The video is one minute long. She says a little and a lot at the same time. It shows Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, approaching an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicle a few days before his death. He screams, gesticulates, spits, then kicks the taillight of the unmarked Ford Explorer of the federal immigration police which comes loose and ends up hanging on the bodywork. Officers immediately came out and pinned him to the ground in front of panicked witnesses. The images, authenticated by facial recognition, delighted the American left. Who sees this as obvious: ICE was “tracking” Pretti, an anti-Maga activist. Above all, they show that a man had deliberately sought confrontation with federal agents. The same Alex Pretti would be shot dead eleven days later during a new confrontation with ICE on a street in Minneapolis. Died instantly. The rest takes place in a city frozen by the cold.
Under the influence of a polar vortex, Minneapolis looks like a Siberian city. Blocks of hard snow clutter the sidewalks, forcing residents to take small steps, studded soles on their feet. Despite the cold, the city lives to the rhythm of demonstrations. In this Midwest numbed by frost, in Minneapolis, once the world capital of flour milling, the liberal press, arriving from the coasts in fur-lined boots and big down jackets, is licking its lips. She holds her anti-Trump insurrection and a martyr who had a good face. The American ultra-left has also changed its cast. After Renee Good, mother, also 37 years old, killed on January 7 in Minneapolis during an ICE operation, here is Alex Pretti, the nurse with a big heart. No more raised fists, black hoods of Black Lives Matter of 2020! Make way for ordinary trajectories.
Minneapolis is, however, only a fragment of America that cannot sum up the country. The city of George Floyd, which since 2020 has become a national laboratory of distrust towards the police and the federal state, is a singular metropolis, marked by the settlement of around a hundred thousand Somali immigrants over the last three decades, welcomed with open arms by Lutherans, descendants of Scandinavians, who preach tolerance and openness. A socially flammable terrain long before Donald Trump’s return to the White House. However, using Minneapolis as a thermometer for the United States is like measuring a fever in the heart of an inferno.
The shift in opinion
Because the national data tells something different. Trump was re-elected in 2024 first on a promise: to regain control of the borders. During the campaign, immigration was one of the top concerns of Americans, along with the economy and inflation. According to Gallup, 55% of voters said before the election that they wanted to reduce immigration. A historically high level, comparable to the peaks of the post-September 11 era. Post-election polls were even clearer: migration control was the issue on which voters said they were most confident in Trump’s ability to “get results”.
In this area, Trump has achieved results. According to data from the Deportation Data Project, a university collective (very left-wing) which compiles official figures from the federal administration, arrests carried out by ICE inside the territory have increased fourfold compared to the end of the Biden mandate. At the same time, the fight system has become more dense. Detention capacities have been expanded, with the opening of centers in Texas, Arizona and Florida. Releases from custody after arrest have collapsed, falling to less than 15 percent, compared to nearly 60 percent under the previous administration.
Trump wants to make Minneapolis an accident
Certainly, opinion has evolved. Gallup observes that the share of Americans wishing to reduce immigration has fallen to around 30%, while support for legal immigration is increasing. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs even notes a record level of support for regular immigration, with 68% favorable opinions. But this inflection does not mean a rejection of firmness. It reflects a more complex expectation than the usual Manichaeism: reinforced control at the border, yes. Sorting assumed between legal and illegal, yes. But wary of interventions deemed too brutal.
Contrary to the cliché about Trump, stubbornness is not his trademark when the issue escapes him. Very quickly, the Republican understood that the Minneapolis sequence could become political poison, not because it contradicted the majority’s support for migratory firmness, but because it showed an image of brutality which could mobilize independents, vital for the November midterms.
On the spot, he made a tactical adjustment. The head of operations in Minnesota, Gregory Bovino, with his tough-guy face, is no longer the media face of the deployment. He was removed from his command duties in Minneapolis and sent back to the southern border, as area post chief in El Centro, California. Asked about the crisis, Trump confirmed to Wall Street Journal that his administration was investigating: “We are looking at the situation very closely. We review everything and we will make a decision. » Trump knows that in a democracy saturated with live images, the manner matters as much as the objective. Faced with escalating criticism, he sent his very popular “border czar,” Tom Homan, to Minnesota to take over coordination of operations on the ground.
An increasingly polarized debate
Behind the Republican scenes, the debate over the direction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has intensified. Kristi Noem’s name comes up with as much insistence as her face, omnipresent on American TV, in adverts praising the president’s migration policy, between two advertisements for miracle drugs to relieve prostate problems. A change at the top of DHS, while preserving the agenda, would prevent each operation from turning into a national crisis. Trump wants to make Minneapolis an accident – a tragedy – in a strategy that is otherwise working.
Recent events have especially weakened the image of ICE, more than migration policy itself. A YouGov poll carried out after the shooting shows an opinion shocked by the images: 54% of Americans judge the shootings “not justified”and, unprecedented, 43% say they are in favor of abolishing ICE, compared to 39% opposed. However, the partisan gap is not closing. 79% of Republicans reject any abolition, while 77% of Democrats are in favor. And nearly one in two Americans – 48% precisely – continue to consider that Trump has “improved” migration security since his return to power. In other words, the country is becoming even more polarized but is not changing its mind.
The focus on Minneapolis also masks a cruelly embarrassing local context for Democrats. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate in 2024 alongside Kamala Harris, announced that he would not seek another term. Officially for “devote yourself to your family”. Unofficially because his state is rocked by one of the largest welfare fraud scandals of the decade. Massive embezzlement of federal funds intended for food aid, public health insurance Medicaid, community services: several hundred million dollars evaporated and dozens of indictments pending. A significant portion of these frauds involve networks linked to the Somali community in Minneapolis. But the demonstrators who burn barricades against ICE never talk about this. Too embarrassing. Too real.
