I’m the child of a man who refused to carry a gun during WWII. He understood the dangers, and he understood the enemy. His father died at Auschwitz. His pacifism wasn’t absolute, and he grappled with it, as I have always done, as well. Certainly, I would kill someone about to kill me, or my family. But what’s happening in Gaza is exactly what’s happening in Minneapolis. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
When we do our Great March of Return, (Gaza, March, 2018), what will be different?
Is pacifism even possible against mindless thugs? Still, I believe that our numbers can turn this evil tide, peacefully. As Dostoyevsky asked, can a society founded on crimes ever be free?
Thank you so much for this comment Sera. I am sorry for all your family has been through and grateful that you engage with it and present it to others.
This is an incredibly difficult time and the choices will be hard if the trajectory doesn’t change.
It seems Trump is now doing what a lot of psychopathically-talented "leaders" do, trying to foist the blame for his unlawful orders onto his subordinates, in this case Noem and Bovino who were just saying and doing what he wanted them to. Trump is replacing the Nazi impersonator styled Bovino with the nicer appearing, Grandpa-like Homan. But remember it was Trump who went out, immediately after Renee Good's shooting, to falsely claim she was a domestic terrorist and had "run over" the ICE agent who shot her.
I posted on Substack It is absolutely true that the line dividing the best of us from the worst of us was solidified on Saturday with the murder of Alex Pretti. Yes, indeed, power resides in the hands of a man without principle.
What can the vast majority of Americans agree on? Do we want to live in a country that abides by its own rule of law, or live under a rogue state acting completely outside US Constitutional law as many US presidents have done? Has the determination by the Nuremberg trials after WWII that a war of aggression is the supreme war crime in that it enabled all other war crimes been diminished or rescinded? Does anyone in their right mind actually care if US government war crimes are committed under a democratic or republican president? Charging both the Trump and Biden administrations with the obvious war crimes of genocide and forced starvation would be a substantial action to demand that US Constitutional law, International law, the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter be upheld. Is there any legal document exempting anyone from prosecution under these laws? Is there any faction of Americans that could have a sound argument against these foundational laws? Create a petition to bring war crimes charges against the worst criminals for the worst crimes. Abolishing slavery, voting rights, women's rights, worker's rights, child labor laws, civil rights all began as demands on the government by the American people. None of them were gifts from US presidents.
The quote that pops into my head a lot lately is: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." I'm not a Dickens fan, but it really feels like we're in the middle of our own "French Revolution" here in the US. May we choose wisely our course of action from this point forward. Our children and our future depends upon it.
I have been offering for some time now my conviction that the vast, overwhelming majority of US military personnel will obey orders to shoot down Americans with almost no hesitation. If, say, one-half of one percent refuse to comply, that ain't gonna save us from this Martial Law Fascist Trump dictatorship. By building an "all volunteer professional" military, the racist, imperialist chieftains actually did "kick Viet Nam Syndrome to the curb," as famously proclaimed by George Herbert Walker Bush. Ol' George actually got one thing "right"!!
You can dance around it all you want, but the reality is, IMO, is that it will take nothing less than a large convergence of citizens to shut this down and to eject these people...on a weekday. None of that weekend passive stuff and certainly any notion of 'voting' our way out of it. Peacefully of course.
The problem with claiming the moral high ground is that often that ground is not nearly as solid as one believes. Demonizing one's enemies may seem justified, but what it really amounts to is painting them all with the same brush, just as they would do to you, following which adopting their tactics becomes acceptable because the struggle against them is framed in moral terms without defining what those terms actually are.
So where's the moral high ground here? Honestly I don't see it. I see a group of people claiming to uphold certain principles, but when you ask them what those principles are, and whether they're actually worth defending, they're all over the map. What I hear from the many interviews of protesters and their advocates is really just ideology couched as moral superiority. Not hard to take such a position of course when your adversary clearly has no moral restraint, but that by default does not make your own position moral or correct, but simply reactionary.
What never seems to occur to these defenders of (insert noble cause here) is that they're being used, the intent of which is to create a backlash resulting in even more draconian measures than the ones they're already opposing.
Yes, as I said in my post, those who overthrow governments often commit the same crimes.
Yet, to speak broadly and to deflect to concerns about the mass, rather than to speak to the actions of the two sides, as documented in the Good and Pretti videos, obscures or dodges the clear moral distinction of the actions between the two sides.
This is my first time posting, and I recently started reading your Substack postings. I remember reading about you resigning your commission in 2009 to protest against our esclation of the war in Afghanistan.
I have always tried to explain to civilians that generals and admirals should never be put on a pedestal. (That changed when Eisenhower and Marshall retired) The majority of them are sycophants, liars, and intellectual midgets, and we are only fooling ourselves if we expect any of them to be willing to stand up against the president as a group against his administration.
This is what H.R. McMaster discussed in his book "Dereliction of Duty." When the generals and admirals clearly understood that the war in Vietnam couldn't be won under the restrictions Lyndon Johnson imposed, they instead showed complacency and cowardice in their silence.
