Minneapolis ICE Shootings Compel Libertarians To Sound Alarm of ‘Technocratic Police State’

The 9mm semiautomatic handgun that an intensive care nurse, Alex Pretti, had holstered in his waistband while filming federal immigration officers, shortly before one of the officers shot and killed him, was legally and constitutionally allowed. Mr. Pretti, 37, held a valid concealed-carry permit.That fact, combined with the video footage of Pretti’s death and the comments from key Trump Administration officials suggesting Pretti had put himself in danger by carrying a weapon to a protest, has galvanized prominent libertarian voices into action.Speaking with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, asserted that Mr. Peretti was “threatening law enforcement” by having a firearm on his person. “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines. That is not a peaceful protest,” Mr. Patel told Ms. Bartiromo.“And how was he using that handgun in terms of threatening Border Patrol? What was the threat?” Ms. Bartiromo asked in a rare display of pushback.Amateur video showed the final confrontation between immigration officers and Alex Pretti. XSome leading civil libertarian voices, who believe strongly in individual liberties and minimal government interference, were quick to point out that Pretti — who was known for caring assiduously for hospitalized military veterans — had a legal and constitutional right to carry a handgun. The Libertarian Party reposted Mr. Patel’s claim on its X account with a simple caption: “The 2nd Amendment was written in anticipation of this exact moment.”Also responding to Mr. Patel’s comments, the Libertarian Party of Texas accused the FBI director of “lying.”“Just as he lied to Congress about the Epstein files, he’s misrepresenting the law and the Constitution now,” the Libertarian Party of Texas said in a post on X on Monday. Armed protesters, let alone an armed citizen, stand on “equal footing with law enforcement. Not above them — equal,” the Libertarian Party of Texas said in its post on X. “And there is nothing more American than rejecting a ruling class that insists only it should be armed.”Indeed, the tragedy that unfolded in Minneapolis last weekend has since unified Libertarian figures into a coordinated backlash against ICE and federal overreach. And it’s put Libertarians in an unlikely alliance with the far-left activists who have been clashing with ICE and border patrol officers on the streets of the Twin Cities.“Abolish ICE. Reform the broken immigration system. Do not give the police state an inch,” The Libertarian National Committee chairman, Steve Nekhaila, wrote on X on Saturday. The Libertarian Party, at its core, is not anti-immigration. It maintains that a truly free market requires the free movement of people, including peaceful immigrants. The party views the immigration system in its current form as “an embarrassment” and calls to make all legal channels to be made “fair, reasonable, and accessible.” Federal agents try to clear demonstrators at Minneapolis protesting in response to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city. AP/Adam Gray“Of course, if someone has a record of violence, credible plans for violence, or acts violently, then Libertarians support blocking their entry, deporting, and/or prosecuting and imprisoning them, depending on the offense,” the Libertarian Party says on its website.But a former Libertarian Party chair, Angela McArdle, struck a sharply different tone, warning in a post on X that mass migration presented a “civilizational” threat.“Canada is LOST. England is LOST. Ireland, Scotland, Germany and France are LOST. It sucks that ICE shoots people sometimes. If we don’t deport illegal aliens and stop Democrat fraud, we will be Canada in less than 10 years,” Ms. McArdle added. Operational Metro SurgeIn December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge, which ICE acting director Todd Lyons called “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever,” deploying thousands of federal officers into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The operation was seen as a response by Washington aimed at the state’s Democratic leadership amid reports of alleged widespread welfare fraud by members of Minnesota’s Somali community. In May 2025, Mr. Lyons, by way of an internal memorandum, permitted ICE agents “to forcibly enter into certain people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency.”