By Michael McGough | The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom and other prominent California Democrats called for an end to the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents in U.S. cities after an immigration officer fatally shot a man Saturday morning in Minneapolis.
The elected officials also condemned the Trump administration for enforcement actions they say have escalated tensions in Minneapolis, where federal law enforcement and protesters have clashed for more than two weeks following the deadly shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration officer.
The Minneapolis man killed Saturday was Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, The New York Times reported. He worked as an intensive-care nurse.
Pretti’s shooting comes amid national and local furor about federal immigration enforcement actions by ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. Sacramento City Council members are considering whether to ban immigration enforcement on city-owned properties. ICE watchdog groups are advising California residents about steps they can take should they see questionable behavior by federal agents. Statewide, the number of deportations increased through the first three quarters of last year, The Sacramento Bee reported earlier this month.
Newsom put blame for the latest immigration-related shooting squarely on President Donald Trump, writing on X that “Trump made a shooting happen.”
“Yesterday, hundreds of thousands filled the streets of Minnesota—marching in subzero temperatures in a PEACEFUL protest,” Newsom wrote in the social media post. “Not the excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act the President wanted. So today, Trump made a shooting happen. The President must end his violent occupation of Minnesota. NOW.”
Newsom was expected to attend Saturday afternoon’s public memorial service in Chico for Doug LaMalfa, the Republican congressman who long represented rural Northern California and who died in early January.
The governor followed up his initial post by sharing a web link urging Californians to “report any abuse by ICE/CBP” to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, with Newsom adding: “Trump is taking his violent playbook nationwide, searching for any excuse to deploy federal force.”
ICE carried out raids in Los Angeles this past June, and federal authorities went on to deploy hundreds of California National Guard members to quell what the Trump administration characterized as violent protests against federal agents. Newsom sued over the deployment, and a federal appeals court on Dec. 31 ruled in his favor, temporarily halting the Trump administration from deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles.
“This has to stop,” Sen. Adam Schiff said in a post to X following Saturday’s shooting. “Another person shot and killed. Another senseless loss of life. We need ICE agents out of our cities. Right now.”
Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla earlier in the week toured an ICE detention facility in California City, where Padilla said detainees’ stories “were devastating” and conditions, including access to medical care, inadequate.
“Horrified by the news of yet another deadly shooting by a federal agent in Minneapolis today,” Padilla wrote Saturday on X. “This is not making our communities any safer and only escalates tensions further. Trump needs to get his immigration enforcement agents out of our communities NOW.”
Trump, in a post to his Truth Social platform, blamed the shooting on local and state law enforcement, alleging they were not present and that “ICE had to protect themselves.”
Trump defended the large presence of federal agents in Minneapolis as necessary to combat what he referred to as “massive Monetary Fraud, with Billions of Dollars missing, and Illegal Criminals that were allowed to infiltrate the State through the Democrats’ Open Border Policy,” he continued, in part.
U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, whose 7th Congressional District includes Sacramento, in a post to X called Saturday’s shooting “horrifying.”
“As we learn more about what happened, one thing remains abundantly clear: get ICE out of our communities,” Matsui’s statement continued, in part. “Their escalation and recklessness must end.”
Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat whose Congressional district spans much of Sacramento County, in a statement posted to X called federal immigration agents’ actions “aggressive, lawless, and out of control.”
“It is putting lives at risk, undermining public trust, and making it harder for local law enforcement to do their jobs,” Bera continued. “The current trajectory we are on is unsustainable and makes all of us less safe. That is why I voted against the Homeland Security funding bill this week. We cannot allow this to continue.”
The bill mentioned by Bera, passed through the House of Representatives on Thursday, provides funds for agencies including ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection through the end of September.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a top California gubernatorial candidate in 2026, also reacted to Saturday’s shooting. He called for the defunding of ICE.
“Bodies are piling up,” Swalwell, D-Dublin, wrote in a social media post that also shared a bystander video from the Minneapolis shooting. “How many innocent people will these masked thugs murder? We have to crush ICE’s budget.”
Another candidate for governor, Tony Thurmond, in a video statement posted Saturday said: “We need to abolish ICE.”
“Arresting a five year old? Murdering American citizens? Homicides in ICE detention centers? And family separation?” said Thurmond, the California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “It makes me sick to my stomach to see what Donald Trump’s personal military force is doing to this country … This is not who we are. And I won’t accept it.”
Thurmond said that, if elected, he would instruct the California Highway Patrol to arrest ICE officers who break the law.
©2026 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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