House Dems demand Noem testify after Minnesota killings

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Democrats on Tuesday demanded that Republican leadership haul Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem before the chamber’s Judiciary Committee to answer for a pair of “cold-blooded” killings of U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.

It’s a request that comes just hours after Senate lawmakers announced Noem would testify in March about the Trump administration’s handling of immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota, where Customs and Border Protection agents over the weekend shot and killed a 37-year old man in an incident which spurred calls for oversight from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Homeland Security Department and its secretary are under renewed scrutiny this week after federal agents killed Alex Pretti, a nurse and U.S. citizen who was filming immigration operations in Minneapolis.

Video clips of the shooting show Pretti, who was legally armed with a handgun at the time, wrestled to the ground by Border Patrol agents who appear to disarm him before he is shot. After a single gunshot — which may have been a misfire from Pretti’s Sig P320 handgun, though the origin remains unclear — agents can be seen shooting him several times.

According to a sworn affidavit from a physician who examined Pretti at the scene, the 37-year-old had been shot “at least” three times in the back, as well as once in the chest and possibly in the neck.

It’s the second time in three weeks that federal agents have killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent earlier this month shot and killed Renee Good, 37, in her car, which the Homeland Security Department has claimed was a “defensive” move.

Now, with Noem set to testify before the Senate in a little more than a month, House Democrats want their own opportunity to grill the secretary over her agency’s conduct in Minnesota and the killings of Pretti and Good.

“Federal agents have shot dead two American citizens in the past two weeks for doing no more than exercising their fully protected rights to protest, observe and record law enforcement in public,” Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told panel chairman Jim Jordan in a letter Tuesday. “The American people are outraged by these cold-blooded killings, and we demand accountability.”

Raskin pointed to Noem’s public statements immediately following both shootings in which she characterized both Pretti and Good as “domestic terrorists,” though investigations into both killings are ongoing and there is no solid evidence that either acted with intent to harm federal agents.

The Maryland Democrat contended that the large amount of video evidence from the shootings contradicts the Homeland Security Department’s “absurd account” of the circumstances and proves that both Pretti and Good were killed “without any legal or moral justification.” And Raskin claimed that Noem and her agency were engaged in a “cover-up” of the shootings that required congressional oversight.

“Mr. Chairman, if your commitment to the First and Second amendments — not to mention the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process — is genuine, as we have always believed it to be, then this committee cannot look away when federal agents gun down Americans for peacefully exercising their constitutional rights,” Raskin told Jordan.

A spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority did not immediately return a request for comment.

But GOP lawmakers in both chambers have expressed concern in the days following Pretti’s killing that the Trump administration was taking the wrong approach to immigration enforcement and that both shootings required thorough investigation.

In an op-ed published Tuesday morning in the New York Times, New York Representative Mike Lawler argued that the deaths of Pretti and Good were “tragic and preventable,” adding their shootings prove “what the country has been doing is not working.”

“Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are conducting forceful operations in American communities,” Lawler wrote. “They should reassess their current tactics.”

The New York Republican echoed calls from his Democratic colleagues for congressional hearings with Noem as well as leaders from ICE, Border Patrol and Citizen and Immigration Services. Those hearings, he argued, should not be a “platform for partisan grandstanding, but to promote an honest national conversation about immigration enforcement.”

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who chairs the upper chamber’s homeland security committee, penned a trio of letters to the heads of ICE, CIS and Border Patrol on Monday demanding they testify before his panel.

Other Republican lawmakers have expressed concern about the Homeland Security Department’s conduct following the weekend shooting. Utah Senator John Curtis wrote in a post on X Monday that Noem’s response to Pretti’s killing was “premature” and that it “weakened confidence” in her agency.

“We must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible — no matter their title — must be held accountable,” wrote Curtis. “Officials who rush to judgment before all the facts are known undermine public trust and the law enforcement mission.”

Texas Representative Michael McCaul on Sunday called for a “thorough investigation” into Pretti’s death.

And Texas Senator Ted Cruz made a similar plea on a Monday episode of his podcast, criticizing the Trump administration for the “tone” it took in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

“Immediately when an incident like this happens, they come out guns blazing … and the problem is … she’s not waving an ISIS flag and doesn’t have a suicide vest around her,” said Cruz. “Escalating the rhetoric doesn’t help, and it actually loses credibility.”

Though Noem and other White House officials, including senior adviser Stephen Miller, have framed Pretti and Good as “domestic terrorists,” President Donald Trump has so far refused to endorse the actions of federal agents over the weekend. The president told reporters Tuesday that he is waiting for the investigation to play out before he weighs in on whether Border Patrol was justified in killing Pretti.

Trump has also reportedly dispatched White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota, news that broke amid other reports that Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino — who has become the face of the administration’s deportation campaign — was set to leave the state.

Though some reports have claimed Bovino is also set to leave his post as commander at-large of the mass deportation operation, the Homeland Security Department has so far denied that possibility.

Noem, meanwhile, is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3.

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