“This is an assertion by fiat, not a principle recognized by the Constitution, statute, or the courts,” Mr. Nekhaila wrote. “The Fourth Amendment does not bend to agency memos.”Senator Paul on Capitol Hill, March 6, 2025. AP/Jose Luis Magana, fileThen came the January 7 fatal ICE-involved shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, whom key Trump administration officials said, within hours after her death, had provoked the shooting by ramming her car into an ICE officer, Jonathan Ross.DHS officials and the vice president, J.D. Vance, maintain that Ms. Good was trying to run over the federal officer, who fired four times in self-defense. Local officials have demanded, so far in vain, that they be included in any investigation.Instead, many state officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have been served with federal subpoenas by the Justice Department as part of an investigation into whether they were illegally impeding federal law enforcement. Good’s death — and Mr. Vance’s January 8 assertion that Mr. Ross was “protected by absolute immunity” — amounted to a “wanton disregard” for constitutional rights, the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin said. For libertarians, Operation Metro Surge was a portent of the “technocratic police state” — all at that great expense of every American’s First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth.“Many advocates of constitutional liberty have begun pushing back against ICE and Border Patrol’s incursions on the Bill of Rights,” a Cato Institute Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies senior fellow, Walter Olson, wrote on Saturday. “More should join them,” he added. Thus far, plenty have. Responding on X to a claim from First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, that there is a “high likelihood” that law enforcement will be legally justified in shooting someone who approaches them with a gun, Representative Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky who is despised by Mr. Trump, corrected him, saying it was “a Constitutionally protected God-given right.”“And if you don’t understand this, you have no business in law enforcement or government,” Mr. Massie added.A poster featuring Renee Good sits along the street near a memorial to Good on January 16, 2026 at Minneapolis. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesA Reason magazine senior editor, Robby Soave, in a recent opinion piece, wrote that the Trump administration’s apparent eagerness to “jettison cherished First and Second Amendment rights” to shield a federal agent from any responsibility for “an improper shooting” should be a call to action to all Republicans like Mr. Massie to stand up for constitutional rights for every American. If other Republicans don’t heed the call to action, “the GOP will cease to be a political party that even pretends to care about free speech and gun rights,” Mr. Soave warned.Also on Monday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chair, Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, sent letters to the heads of ICE, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Customs and Border Protection requesting they appear for a February 12 open hearing. “As you know, the Department of Homeland Security has been provided an exceptional amount of funding to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws,” Mr. Rand wrote in his letters to Mr. Lyons, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott. “Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight of those tax dollars and ensure the funding is used to accomplish the mission, provide proper support, and, most importantly, protect the American people,” Mr. Paul added. That same day, Mr. Paul — who in the past has frequently quoted former Supreme Court associate justice Louis Brandeis in calling the Fourth Amendment and the right to privacy “the most cherished of rights” — questioned in a post on X Congress’s decision to add $10 billion in spending for ICE in 2026.“But Congress already locked in nearly $19B a year for four years. Even if this fails, ICE will still have about 87% more funding than last year,” Mr. Paul added.A candlelight vigil for Alex Pretti after he was shot and killed earlier in the day on January 24, 2026, at Minneapolis, Minnesota. Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesThe fallout from Mr. Pretti’s death has forced the Trump Administration into taking steps it appeared unwilling to consider just a week ago.A controversial Border Patrol senior official, Greg Bovino, who claimed that Mr. Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” is expected to leave Minneapolis, along with some agents, as early as Tuesday, according to multiple reports. The White House border czar, Tom Homan, was sent by Mr. Trump to Minnesota to serve as “the main point of contact on the ground in Minneapolis,” according to the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Also on Monday, Minneapolis Mr. Frey, who was snubbed by Mr. Vance during his meeting with federal officers and local business leaders in the city last Thursday, confirmed that he had spoken with Mr. Trump over the phone and called for Operation Metro Surge to end.“The president agreed the present situation can’t continue,” Mr. Frey said on X. “Lots of progress is being made!” Mr. Trump said of the conversation on social media.

Minneapolis ICE Shootings Compel Libertarians To Sound Alarm of ‘Technocratic Police State’

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