They Murdered the Nurse and Now the Senate Negotiates His Worth

Senate gives itself two weeks to decide if federal agents should show their faces before they kill American citizens. ICE already has enough money to ignore whatever they decide.

WASHINGTON — Alex Pretti worked the ICU at the Veterans hospital. Thirty-seven years old, concealed carry permit in his wallet, phone in his hand. He went out on a Saturday in Minneapolis to film federal agents doing their work, which in America is supposed to be your right, and two of them put nine bullets in him while he was on the ground with no gun showing.

They pepper-sprayed him first. Hit him in the face a few times. Then the shooting. The Department of Homeland Security said afterward that Pretti “approached” agents while “possessing” a 9mm. They didn’t say he pulled it. They didn’t say he aimed it. They said he possessed it, which in Minnesota you’re allowed to do if you have the permit, which he had.

Now John Thune and Lindsey Graham are in rooms negotiating how much Alex Pretti’s death is worth in legislative language.

The deal they cut Thursday night, about 24 hours before the government was supposed to shut down, goes like this: They’ll fund the Pentagon and the schools and the roads and everything else through September. But Homeland Security—the department that employs the men who killed Pretti—gets two weeks. Two weeks to figure out if federal agents should maybe have to show their faces and turn on body cameras before they shoot American citizens.

Two weeks.

Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, explaining why Democrats insisted on the short deadline instead of six weeks, said this out loud: “More people can get killed in two weeks.”

That’s where we are. The negotiating position is how many bodies can stack up before the next funding deadline.

The Money Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Here’s what nobody wants you to understand: This whole shutdown fight is theater. ICE got $75 billion last July in something called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That’s not their annual budget—that’s on top of it. That’s money they can spend through 2029.

You know how much ICE usually gets in a year? About $10 billion. So they got seven years of funding dropped on them all at once. They could run enforcement operations through two presidential terms without Congress giving them another dime.

The House Democrats who analyzed the numbers put it plainly: “In the event of a lapse in funding, ICE would be able to sustain regular operations for multiple years.” Everyone else would be furloughing workers. ICE would be buying more detention beds.

Which means when Schumer stood up Thursday demanding that federal agents remove their masks and wear body cameras, he was negotiating with a department that doesn’t need his money anymore.

What the Shootings Changed

Pretti wasn’t the first. Two weeks before, on January 7th, federal immigration officers killed Renee Good, also in Minnesota. Two American citizens shot dead in three weeks during immigration enforcement.

That’s when the Senate Democrats decided they had leverage. Not when ICE was rounding up people at churches. Not when they were grabbing parents at schools. When the bodies were white citizens with guns legally in their possession, that’s when the shutdown threats started.

The Democrats want three things, which Schumer calls “common-sense reforms”:

• One: No more roving patrols. No more agents in unmarked vans rolling through neighborhoods stopping anyone who looks like they might be undocumented. No more administrative warrants that bypass the Fourth Amendment. Get a real warrant from a real judge.

• Two: Take off the masks. Wear body cameras. Carry visible ID. Show your face when you’re doing the people’s business. The Republicans say masks protect agents from “doxxing.” The Democrats say anonymous men with guns isn’t law enforcement, it’s something else.

• Three: Follow the same use-of-force rules as every cop in America. Get investigated by independent authorities when you shoot someone. Face actual consequences when you violate the rules.

The House passed a DHS funding bill back on January 22nd—before Pretti got killed—with $20 million for body cameras. But that money was optional. No requirement to actually use them. Another $20 million for oversight that has no teeth. They even cut ICE’s enforcement budget by $115 million, which sounds good until you remember the $75 billion sitting in the account.

The Republican Counter-Offer

Lindsey Graham blocked the Thursday night deal. He wants a vote on his own bill first: Make it a federal crime for mayors and governors to run sanctuary cities. Not just cut their funding—send them to prison.

“Going forward, if my bill passes, these mayors and these governors who defy federal law could go to jail,” Graham told Fox News.

His legislation would make it a crime to “willfully interfere” with federal immigration enforcement. It would hold local officials criminally liable if they release someone from custody who later kills or seriously injures someone. It would prohibit any state or local government from “safe harboring” immigrants.

Graham’s position is that “the real problem leading to chaos is sanctuary city policies,” not federal agents shooting unarmed nurses who are filming them.

So now the negotiation is this: Democrats want ICE agents to show their faces. Republicans want to lock up mayors who won’t help ICE. Democrats want warrants. Republicans want criminal penalties for non-compliance. Democrats want body cameras. Republicans want the end of sanctuary cities.

And they have two weeks to figure it out.

Trump Broke With His Party

Here’s the strange part: President Trump endorsed the deal. Posted on Truth Social Thursday night that he was “working hard with Congress” to fund the government, praised the compromise, asked for a “Bipartisan YES Vote.”

Trump supporting a Democratic leverage play over ICE reform is like the house betting on the players. It doesn’t happen unless the house thinks it’s going to lose worse if the game continues.

The calculation is simple: Another long shutdown—after the 43-day disaster from October to November—would hurt more than giving Democrats their two-week window for negotiations. Even Tom Homan, the Border Czar, announced Thursday that ICE would reduce its presence in Minnesota, contingent on state cooperation.

They blinked. Not because they care about Alex Pretti or Renee Good. Because the politics of shooting American citizens on camera got complicated enough that even this administration saw the problem.

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What Happens February 13th

The Senate passes this deal—probably over the weekend, after a brief shutdown because the House is on vacation until Monday—and then the clock starts on two weeks of negotiation over how federal agents should behave when they’re carrying guns in American cities.

The Democrats have to decide if they’ll settle for body cameras and mask prohibitions without getting warrant requirements. The Republicans have to decide if they’ll give Democrats anything without getting sanctuary city penalties in return. The House Freedom Caucus has to decide if they’ll blow up any deal that restricts ICE operations.

And ICE, sitting on $75 billion that Congress already gave them, gets to keep doing exactly what it was doing while everyone negotiates.

Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut said Thursday: “If the Trump administration resists reforms, we shut down the agency.”

Which sounds tough except you can’t shut down an agency that doesn’t need your money.

The Real Question Nobody’s Asking

Here’s what’s missing from this whole fight: Alex Pretti is dead because federal agents escalated an encounter with an American citizen who was exercising his First Amendment right to film them and his Second Amendment right to carry a weapon.

The negotiations in the Senate are about making sure the next Alex Pretti gets killed on body camera instead of off it. They’re about making sure the agents who pull the trigger have their faces showing when they do it. They’re about requiring a judge’s signature on a piece of paper before ICE kicks down a door.

None of which brings back the ICU nurse who went out with his phone to document what his government was doing in his city.

The Democrats will probably get their body cameras. The Republicans will probably get their votes on sanctuary cities. Everyone will declare victory. The government will stay open. And ICE, with enough money to operate through 2029, will keep doing its work with slightly better documentation.

That’s the deal they’re negotiating. How much oversight Alex Pretti’s death is worth in the Congressional Record.

His funeral is next week.