I agree that ICE agents are the most reprehensible group of bottom feeders our society tolerates. I am most concerned about the percentage of them with military experience because, after two decades of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have created a wave of psychopaths.
What I find deeply reprehensible is that we have become what the World War II generation fought against and held in contempt, and our society is comfortable with that.
It is absolutely true that the line dividing the best of us from the worst of us was solidified on Saturday with the murder of Alex Pretti. Yes, indeed, power resides in the hands of a man without principle.
Back in the 70's I was married to a human rights activist whose work involved assisting political refugees from Latin America to resettle in Canada. This was during the period of the US sponsored 'dirty wars' in Chile, El Salvador, and Nicaragua among others. I did volunteer work there myself, mostly translation and interpretation when dealing with govt. agencies.
Among our clients were people who'd spent time in prison or who'd been threatened by death squads and had to flee for their lives, but also among them were a number of fake applicants using the refugee system to enter Canada under false pretenses. We even had a doctor on call whose job it was to examine people claiming to have been tortured, because believe it or not, some applicants actually inflicted cigarette burns and other wounds on themselves to support their story. I asked this doctor how he could tell the difference between legitimate and false claims and his answer was, there's a level of pain which cannot be self-inflicted before one has to stop, and this is obvious from the severity of the wounds.
Over the course of several years I became disillusioned and eventually gave up because what initially began as an effort to assist legitimate political refugees gradually morphed into a social agency addressing the problems of economic migrants, among which were exploitation by their own nationals, including extortion, drug trafficking, women being forced into prostitution and financial frauds of various types. In short, the criminality and exploitation one found in the countries of origin had migrated along with the people. Not at first, but once the process was in motion it increasingly took on that aspect.
So the situation in Minneapolis with specific reference to the Somalis doesn't surprise me in the least. What does surprise me is that people are willing to defend them when they are clearly abusing the system set up to assist them. Not all of them of course, but when you import that many people from a culture where corruption is endemic, and then concentrate them in a specific location, what else do you expect?
If you want to see where all this is leading I suggest you take a holiday to just about anywhere in Europe and see first hand what unrestricted migration brings. Advice to women - don't travel alone, and especially not at night.
I don't know if Alex Pretti was part of this network, but I do have to ask myself, what was he thinking carrying a gun to a protest that could easily be characterized as interfering with a police operation? The additional magazine he was carrying doesn't help his case either. As we've seen, that was conflated into an intent to cause mass casualties.
To be clear, I don't agree with the tactics used by ICE but to put yourself in harm's way such as Pretti did, knowing what they're capable of, and knowing that a previous confrontation had resulted in a woman's death to me seems the height of stupidity. This in no way excuses the actions of the ICE agent(s) that shot him, but based on past experience what else would you expect?
Ask yourself, what exactly are these people protesting? Clearly at this point the tactics of ICE, but that's not where it began. It began with declaring Minneapolis a sanctuary city, but what does that actually mean? Sanctuary for who and under what authority? Sanctuary for economic migrants? Bear in mind that the people being deported are exactly that, or did we somehow miss the thousands of people marching across Mexico from points south with the sole intent of entering the USA illegally.
The UN charter on political refugees is very clear on where refuge may be sought: In the first safe jurisdiction the claimant is able to reach, which in this case would be Mexico. So why the long march? Who sponsored that? Who convinced the Mexican authorities to allow it to take place? I can't imagine them doing that out of the goodness of their hearts, and even if they weren't able to handle the influx, could they not have asked the USA for assistance, given that these migrants would otherwise become America's problem, which they now are?
Clearly the majority of the people arriving are economic migrants, but among them are also criminal elements. So how is it morally justified to admit them while ignoring the thousands of legitimate applicants, many of whom have waited years for a residence and/or work permit, bearing in mind that some of those applicants are seeking family reunification. Where do they fit in the grand scheme of things? Are these protesters demanding that the Immigration dept. deal with the backlog of legitimate applicants? I haven't seen that, have you?
What this looks like to me is one faction of the US political class using illegal immigration as a battering ram against their opponents in the other faction. Call it left vs. right if you like, but that misses the bigger picture. The people behind this operation have no more regard for the migrants than their opponents do, nor do they hold anything that could be called the 'moral high ground.' They are simply using these events to achieve their political goals, which at this point looks to be the introduction of a federal police force with unlimited powers, ironically similar to what you'll find in the same nations these migrants are fleeing.
People are concerned about the rights of illegal immigrants because those immigrants have rights. It doesn’t matter if they are US citizens, legal residents or undocumented/illegal immigrants. They have rights, and to allow the government to violate those rights is a principle that many Americans will not abide.
The constitution’s limits on the government’s powers, limits that are meant to protect individual rights, extend to not only American citizens, especially for the first and fourth amendments. So there is no distinction in terms of protecting the rights of citizens versus non-citizens for those who believe in individual liberty and the protections of the US Constitution.
