Orlando-area state representative Anna Eskamani issued a statement Sarturday calling for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to be defunded and abolished after federal agents killed another civilian in Minneapolis.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, was fatally shot multiple times by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis Saturday after using his cellphone to record agents.
Pretti was legally carrying a licensed handgun. Video footage shows federal agents tackling Pretti, restraining him, and taking away the gun from his waistband before an agent opened fire on Pretti.
Trump administration officials have claimed Pretti was a “would-be assassin” who committed domestic terrorism. His friends and family — who described Pretti to the New York Times as an outdoors lover, a mentor and a “calm presence” at work — however, have denounced what they see as a smear campaign of their loved one. President Trump over the weekend said Democrats were to blame for the deaths of Pretti and fellow Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, a mother and poet also killed by an ICE agent earlier this month.
“After another horrifying act of deadly force by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis, we have a responsibility to say this clearly: What’s happening in Minnesota cannot be allowed to spread to other communities, including here in Orlando,” Eskamani said in a statement. “Which is why we should oppose any funding of ICE and abolish this lawless agency.”
Eskamani, a progressive, is running to become Orlando’s next mayor. The killing of Pretti occurred just one day after tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Minneapolis in minus 10-degree weather as part of one-day economic blackout (or “general strike,” depending on who you ask) that was organized in protest of ICE’s aggressive enforcement tactics and presence in Minnesota.
U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost, a fellow progressive who has the power to actually vote against funding ICE’s parent agency — the Department of Homeland Security — similarly said after the shooting that “ICE is lawless and should not exist.”
ICE was first established in 2003 as part of a government reorganization after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Brookings Institution.
The agency has reportedly deported more than 540,000 people since Trump returned to the White House in January. At least 32 people also died last year in ICE custody, according to The Guardian — the agency’s deadliest year in decades.
Other Democrats did not call for the agency’s dissolution, instead sticking to calls for holding ICE agents accountable for their actions as they work to execute Trump’s plans to conduct the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
“ICE criminals killed another American citizen. Meanwhile, the House approved a $64.4 BILLION DHS budget this week. This is unacceptable and reckless,” U.S. Congressman Darren Soto (D-FL) wrote in a post on X. “The Trump Administration must be held accountable.”
A growing number of Democratic U.S. senators are reportedly vowing to oppose a funding bill for DHS this week after Pretti was killed. The proposed budget for the agency is $64.4 billion, including $10 billion for ICE.
According to NPR, ICE has a total $85 billion at its disposal, however, through the passage of earlier bills. Meanwhile, seven House Democrats last week — evidently not demonstrating the same concern for ICE agents’ aggressive tactics — voted alongside nearly every Republican to approve the proposed budget for DHS. None of the seven Democrats were from Florida.
Florida Republicans, meanwhile, have echoed the Trump administration’s messaging on Pretti’s shooting and have voiced continued support for ICE.
“An armed seditionist attacked federal law enforcement today as they were rounding up foreign invaders in Minneapolis,” Republican U.S. House Rep. Randy Fine wrote on X. “The insurrectionist was put down. Well done. I stand with ICE as they fight these foreign invaders and their treasonous allies.”
Pretti, a “helpful, kind guy” according to one of his friends from high school, was a federal government employee, as a VA nurse, and a member of the American Federation of Government Employees union. Unions and labor leaders released statements mourning Pretti’s death.
“Today, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an AFGE Local 3669 member and a nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center who dedicated his life to serving American veterans, was killed during protests in Minneapolis connected to the administration’s immigration actions,” Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, said in a statement. “Our union is heartbroken. An AFGE member is dead. And a family’s life has been forever changed.”
Compared to Minnesota, and other liberal cities where ICE agents have been deployed in massive numbers, Florida offers much friendlier territory for federal immigration enforcement officials. Some law enforcement heads have claimed that Florida’s collaboration with the feds has actually helped prevent an influx of out-of-state ICE agents from wreaking havoc on Florida communities.
“Some of these big city mayors and policymakers are making a really bad decision when they say that under no circumstances will they allow their police officers and their city and county jails to cooperate with ICE,” said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri last August. “They think they’re doing the right thing, but they’re making a very detrimental decision.”
Under Florida law, all jail operators in the state must have what are known as 287(g) agreements with ICE, allowing ICE to temporarily detain people in local jails on federal immigration charges. The Orange County Jail has such an agreement and has booked over 5,000 people on immigration holds since last spring.
All 67 Florida county sheriff departments have agreements with ICE, signaling a sign of collaboration. Some city police departments, including Orlando, have also voluntarily entered into agreements with ICE, allowing officers to be trained to execute certain immigration enforcement duties.
“We will stand with local leaders and community partners to protect due process, uphold the Constitution, and keep our neighborhoods safe [t]hrough transparency, accountability, and lawful community-based public safety, not intimidation and violence,” Eskamani said Sunday. She noted that, despite local and state agreements with ICE, local communities have seen an uptick in ICE activity in Central Florida, sparking concerns from local immigrant rights advocates.
“Orlando should not become the next headline, the next tragedy, the next community traumatized by federal overreach,” Eskamani said.
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