Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the stakes are high for the United States after the latest deadly shooting by immigration agents on Saturday.
Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis shot and killed killed Alex Pretti, 37who worked as an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital.
“What we are seeing here is a pivotal moment for the United States, and I cannot emphasize enough how rushed this moment is,” Ocasio-Cortez said. told CNN.
Department of Homeland Security officials called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who intended to shoot immigration agents. While he was carrying a gun, videos of the incident show he was not brandishing it at officers, and law enforcement confirmed he had a license.
This is the third shooting by a federal agent in Minnesota alone this month and the second fatal. Similar shootings occurred in other cities during Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Ocasio-Cortez also warned against the administration’s previous indications of invoking the Insurrection Act, along with the White House press secretary. pointing the finger at Democratic officials.
“If we don’t do something now, I don’t know what will happen next” Ocasio-Cortez added. “We must contain this chaos. This administration says it is open to justifying violence against American citizens based on their organization, their political affiliation and it is using the cover of DHS to do it. We must now draw a line in the sand between sectors, politically, economically, in our media, and more.”
She was among House Democrats who urged their Senate counterparts to block an appropriations bill that included DHS agencies like ICE and Border Patrol.
If enough Democratic senators vote against the funding, then the the federal government will close its doors Friday. That’s after lawmakers agreed to end the previous shutdown in November with short-term funding.
On Saturday, Trump blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for the shooting because they had demanded that immigration agents leave the city.
“The mayor and governor are inciting insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric! » he wrote on social networks.
This suggests that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to Minnesota. Last week, two infantry battalions from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska and specializing in Arctic operations, received deployment preparation orders.
