7 ways to rein in ICE |
Federal agents monitor protesters in south Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal agents in the area early Saturday morning, January 24, 2026. | Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images
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I don’t know how you spent your frigid weekend hours, but I spent mine on my phone — compulsively refreshing the New York Times’s Minneapolis feed and feeling my cortisol levels grow. First came the news that federal agents had shot and killed another protester in Minnesota. Then came the videos showing the man restrained on the ground when agents opened fire. Then came the wild gaslighting from Trump administration officials, who — in defiance of evidence Americans could see for themselves — insisted that 37-year-old Alex Pretti had assaulted federal officers and was therefore a “terrorist.”
I was reminded of a Trump interview from early January. Asked whether there were limits on his global power, President Donald Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
But that’s not entirely true abroad, as last week showed. And it’s not true at home, either. While Trump and his Supreme Court have hollowed out many of the checks that historically constrained the executive branch, there are still ways Congress, the courts, and state governments can check the actions (and abuses) of Immigration........