President Donald Trump and his administration appeared this week to finally recognize that Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis are not going as planned.
At a briefing on Tuesday, Trump criticized how his administration has communicated about the situation. Along with Vice President JD Vance, he conceded that ICE has made — or will make — “mistakes.” According to CNN, this shift was driven by growing concern inside the White House that the issue is slipping out of their control, a fear reinforced by recent polling.
What the administration did not signal, however, was any meaningful change in the enforcement approach that created the controversy in the first place. As a result, the situation now threatens to spiral further — both politically and on the streets.
That risk became more pronounced with the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a federal agent in Minneapolis. The incident closely mirrors the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent roughly two and a half weeks earlier. It also comes amid a widening pattern of politically damaging actions that suggest the administration’s problems are deepening, not easing.
How the public will ultimately respond to Pretti’s death remains uncertain. What is clear, though, is that many Americans are already inclined to believe ICE routinely oversteps its authority. Early details of the shooting raise the possibility of a repeat of the backlash that followed Good’s killing, when skepticism toward ICE hardened and spread.
As with the earlier case, administration officials quickly defended the agents involved while casting the person who was killed in an extremely negative light — a response that appears premature and, at best, difficult to substantiate. Officials portrayed Pretti not merely as a perceived threat, but as someone intentionally trying to kill federal agents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested he was attempting to cause “maximum damage,” while her department speculated that he intended to “massacre law enforcement.” White House adviser Stephen Miller described the episode as an attempted assassination of federal agents.
Pretti was legally armed, according to the Minneapolis police chief, and became involved in a physical confrontation after agents used a chemical spray nearby. However, no evidence has surfaced to support claims that he was attempting to kill anyone. Video footage released so far does not show him handling his weapon. In fact, it appears an agent removed the gun from Pretti shortly before he was shot, raising questions about whether he even had possession of it at the moment he was killed. While DHS said Pretti approached the agents, video suggests the incident began after an agent shoved a woman standing next to him.
If Pretti truly intended to carry out a mass attack, the circumstances appear oddly ill-timed and chaotic for such a plan.
This kind of early judgment was also a major factor in the backlash following Good’s death. Polling at the time showed that Americans largely rejected the administration’s narrative. Only about one in four agreed with Noem’s claim that Good had been engaging in “domestic terrorism.”
Another similarity lies in how the administration responded afterward. In Good’s case, federal officials appeared reluctant to pursue a full investigation of the ICE agent involved and instead focused scrutiny on Good herself — a stance that ultimately led to prosecutors stepping down. In the latest incident, Minneapolis police say federal authorities tried to block local officers from accessing the scene, while Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reported a lack of cooperation from DHS.
Yet Pretti’s killing is less an isolated incident than the culmination of a growing series of controversies. Even as the administration has grown anxious about the political fallout, public frustration appears to be intensifying. In recent days, the administration has asserted broad authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant. Reports continue to surface of U.S. citizens being swept up in immigration raids and of potential racial profiling cited by local law enforcement. ICE has acknowledged errors in targeting individuals. And the detention and deportation of very young children — including toddlers — has further fueled public outrage.
Public approval of ICE, already low last year, has declined even further this month. CBS News–YouGov polling shows the share of Americans who believe ICE has been “too tough” rose from 53% in October to 56% in November, and then jumped to 61% in a survey released last week. A New York Times–Siena College poll published this week reported nearly identical results.
Those numbers are worse than the polling immediately after Good’s death. About 70% of independents and even 20% of Republicans now say ICE has gone too far, according to both surveys. That makes it unlikely that many Americans will give federal agents the benefit of the doubt in Pretti’s case.
The latest incident has also created complications that did not arise after Good’s killing. Some gun-rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, have pushed back against the administration’s rhetoric, objecting to the implication that Pretti’s legal firearm justified lethal force.
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” the NRA said in response to remarks by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney. Some conservatives and Republican lawmakers also appeared more hesitant to defend the agent’s actions, with at least one House GOP chairman calling for hearings.
Presidents often prefer to believe their challenges stem from messaging problems rather than the substance of their policies — a pattern Trump appears to be following. That belief allows leaders to maintain confidence that their approach is fundamentally correct.
But Trump was already facing serious political headwinds, including some of the weakest poll numbers of either of his terms. He has lost substantial support on immigration — once his signature issue — even as border crossings have dropped sharply.
By choosing to keep his mass-deportation strategy largely unchanged, Trump has now compounded the administration’s difficulties, adding political pressure at a moment when it was already struggling — and further inflaming tensions in Minneapolis.