With regards to employers, I agree. That’s why the arguments in favor of the government are farcical and shallow. Also, as I stated previously, the government is not selectively targeting immigrants with criminal records or even illegal immigrants, but is arbitrarily detaining, assaulting, and humiliating people based on their skin color and their accents. As a person of conscience, how can you standby and say that that’s OK? (not saying specifically you, my friend, but in the general sense)
Expedited removal allows immigration officers to remove certain noncitizens without a hearing in front of an immigration judge. This applies mainly to individuals caught near the U.S. border who entered the country illegally and have been in the U.S. for fewer than 14 days. Expedited removal can happen quickly, often without a formal court hearing.
But don’t worry—if you fear returning to your home country, you can express this fear to an immigration officer, which might qualify you for an asylum interview instead of removal."
however...
The UN charter on refugees is very clear on this last point. First safe jurisdiction, which in most cases is Mexico. So, people claiming asylum after entering Mexico from points south should be claiming asylum there, not in the USA. People claiming asylum in the USA after entering via Mexico, the most common route of entry, are just gaming the system.
You are of course correct when you state that the same rights as enumerated in the constitution apply to illegal aliens, but this is also subject to interpretation by the courts:
A few points, as you express a lot here, which I do appreciate.
Minneapolis has been a sanctuary city for more than 40 years. This is not a new issue and alternatives to immigration policies have been advanced. We are a nation with a labor shortage and population decline, why do we not have a policy of integrating immigrants into our society and economy?
What the protesters are acting against is a federal police force that is targeting people based solely on skin color and accents. They work in roving patrols, wearing masks and without identification in unmarked vehicles, snatching people as they seem them. More than 70% of those detained have no criminal convictions. Of those that do, only 5% have convictions for violent crime. They have arrested and detained hundreds of US citizens and legal residents. There tactics have been extreme and violent. They are in violation of over a hundred judicial orders. They have consistently violated 1st and 4th amendment rights. They have openly disavowed the constitutional requirements for judicial warrants and due process, which apply for all persons, not only US citizens. They have terrorized communities with their tactics, attacking vehicles with gas and smoke with children inside, on multiple occasions, for example. Yet, you offer some type of moral equivalence or subjective pondering, or ask what the protestors want, as if this type of government should be tolerated.
With regards to Pretti’s possession of a firearm, which was entirely legal, which he never unholstered, and which he was disarmed of well before he was shot 10 times in the back, why are you more concerned with speculating as to his intent rather than commenting on his actions which are well documented in multiple videos.
And with regard to the signal chats, why would anyone expect the protesters not to be coordinating, organizing and communicating with each other?
The council’s 13-0 vote followed a Dec. 9 public hearing where dozens of people supported updates to the city’s 22-year-old “separation ordinance,” which forbids local police from aiding federal immigration-enforcement efforts.
I'm assuming you read my other post where I spoke about assisting refugees from Latin America. There's a good reason I became disillusioned with the process because back then people were fleeing genuine political oppression, whereas today they seem to be mainly economic migrants, or just freeloaders.
There's an old adage that says "if your not a liberal when you're young you have no heart, but if you're not conservative when you're older, you have no common sense. Note, this has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. I despise them both.
Anyway, I sense this is becoming a polemic and I try to avoid those. You have your position, I have mine, and we both have Substack on which to express them, so I'd call that a win for both of us.
"...why do we not have a policy of integrating immigrants into our society and economy?"
To refer to my previous point, why are we so concerned with the rights of people illegally in the country when so many legitimate applicants are waiting inordinate amounts of time to be processed? If we're so concerned about a labour shortage then let's fast-track those people.
But here's the thing. There's an existing federal statute that makes it unlawful to employ undocumented migrants. So why are the authorities not going after these employers? It's not like they're hard to find and if you prosecute a few, the rest will stop hiring illegals and the reason for entering the USA illegally largely disappears.
Maybe it has something to do with Americans not being willing to work at low paying jobs, and employers (who have a bigger voice than ordinary citizens) being unwilling to pay living wages? Oddly I've never seen anyone protesting at a meat packing plant or construction site that employs illegal migrants. It's not like they'd be hard to find, but somehow that never occurs to these protesters or the people organizing them.
"Yet, you offer some type of moral equivalence or subjective pondering, or ask what the protestors want, as if this type of government should be tolerated."
To assume from my questioning the motives of the protesters that "this type of government should be tolerated" is a bit of a stretch. I'm doing what anyone who watches these events from a distance ought to do. Look at all the available evidence before drawing any conclusions, bearing in mind that we're only seeing a partial picture.
I'm not defending the ICE agents - I'm just as repulsed by their actions as you are. Where we differ is in the characterization of the protesters who you seem to portray as heroes, whereas I saw people being intentionally provocative, and in the case of Pretti, extremely stupid. I also find it ironic that people on the left are defending his right to carry a semi-automatic with additional clips, as if that was somehow a normal thing to bring to a protest. If this were a right wing protest I very much doubt it would be characterized that way.
