Eric Lee, who shared drawings from one of his 5-year-old clients held inside the facility.
A family is blaming ICE for the death of their disabled son after the agency detained his father and caregiver, Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Al Jazeera reported that ICE has refused to release the father to attend his son's funeral.
11Alive reported that a U.S. Army veteran and grandfather was transferred in ICE custody from a Georgia facility to Louisiana — with his deportation likely imminent.
Border Patrol agents shot at a man in his car in the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles Times reported. The bullets did not hit the man, but he crashed his car.
L.A. Taco reported that immigration officials detained two men painting over graffiti at a church while service was happening inside the house of worship.
WANE 15 reported that immigration officials detained an asylum-seeking family in Oregon as the parents were taking their 7-year-old child for emergency medical treatment.
A father of a 5-year-old with a brain tumor gave up his immigration case and agreed to be deported to Bolivia after months in detention, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The New York Times reported that Trump has deported more Cubans than his three predecessors, sending anxiety through a community that has long been treated differently than other immigrants by the U.S. government.
CBS Minnesota profiled a family that used a Delegation of Parental Authority form to designate a guardian for their child if the parents were to be deported.
Fox 12 reported that an Oregon man was finally released after a month of being wrongfully detained in ICE custody.
Following up on deaths in custody
The Delaware County Daily Times reported that federal officials denied a records request regarding the death of a Pennsylvania man in immigration custody, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Sahan Journal reported that the family of a Nicaraguan man who died in ICE custody is questioning the agency's claims that his death was a suicide.
After threatening to deport witnesses to what has been called a homicide in a Texas immigration facility, the Department of Homeland Security has now agreed to keep them in the U.S. during the investigation, El Paso Times reported.
Agency maneuvers
The Associated Press obtained an ICE memo that told officers they could enter homes without a judicial warrant.
L.A. Taco reported that the city of Escondido, California, quietly signed a contract with ICE to allow its officers to train on the local police department's firing range.
The Bulwark posted a video to its Instagram of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem avoiding answering a question by Rep. Dan Goldman during a Congressional hearing.
Other stories of note
Arizona Luminaria published a three part series about a Venezuelan family's search for safety on the journey north and then back in Mexico after they were deported there.
60 Minutes finally aired “Inside CECOT,” a documentary about torturous conditions in a Salvadoran prison that held Venezuelan deportees, the Los Angeles Times reported. The documentary is available on YouTube.
A woman shot by Border Patrol in Chicago asked a judge to let her release evidence in her case, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
A college freshman is asking to be allowed back into the U.S. after government attorneys admitted in court that she should not have been deported because of a judge's order blocking it, The Boston Globe reported.
The stark drop in immigration to the U.S. has dramatically affected population growth in the country, the New York Times reported. That drop includes fewer border crossings of asylum seekers, fewer visas issued to people trying to move to the U.S. and some foreigners deciding they would rather not come.
The Guardian spoke with a Russian family deported to Costa Rica nearly a year ago and who are still in limbo there.
Times of San Diego spoke with families who have been separated by Trump administration immigration policies over the past year, and wrote about the strain that's placed on them.
San Diego County supervisors voted to require immigration officials to have judicial warrants to access non-public county spaces, Times of San Diego reported.
The Texas Tribune reported Rep. Julie Johnson, a Democrat from Texas who has criticized ICE's conduct under the Trump administration, traded in Palantir stocks. ICE has contracted with Palantir for support with deportation efforts.
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