Alex Jefferey Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse. On Jan. 24, he was wrestled to the ground by a half dozen Border Patrol agents and had his legally owned concealed carry firearm taken from his waist. Seconds later, he was killed, shot ten times in five seconds. 

Renee Nicole Good was a 37-year-old mother of three. She was shot and killed by an ICE officer on January 7th. 

Liam Conejo Ramos is a 5-year-old preschool student. He was allegedly used as ‘bait’ to find and detain his family members. Ramos is currently being held in an immigration detention center in Texas pending an active asylum application. 

The stories of these three individuals’ experiences with U.S. federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis are harrowing, upsetting and enraging and have sparked massive protests in Minneapolis and around the country. 

But it could be argued that these three individuals were lucky, in some sick way. They were lucky because their experiences were caught on camera by legal observers and neighbors, and their stories garnered massive media attention. 

There are countless other victims of ICE and the U.S. Border Patrols’ abuses of power. Others who have been shot, racially profiled, brutalized, detained without due cause or otherwise intimidated and harassed by federal agents. Tens of thousands of stories that couldn’t possibly all be told, either because nobody was around to film it or because the media environment can’t tell an endless number of stories. 

The stories of Pretti, Good, Ramos and the stories of countless others, in totality, tell a larger story.

It is a story of an unaccountable federal law enforcement agency, a group of unidentifiable masked thugs, who have been granted a green light from our president to brutalize immigrants and citizens alike. 

They have been granted permission to racially profile and intimidate anyone they please by our Supreme Court. They not only have been allowed to violate constitutional rights free from oversight by our Congress, but granted billions of dollars in funding to do so. 

It’s no wonder that so many believe this story can only end well if ICE is reigned in, possibly even abolished. This week presents an opportunity to reign in the agency. 

Senators vote this week to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. 

Democratic Senators must withhold their votes and allow a partial shutdown of the Federal Government unless substantial reforms are made, lest they be complicit in ICE’s brutality.

A partial government shutdown is looking increasingly likely after the recent killing of Pretti. Bystander video greatly contradicts the initial statements issued by the Department of Homeland Security and others in the Trump administration, which has accelerated political pushback to DHS and Trump

DHS initially claimed that Pretti had approached U.S. Border Patrol whilst brandishing his firearm. Bystander video disproves these claims, revealing that Pretti was holding a phone to legally film federal agents.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Mille claimed Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who had “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.” 

Pretti was carrying a concealed legal firearm, with necessary permits to do so, never drew the firearm on federal agents and was disarmed before he was killed. 

Pretti’s killing has sparked reasonable outrage, not only from DHS’s typical detractors, but also from its defenders. 

Chris Madel, a Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate, who had provided legal support to Johnathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renee Good, announced this week that he was dropping out of the race for governor. In a statement, he said, “I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.”

When questioned about Pretti’s killing, Trump said, “You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns.” 

The National Rifle Association has pushed back on the insinuation that Pretti’s possession of a firearm justified his killing.

It seems the brazenness with which Pretti was killed has created enough political will across the board to deliver some amount of accountability to ICE, U.S. Border Patrol and DHS. 

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol “commander at large,” who was largely responsible for overseeing the recent federal surge into Minneapolis, has been removed from his post, and will likely be pushed into retirement soon.

While this is accountability, Congressional Democrats should be weary of leaving the fight too early. Bovino’s departure doesn’t exactly signal a fundamental shift in DHS’s policies. It merely changes the faces of the people behind them. 

The rot at the core of Trump’s immigration enforcement runs deep, and Democrats shouldn’t allow one more penny to flow to DHS until that rot is cleared out, top to bottom.

DHS has consistently trampled over constitutional rights over the past year when conducting immigration enforcement operations. 

They have violated the first amendment rights of protestors and legal observers by claiming that filming ICE agents is illegal. 

They violated Pretti’s second amendment rights by claiming his lawful possession of a firearm was grounds for his killing. 

They frequently violate the 14th amendment right against due process by arresting people at immigration hearings and racially profiling individuals they suspect are undocumented. 

They consistently violate the fourth amendment right against unlawful search and seizure by giving themselves the authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant.

Through all of this, they have avoided accountability by hiding their names and faces. 

Congress is supposed to be the body that conducts oversight for federal agencies. Republicans have largely seen it fit to ignore this responsibility, and Democrats (being the minority party) have largely been unable to push for accountability with anything other than strongly worded letters. 

This is why Democrats must seize on the opportunity to cut off funding to DHS and demand accountability. ICE’s abolishment is a far away political goal, impossible to achieve until Democrats take back control of one of the chambers of Congress. There is, however, enough political will today to push for some much needed reforms for ICE. 

Democrats can tie their votes for DHS funding to measures that would unmask ICE agents, stop their unlawful use of administrative warrants, end their activity in places like churches and schools, reign in their ability to racially profile, hand more control to state governments and claw back the $75 billion in funding for ICE included in the Big Beautiful Bill.

Anything less would be an endorsement of ICE and DHS’s lawlessness. It would be an endorsement of the killing of U.S. citizens and the trampling of our constitutional rights.

It is unfortunate that the only chance to force accountability for DHS is to plunge the country into another shutdown, it may even seem unconscionable by some Democrats. But the conduct of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE is much harder to stomach, and must be reigned in by any means necessary, even if it means a government shutdown.

Jackson Hatcher is a senior majoring in biological sciences with a minor in political science. You can reach him at jacksonhatcher@dailynebraskan.com.