On that specific point, do you have any knowledge of firearms?
That can only happen if Pretti had a round already chambered, which not only is totally irresponsible, but also violates the basic safety rules he would have been taught when attending the mandatory training for a CCP. Video has since surfaced of him acting aggressively towards ICE on a previous occasion, which revealed that he was also carrying at the time, so this was not a one-off event but to me suggests a pattern. Instead of picking a side, what I’ve done is attempt to analysis the events as an impartial observer before drawing conclusions about the intentions of individual actors, which should be viewed from the perspective of individual psychology, not just the broader principles they claim to be upholding.
"And with regard to the signal chats, why would anyone expect the protesters not to be coordinating, organizing and communicating with each other?"
Obviously there would have to be some kind of organization involved in a protest, but this went beyond that to monitoring agents movements and congregating at locations where they were carrying out operations. A reasonable person would tend to avoid that for the obvious reasons, such as being charged with conspiracy to interfere with a police operation. Perhaps protesting at the legislature where the actual decisions are being made might be a better approach than confronting agents in the field? Like I pointed out, ICE conduct was already well documented, so what would you expect as a response?
I’ve never not heard of not chambering a round when carrying. It is legal to carry with a chambered round in NC and MN. Everyone I know who carries, carries with a round chambered and I don’t know of any CCP training that advises to carry without a round chambered.
With regards to Pretti’s weapon being negligently discharged by the ICE agent, I’ve seen nothing that substantiate that and the government has not said that’s what occurred. I did see the initial speculation on that, but I’ve seen nothing but analysis that has rejected it.
Your speculation regarding Pretti’s motives can be matched with speculation on the agents motives. Why not speculate that the agents woke up that day intending to kill someone? If you can speculate that Pretti was carrying for reasons a, b, c…, why not do the same for the agents?
My commentary is based on the actions that were observable and not speculation on unknown motives by those involved.
And finally, to define Pretti’s actions as provocative is contrary to what we observe in the video. He was legally documenting ICE’s actions, again an agency with a very well documented pattern of abuse and illegal conduct, he put himself in between a woman and ICE agent who was attacking her, he did so without touching the agent, and for that he was pepper sprayed, tackled by five or so agents, beaten, disarmed and then shot 10 times. I don’t understand how other things need to be considered, unless you subscribe to principles that allow or condone state power virtually without limits.
Not familiar with Minnesota law, just with common sense. If you think you're likely to be in imminent danger, then a chambered round makes sense, but it does increase the danger of an accidental discharge. Apparently the laws on this vary from one jurisdiction to another, as does opinion on the practice itself. Take a look:
"Rob Doar, a lawyer for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, said he believes that Pretti’s gun went off after the agent grabbed it, leading the other agent to open fire.
“I believe it’s highly likely the first shot was a negligent discharge from the agent in the grey jacket after he removed the Sig P320 from Pretti’s holster while exiting the scene,” Doar said on X."
"Your speculation regarding Pretti’s motives can be matched with speculation on the agents motives."
Not speculating, just questioning. There's a difference. You seem to have accepted his motives at face value, so I suppose this will do nothing to change your mind.
"I don’t understand how other things need to be considered, unless you subscribe to principles that allow or condone state power virtually without limits.”
There’s plenty of other things to consider here, but you seem to want to make it a binary equation. I’m not supporting the actions of ICE. I’ve already made that clear. But I also don’t consider what some of these protesters are doing to be very wise. It’s never a good idea to confront the police in the midst of an arrest or investigation, and that’s what I see Pretti doing, not “documenting.” You don’t have to get that close to document events as you can see from the numerous videos taken on that day. Videos taken by people who apparently were at a safe distance and not interfering. Likewise, it’s never a good idea to carry a gun to a protest. What possible use could it be? Defending against muggers? Firing back if the police open up on you? It’s just paranoid BS and that’s what Pretti looks like to me. A guy with some serious issues that in the end cost him his life. That doesn’t justify what happened, but it was predictable and could easily have been avoided.
I’m the child of a man who refused to carry a gun during WWII. He understood the dangers, and he understood the enemy. His father died at Auschwitz. His pacifism wasn’t absolute, and he grappled with it, as I have always done, as well. Certainly, I would kill someone about to kill me, or my family. But what’s happening in Gaza is exactly what’s happening in Minneapolis. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
When we do our Great March of Return, (Gaza, March, 2018), what will be different?
Is pacifism even possible against mindless thugs? Still, I believe that our numbers can turn this evil tide, peacefully. As Dostoyevsky asked, can a society founded on crimes ever be free?
Thank you so much for this comment Sera. I am sorry for all your family has been through and grateful that you engage with it and present it to others.
This is an incredibly difficult time and the choices will be hard if the trajectory doesn’t change.
Great resources here, Matt. Thanks for your continuing and courageous witness.
Thank you Janet.
