Opinion | For those who doubt, let me explain why simply observing ICE is not a crime

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“Why was he (or she) there?” That question has been a familiar refrain following the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. It’s frequently offered implicitly as a single “mic drop” comment or explicitly with clarifying words that essentially say, “If they hadn’t been there, they’d be alive today.”

To most (I would hope), that suggestion is reductive — oversimplistic and ignoring the context or complexity of the situation — and, frankly, ludicrous. One could just as well say that if ICE hadn’t been operating in Minneapolis, Good and Pretti would be alive today. Or, to use an extreme example to illustrate the point, “If the U.S. hadn’t sent soldiers to Europe during World War II, none of them would have been killed there.” Am I comparing ICE’s activity in Minneapolis to that of Nazi Germany? Of course not. Not yet.

Reasonable people can and should debate what role, if any, ICE should be playing in Minnesota. But given the role ICE is playing, reasonable people can easily understand and defend the presence of peaceful observers and protesters. The stated, specific (“official”) purpose of the ICE operation in Minnesota seems to be a moving target. However, in general, we have been told they are here to protect innocent citizens from illegal immigrants committing fraud and violent crimes. What we have witnessed includes:

The list could go on. But ask yourself, if you witnessed your family or neighbors being treated this way, what would you do? Be honest. Would you be “out there?”

If you’re still not sure, consider what we have seen and heard in the aftermath of the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Immediately following each shooting — and before local officials had offered any opinions about the incidents — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the White House, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and other federal voices have slandered the victims, calling them domestic terrorists acting with evil intent, and offered descriptions of the circumstances that contrasted radically with video evidence that captured the incidents from a wide variety of angles.

The pattern is one of both disingenuity and duplicity — claiming every immigration enforcement action is lawful, whose objectives are public safety and punishment of criminals, and decrying lack of cooperation by local law enforcement; all while neither maintaining nor sharing databases of activity and detentions with local law enforcement, while themselves violating laws as well as norms of human decency in pursuit of political retribution.

And now President Donald Trump has dispatched his border czar Tom Homan in an attempt to bring the situation under control. In an interview by Tony Dokoupil of CBS News a day or two after the Good shooting, Homan essentially threw Noem under the bus, emphasizing that he would make no comments or judgments about the shooting until all the evidence was evaluated and a formal investigation was completed. For a few moments I let myself hope that Homan had discovered a conscience. To Dokoupil’s credit, he pressed the question, asking if Homan — in his 20-plus years of experience — could remember a situation where he concluded, once an investigation was complete, that an officer had used excessive force. Homan said never. Dokoupil responded by saying that he imagined many viewers — and even he himself — had to be a bit incredulous with Homan’s answer. Homan repeated, never.

I’m still praying and hoping for a solution that turns this situation around. But if all Homan represents is the removal of hapless Greg Bovino or a more “objective” voice than that of Kristi Noem — and arrives with a mandate to sell Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “three-point solution” — I am not optimistic.