Politics & Government

Speculation is growing in the wake of another fatal shooting in Minnesota that the Department of Homeland Security is hiring pardoned Jan. 6 rioters as immigration agents.

Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino confirmed that the two agents who shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti were already back on duty, but not in Minneapolis, and has refused to identify them. Journalists who have covered pro-Donald Trump militant groups suspect some of the agents involved in immigration crackdowns are drawn from those extremist ranks.

"Because I filmed the Proud Boys for years, because I was in Charlottesville and at the January 6 riot, and spent five months filming the ICE agents in Federal Plaza I’m convinced they are the same people," said independent visual journalist Sandi Bachom. "It’s impossible to find a whole new army of aggressive, violent, immature, Call to Duty Trump sycophants. That’s why they’re masked. People are gonna start figuring it out. That’s why he pardoned them all."

"I remember thinking when I got back from January 6, well Hitler had an army and Trump doesn’t," Bachom added. "He does now."

Trump pardoned about 1,500 defendants for Jan. 6-related offenses in one of his first official acts upon returning to the White House, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) two weeks ago – following the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by a veteran immigration agent – asked administration officials whether the Department of Homeland Security was actively recruiting pro-Trump extremists.

"The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration," Raskin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "Who is hiding behind these masks? How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses?"

Senate Democrats have threatened to withhold funding for DHS without major reforms to ICE, including a possible ban on masking, and state legislatures are advancing bills to ban federal agents from obscuring their identities while on duty, and the secrecy surrounding Pretti's killers has set off alarms about their actual identities.

"There is another, more disturbing prospect: Are ICE agents actual bad dudes the administration hired rapidly with no background checks — possibly criminal (maybe pardoned J6ers?) — and the administration doesn’t want that information getting out?" wondered journalist Robert A. George. "IOW, the masks represent a LITERAL coverup. Now, we know this isn’t universally the case: Jonathan Ross who shot Renee Good is an ICE veteran. But the spiriting out of Minneapolis the agents who killed Alex Pretti is certainly…curious."

"This is purely speculation on my part, but hey, I didn’t call them domestic terrorists or anything," George added.

Their suspicions seemed to be shared by many others.

"Anyone else notice how the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front, etc. were always out there marching to support and protect law enforcement...until recently?" asked University of Washington biologist Carl T. Bergstrom. "They're never out there supporting ICE. It's so odd, like Superman and Clark Kent."

The Atlantic's Robert F. Worth spoke to an activist on the ground in Minneapolis who agreed.

"It became clear very quickly that ICE is the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo boys," said Dan, who trained as a legal observer but asked to keep his last name shielded. "They’ve given them uniforms and let them run wild."

Dozens of protesters in Phoenix, Arizona were hit in a drive-by mace attack Monday night by an apparent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Phoenix New Times editor Zach Buchanan reported.

“I've been sent video from the end of the ICE raid at the Zipps on 32nd and Shea,” Buchanan wrote in a social media post on X, alongside video of the incident.

“It shows protesters – on the sidewalk, impeding no one – getting drive-by maced by an ICE agent from a truck as it rolls away down the road. Hard to see how such tactics are justifiable.”

In the video, around two dozen demonstrators can be seen protesting ICE on a sidewalk near a sports grill just outside of Phoenix’s downtown area as apparent ICE vehicles drive by. As a silver truck bearing sirens passes by, an individual in the front passenger seat can be seen spraying protesters with what appears to be mace as the vehicle passes by.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” a voice can be heard shouting moments after the protesters were sprayed.

One protester appeared injured by the drive-by mace attack, with others rushing to their aid and one offering them an article of clothing to wipe their face.