It seems Trump is now doing what a lot of psychopathically-talented "leaders" do, trying to foist the blame for his unlawful orders onto his subordinates, in this case Noem and Bovino who were just saying and doing what he wanted them to. Trump is replacing the Nazi impersonator styled Bovino with the nicer appearing, Grandpa-like Homan. But remember it was Trump who went out, immediately after Renee Good's shooting, to falsely claim she was a domestic terrorist and had "run over" the ICE agent who shot her.
Great interview I saw you give Coleen!
I posted on Substack It is absolutely true that the line dividing the best of us from the worst of us was solidified on Saturday with the murder of Alex Pretti. Yes, indeed, power resides in the hands of a man without principle.
What can the vast majority of Americans agree on? Do we want to live in a country that abides by its own rule of law, or live under a rogue state acting completely outside US Constitutional law as many US presidents have done? Has the determination by the Nuremberg trials after WWII that a war of aggression is the supreme war crime in that it enabled all other war crimes been diminished or rescinded? Does anyone in their right mind actually care if US government war crimes are committed under a democratic or republican president? Charging both the Trump and Biden administrations with the obvious war crimes of genocide and forced starvation would be a substantial action to demand that US Constitutional law, International law, the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter be upheld. Is there any legal document exempting anyone from prosecution under these laws? Is there any faction of Americans that could have a sound argument against these foundational laws? Create a petition to bring war crimes charges against the worst criminals for the worst crimes. Abolishing slavery, voting rights, women's rights, worker's rights, child labor laws, civil rights all began as demands on the government by the American people. None of them were gifts from US presidents.
Hear, hear!
The quote that pops into my head a lot lately is: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." I'm not a Dickens fan, but it really feels like we're in the middle of our own "French Revolution" here in the US. May we choose wisely our course of action from this point forward. Our children and our future depends upon it.
Those who were most in favor of the revolution were often victims of it, your counsel to be wise is very much needed.
Covid showed you who would check on a body in the street and who would walk over it to get brunch and everyone ignored it.
Millions wanted millions to die and they did for their haircuts.
https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
https://davidswanson.org/warlist/
I have been offering for some time now my conviction that the vast, overwhelming majority of US military personnel will obey orders to shoot down Americans with almost no hesitation. If, say, one-half of one percent refuse to comply, that ain't gonna save us from this Martial Law Fascist Trump dictatorship. By building an "all volunteer professional" military, the racist, imperialist chieftains actually did "kick Viet Nam Syndrome to the curb," as famously proclaimed by George Herbert Walker Bush. Ol' George actually got one thing "right"!!
Well said Greg.
You can dance around it all you want, but the reality is, IMO, is that it will take nothing less than a large convergence of citizens to shut this down and to eject these people...on a weekday. None of that weekend passive stuff and certainly any notion of 'voting' our way out of it. Peacefully of course.
The problem with claiming the moral high ground is that often that ground is not nearly as solid as one believes. Demonizing one's enemies may seem justified, but what it really amounts to is painting them all with the same brush, just as they would do to you, following which adopting their tactics becomes acceptable because the struggle against them is framed in moral terms without defining what those terms actually are.
So where's the moral high ground here? Honestly I don't see it. I see a group of people claiming to uphold certain principles, but when you ask them what those principles are, and whether they're actually worth defending, they're all over the map. What I hear from the many interviews of protesters and their advocates is really just ideology couched as moral superiority. Not hard to take such a position of course when your adversary clearly has no moral restraint, but that by default does not make your own position moral or correct, but simply reactionary.
What never seems to occur to these defenders of (insert noble cause here) is that they're being used, the intent of which is to create a backlash resulting in even more draconian measures than the ones they're already opposing.
https://ozeunleashed.substack.com/p/the-problem-reaction-solution-paradigm
Yes, as I said in my post, those who overthrow governments often commit the same crimes.
Yet, to speak broadly and to deflect to concerns about the mass, rather than to speak to the actions of the two sides, as documented in the Good and Pretti videos, obscures or dodges the clear moral distinction of the actions between the two sides.
Bravo, well said!
This is my first time posting, and I recently started reading your Substack postings. I remember reading about you resigning your commission in 2009 to protest against our esclation of the war in Afghanistan.
I have always tried to explain to civilians that generals and admirals should never be put on a pedestal. (That changed when Eisenhower and Marshall retired) The majority of them are sycophants, liars, and intellectual midgets, and we are only fooling ourselves if we expect any of them to be willing to stand up against the president as a group against his administration.
This is what H.R. McMaster discussed in his book "Dereliction of Duty." When the generals and admirals clearly understood that the war in Vietnam couldn't be won under the restrictions Lyndon Johnson imposed, they instead showed complacency and cowardice in their silence.
I agree that ICE agents are the most reprehensible group of bottom feeders our society tolerates. I am most concerned about the percentage of them with military experience because, after two decades of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have created a wave of psychopaths.
What I find deeply reprehensible is that we have become what the World War II generation fought against and held in contempt, and our society is comfortable with that.
