Fetterman Calls for End of the ICE Operation in Minneapolis After His Wife, a Former Illegal Immigrant, Speaks Out Against ‘Terror’

Senator John Fetterman, who has consistently supported Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is now calling for the immediate end to the ICE operation in Minneapolis.Mr. Fetterman released a statement on X Monday afternoon saying Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot this weekend, and Renee Good, who was killed earlier in the month, should still be alive. “My family grieves for their’s.”Mr. Fetterman’s wife — who entered America illegally as a child — is criticizing the killing as un-American.“For more than a decade, I lived undocumented in the US. Every day carried the same uncertainty and fear lived in my body — a tight chest, shallow breaths, racing heart,” Gisele Barreto Fetterman reportedly posted in a protected message on her X account on Sunday and shared by screenshot.“What I thought was my private chronic dread has now become a shared national wound,” Ms. Fetterman continued in the post. “This now-daily violence is not “law and order.” It is terror inflicted on people who contribute, love, and build their lives here.”Ms. Fetterman’s message ended, “It’s devastatingly cruel and unAmerican.”Ms. Fetterman was born at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and her mother took her and her younger brother to New York City illegally when she was seven. Mr. Fetterman highlighted her story on his campaign website, noting that after 15 years of “living in the shadows” she received a green card in 2004 and became a United States citizen in 2009.A vocal supporter of ICE, Mr. Fetterman has broken with many in the Democratic Party over its enforcement efforts. After the shooting of Good earlier in January, he defended ICE and its mission.Mr. Fetterman said, in Monday’s statement, that he will vote to continue funding the agency. “I reject the calls to defund or abolish ICE,” Mr. Fetterman said. “I strongly disagree with many strategies and practices ICE deployed in Minneapolis, and believe that must change.”Mr. Fetterman is reportedly the last Democratic senator to release a statement after Pretti’s killing.Congressman Brendan Boyle earlier called Mr. Fetterman an “embarrassment” for not speaking out about Pretti’s killing.“How bad is this? Even our state’s Republican senator has released a statement on Pretti’s killing,” Mr. Boyle said in an X post. “Fetterman continues to be an embarrassment to PA.”Mr. Fetterman won his seat in 2022 despite suffering a stroke during the Democratic primary. He defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz, now the head of President Trump’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, even though at the time of the election, he limited campaigning and his speech was slurred. Since entering the Senate in 2023, Mr. Fetterman has often been a thorn in the side of his own party. He repeatedly cast votes in favor of a Republican funding bill during last year’s partial government shutdown.Progressive Democrats are seeking to primary Mr. Fetterman when he is up for reelection in 2028, claiming he has sided with Republicans in the Senate too often and “consistently skips votes and Senate work.”

Fetterman Calls for End of the ICE Operation in Minneapolis After His Wife, a Former Illegal Immigrant, Speaks Out Against ‘Terror’

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