Outrage at Latest DHS Killing Erupts Across Minnesota and the US |
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As hundreds of Minneapolis residents assembled in Whittier Park Saturday evening to demand once again that federal immigration agents leave Minnesota following the second fatal shooting of a legal observer in less than three weeks, one speaker demanded that the gathering must not simply be “another damn vigil.”
“This is a turning point,” said Edwin Torres DeSantiago of the Immigrant Defense Network.
He spoke to the crowd hours after several federal officers were filmed surrounding Alex Pretti, 37, after he attempted to help a woman one of them had pushed to the ground, and fatally shooting him.
Torres DeSantiago’s words were echoed by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, which did not mince words about the agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection who have for months roamed the streets of cities including Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles, arresting immigrants and US citizens and opening fire nearly two dozen times — killing at least six people including Pretti.
The federal agents recruited by the Trump administration with flyers imploring them to choose between their “homeland” and an “invasion,” said the Lemkin Institute, “are loyal agents of Nazis and white supremacists within the Republican Party. They are behaving as enemies both of the Constitution and of the American people and they must be treated as such.”
“The United States is at a crossroads: Either the American people are able to wrest power from the current fascist leaders or those leaders will continue to radicalize, using violence and terror to dismantle democracy and commit........