It is absolutely true that the line dividing the best of us from the worst of us was solidified on Saturday with the murder of Alex Pretti. Yes, indeed, power resides in the hands of a man without principle.
Back in the 70's I was married to a human rights activist whose work involved assisting political refugees from Latin America to resettle in Canada. This was during the period of the US sponsored 'dirty wars' in Chile, El Salvador, and Nicaragua among others. I did volunteer work there myself, mostly translation and interpretation when dealing with govt. agencies.
Among our clients were people who'd spent time in prison or who'd been threatened by death squads and had to flee for their lives, but also among them were a number of fake applicants using the refugee system to enter Canada under false pretenses. We even had a doctor on call whose job it was to examine people claiming to have been tortured, because believe it or not, some applicants actually inflicted cigarette burns and other wounds on themselves to support their story. I asked this doctor how he could tell the difference between legitimate and false claims and his answer was, there's a level of pain which cannot be self-inflicted before one has to stop, and this is obvious from the severity of the wounds.
Over the course of several years I became disillusioned and eventually gave up because what initially began as an effort to assist legitimate political refugees gradually morphed into a social agency addressing the problems of economic migrants, among which were exploitation by their own nationals, including extortion, drug trafficking, women being forced into prostitution and financial frauds of various types. In short, the criminality and exploitation one found in the countries of origin had migrated along with the people. Not at first, but once the process was in motion it increasingly took on that aspect.
So the situation in Minneapolis with specific reference to the Somalis doesn't surprise me in the least. What does surprise me is that people are willing to defend them when they are clearly abusing the system set up to assist them. Not all of them of course, but when you import that many people from a culture where corruption is endemic, and then concentrate them in a specific location, what else do you expect?
If you want to see where all this is leading I suggest you take a holiday to just about anywhere in Europe and see first hand what unrestricted migration brings. Advice to women - don't travel alone, and especially not at night.
Here's the part the MSM aren't telling you:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/minneapolis-signal-gate-alleged-anti-ice-low-level-insurgency-command-exposed-messaging
I don't know if Alex Pretti was part of this network, but I do have to ask myself, what was he thinking carrying a gun to a protest that could easily be characterized as interfering with a police operation? The additional magazine he was carrying doesn't help his case either. As we've seen, that was conflated into an intent to cause mass casualties.
To be clear, I don't agree with the tactics used by ICE but to put yourself in harm's way such as Pretti did, knowing what they're capable of, and knowing that a previous confrontation had resulted in a woman's death to me seems the height of stupidity. This in no way excuses the actions of the ICE agent(s) that shot him, but based on past experience what else would you expect?
Ask yourself, what exactly are these people protesting? Clearly at this point the tactics of ICE, but that's not where it began. It began with declaring Minneapolis a sanctuary city, but what does that actually mean? Sanctuary for who and under what authority? Sanctuary for economic migrants? Bear in mind that the people being deported are exactly that, or did we somehow miss the thousands of people marching across Mexico from points south with the sole intent of entering the USA illegally.
The UN charter on political refugees is very clear on where refuge may be sought: In the first safe jurisdiction the claimant is able to reach, which in this case would be Mexico. So why the long march? Who sponsored that? Who convinced the Mexican authorities to allow it to take place? I can't imagine them doing that out of the goodness of their hearts, and even if they weren't able to handle the influx, could they not have asked the USA for assistance, given that these migrants would otherwise become America's problem, which they now are?
Clearly the majority of the people arriving are economic migrants, but among them are also criminal elements. So how is it morally justified to admit them while ignoring the thousands of legitimate applicants, many of whom have waited years for a residence and/or work permit, bearing in mind that some of those applicants are seeking family reunification. Where do they fit in the grand scheme of things? Are these protesters demanding that the Immigration dept. deal with the backlog of legitimate applicants? I haven't seen that, have you?
What this looks like to me is one faction of the US political class using illegal immigration as a battering ram against their opponents in the other faction. Call it left vs. right if you like, but that misses the bigger picture. The people behind this operation have no more regard for the migrants than their opponents do, nor do they hold anything that could be called the 'moral high ground.' They are simply using these events to achieve their political goals, which at this point looks to be the introduction of a federal police force with unlimited powers, ironically similar to what you'll find in the same nations these migrants are fleeing.
People are concerned about the rights of illegal immigrants because those immigrants have rights. It doesn’t matter if they are US citizens, legal residents or undocumented/illegal immigrants. They have rights, and to allow the government to violate those rights is a principle that many Americans will not abide.
The constitution’s limits on the government’s powers, limits that are meant to protect individual rights, extend to not only American citizens, especially for the first and fourth amendments. So there is no distinction in terms of protecting the rights of citizens versus non-citizens for those who believe in individual liberty and the protections of the US Constitution.
With regards to employers, I agree. That’s why the arguments in favor of the government are farcical and shallow. Also, as I stated previously, the government is not selectively targeting immigrants with criminal records or even illegal immigrants, but is arbitrarily detaining, assaulting, and humiliating people based on their skin color and their accents. As a person of conscience, how can you standby and say that that’s OK? (not saying specifically you, my friend, but in the general sense)
The rights of illegal immigrants are listed here.
https://sedaghatlaw.com/illegal-entry-into-us-can-you-be-deported/
"What Is Expedited Removal?
Expedited removal allows immigration officers to remove certain noncitizens without a hearing in front of an immigration judge. This applies mainly to individuals caught near the U.S. border who entered the country illegally and have been in the U.S. for fewer than 14 days. Expedited removal can happen quickly, often without a formal court hearing.
But don’t worry—if you fear returning to your home country, you can express this fear to an immigration officer, which might qualify you for an asylum interview instead of removal."
however...
The UN charter on refugees is very clear on this last point. First safe jurisdiction, which in most cases is Mexico. So, people claiming asylum after entering Mexico from points south should be claiming asylum there, not in the USA. People claiming asylum in the USA after entering via Mexico, the most common route of entry, are just gaming the system.
You are of course correct when you state that the same rights as enumerated in the constitution apply to illegal aliens, but this is also subject to interpretation by the courts:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8-7-2/ALDE_00001262/
A few points, as you express a lot here, which I do appreciate.
Minneapolis has been a sanctuary city for more than 40 years. This is not a new issue and alternatives to immigration policies have been advanced. We are a nation with a labor shortage and population decline, why do we not have a policy of integrating immigrants into our society and economy?
What the protesters are acting against is a federal police force that is targeting people based solely on skin color and accents. They work in roving patrols, wearing masks and without identification in unmarked vehicles, snatching people as they seem them. More than 70% of those detained have no criminal convictions. Of those that do, only 5% have convictions for violent crime. They have arrested and detained hundreds of US citizens and legal residents. There tactics have been extreme and violent. They are in violation of over a hundred judicial orders. They have consistently violated 1st and 4th amendment rights. They have openly disavowed the constitutional requirements for judicial warrants and due process, which apply for all persons, not only US citizens. They have terrorized communities with their tactics, attacking vehicles with gas and smoke with children inside, on multiple occasions, for example. Yet, you offer some type of moral equivalence or subjective pondering, or ask what the protestors want, as if this type of government should be tolerated.
With regards to Pretti’s possession of a firearm, which was entirely legal, which he never unholstered, and which he was disarmed of well before he was shot 10 times in the back, why are you more concerned with speculating as to his intent rather than commenting on his actions which are well documented in multiple videos.
And with regard to the signal chats, why would anyone expect the protesters not to be coordinating, organizing and communicating with each other?
"Minneapolis has been a sanctuary city for more than 40 years."
Not according to this:
https://www.stateregstoday.com/family/immigration/sanctuary-city-and-sanctuary-state-policies-in-minnesota
or this:
https://signalscv.com/2025/12/minneapolis-passes-beefed-up-sanctuary-law/
The council’s 13-0 vote followed a Dec. 9 public hearing where dozens of people supported updates to the city’s 22-year-old “separation ordinance,” which forbids local police from aiding federal immigration-enforcement efforts.
Maybe this is where you got 40 years from?
https://carleton.ca/news/story/sanctuary-cities-history-1980s-origins/
I'm assuming you read my other post where I spoke about assisting refugees from Latin America. There's a good reason I became disillusioned with the process because back then people were fleeing genuine political oppression, whereas today they seem to be mainly economic migrants, or just freeloaders.
There's an old adage that says "if your not a liberal when you're young you have no heart, but if you're not conservative when you're older, you have no common sense. Note, this has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. I despise them both.
Anyway, I sense this is becoming a polemic and I try to avoid those. You have your position, I have mine, and we both have Substack on which to express them, so I'd call that a win for both of us.
"...why do we not have a policy of integrating immigrants into our society and economy?"
To refer to my previous point, why are we so concerned with the rights of people illegally in the country when so many legitimate applicants are waiting inordinate amounts of time to be processed? If we're so concerned about a labour shortage then let's fast-track those people.
But here's the thing. There's an existing federal statute that makes it unlawful to employ undocumented migrants. So why are the authorities not going after these employers? It's not like they're hard to find and if you prosecute a few, the rest will stop hiring illegals and the reason for entering the USA illegally largely disappears.
Maybe it has something to do with Americans not being willing to work at low paying jobs, and employers (who have a bigger voice than ordinary citizens) being unwilling to pay living wages? Oddly I've never seen anyone protesting at a meat packing plant or construction site that employs illegal migrants. It's not like they'd be hard to find, but somehow that never occurs to these protesters or the people organizing them.
"Yet, you offer some type of moral equivalence or subjective pondering, or ask what the protestors want, as if this type of government should be tolerated."
To assume from my questioning the motives of the protesters that "this type of government should be tolerated" is a bit of a stretch. I'm doing what anyone who watches these events from a distance ought to do. Look at all the available evidence before drawing any conclusions, bearing in mind that we're only seeing a partial picture.
I'm not defending the ICE agents - I'm just as repulsed by their actions as you are. Where we differ is in the characterization of the protesters who you seem to portray as heroes, whereas I saw people being intentionally provocative, and in the case of Pretti, extremely stupid. I also find it ironic that people on the left are defending his right to carry a semi-automatic with additional clips, as if that was somehow a normal thing to bring to a protest. If this were a right wing protest I very much doubt it would be characterized that way.
On that specific point, do you have any knowledge of firearms?
The https://nypost.com/2026/01/25/us-news/alex-prettis-sig-p320-may-have-gone-off-accidentally-experts-suggest/
That can only happen if Pretti had a round already chambered, which not only is totally irresponsible, but also violates the basic safety rules he would have been taught when attending the mandatory training for a CCP. Video has since surfaced of him acting aggressively towards ICE on a previous occasion, which revealed that he was also carrying at the time, so this was not a one-off event but to me suggests a pattern. Instead of picking a side, what I’ve done is attempt to analysis the events as an impartial observer before drawing conclusions about the intentions of individual actors, which should be viewed from the perspective of individual psychology, not just the broader principles they claim to be upholding.
"And with regard to the signal chats, why would anyone expect the protesters not to be coordinating, organizing and communicating with each other?"
Obviously there would have to be some kind of organization involved in a protest, but this went beyond that to monitoring agents movements and congregating at locations where they were carrying out operations. A reasonable person would tend to avoid that for the obvious reasons, such as being charged with conspiracy to interfere with a police operation. Perhaps protesting at the legislature where the actual decisions are being made might be a better approach than confronting agents in the field? Like I pointed out, ICE conduct was already well documented, so what would you expect as a response?
I’ve never not heard of not chambering a round when carrying. It is legal to carry with a chambered round in NC and MN. Everyone I know who carries, carries with a round chambered and I don’t know of any CCP training that advises to carry without a round chambered.
With regards to Pretti’s weapon being negligently discharged by the ICE agent, I’ve seen nothing that substantiate that and the government has not said that’s what occurred. I did see the initial speculation on that, but I’ve seen nothing but analysis that has rejected it.
Your speculation regarding Pretti’s motives can be matched with speculation on the agents motives. Why not speculate that the agents woke up that day intending to kill someone? If you can speculate that Pretti was carrying for reasons a, b, c…, why not do the same for the agents?
My commentary is based on the actions that were observable and not speculation on unknown motives by those involved.
And finally, to define Pretti’s actions as provocative is contrary to what we observe in the video. He was legally documenting ICE’s actions, again an agency with a very well documented pattern of abuse and illegal conduct, he put himself in between a woman and ICE agent who was attacking her, he did so without touching the agent, and for that he was pepper sprayed, tackled by five or so agents, beaten, disarmed and then shot 10 times. I don’t understand how other things need to be considered, unless you subscribe to principles that allow or condone state power virtually without limits.
Not familiar with Minnesota law, just with common sense. If you think you're likely to be in imminent danger, then a chambered round makes sense, but it does increase the danger of an accidental discharge. Apparently the laws on this vary from one jurisdiction to another, as does opinion on the practice itself. Take a look:
https://thegunzone.com/can-you-concealed-carry-with-a-round-in-the-chamber/
https://legalclarity.org/should-you-carry-with-a-round-in-the-chamber/
https://nypost.com/2026/01/25/us-news/alex-prettis-sig-p320-may-have-gone-off-accidentally-experts-suggest/
"Rob Doar, a lawyer for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, said he believes that Pretti’s gun went off after the agent grabbed it, leading the other agent to open fire.
“I believe it’s highly likely the first shot was a negligent discharge from the agent in the grey jacket after he removed the Sig P320 from Pretti’s holster while exiting the scene,” Doar said on X."
"Your speculation regarding Pretti’s motives can be matched with speculation on the agents motives."
Not speculating, just questioning. There's a difference. You seem to have accepted his motives at face value, so I suppose this will do nothing to change your mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ52n5xP55s
"I don’t understand how other things need to be considered, unless you subscribe to principles that allow or condone state power virtually without limits.”
There’s plenty of other things to consider here, but you seem to want to make it a binary equation. I’m not supporting the actions of ICE. I’ve already made that clear. But I also don’t consider what some of these protesters are doing to be very wise. It’s never a good idea to confront the police in the midst of an arrest or investigation, and that’s what I see Pretti doing, not “documenting.” You don’t have to get that close to document events as you can see from the numerous videos taken on that day. Videos taken by people who apparently were at a safe distance and not interfering. Likewise, it’s never a good idea to carry a gun to a protest. What possible use could it be? Defending against muggers? Firing back if the police open up on you? It’s just paranoid BS and that’s what Pretti looks like to me. A guy with some serious issues that in the end cost him his life. That doesn’t justify what happened, but it was predictable and could easily have been avoided.