by Donald Eng CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — State elected officials and advocates agree that the killing of Alex Pretti, a Minnesota man shot and killed by federal Border Patrol agents Saturday, was a tragedy. Beyond that, though, reactions spit along ideological lines.
Democratic leaders, particularly those in the state Senate, condemned the killing as another dangerous escalation in federal tactics and authoritarian power.
“No immigration enforcement operation should end in death, nevermind a cold-blooded murder like the initial video indicates,” wrote Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-New Haven. “This is not who we are as a nation.”
Looney and Duff called on state Republicans to join them in condemning the killing.
“Now is the time for all elected officials, regardless of party, to stand together against the dangerous buildup of secret police and militarization of immigration enforcement and to speak with moral clarity against federal overreach that costs innocent lives,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, based on past experience, we expect our Republican colleagues will once again remain silent on this clear abuse of power, or worse, attempt to deflect attention to entirely unrelated matters rather than confronting what is plainly wrong.”
In response, Senate and House Republican leaders Stephen Harding of Brookfield and Vincent Candelora of North Branford issued a statement calling for a fair and thorough investigation.
“Get answers. Accountability will follow,” they wrote. “In the meantime, we must lower the temperature. The amped up rhetoric, the violence and the political potshots must end.”
The two added the party continued to support legal immigration, law enforcement and victims of violent crime.
“We continue to condemn political violence in all its forms,” they wrote.
Others also weighed in on the killing, with the state’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus saying the killing demands more than excuses or deflection.
“What occurred reflects a deeper failure: a lack of empathy and an absence of real accountability. Generations before us fought for the right to organize, to protest peacefully, and to speak out in defense of others. Those rights must not come with a death sentence,” according to a statement.
“When federal agents are allowed to kill citizens who are exercising their voices in protest of violence and brutality, we move dangerously close to autocracy. It sends a chilling message that the government may arbitrarily decide who lives and who dies. That is not order — it is chaos, and it is unacceptable.”
A coalition of immigration organizations including CT Students for a Dream, Danbury Unites for Immigrants, New Haven Immigrants Coalition and more pointed out that ICE has shot three people in Minnesota and that six people have died in ICE custody this month.
“Violent, untrained, masked agents patrolling our neighborhoods, kidnapping, hurting, and killing our neighbors makes no one safer,” they wrote. “The brutality we are witnessing is intentional – to push us into fear and silence. But the people are refusing to stay silent. Across the country and here in Connecticut, neighbors are coming together to protect neighbors. Because community and organization is what will protect us.”
The group called on Connecticut’s elected officials to regulate private companies’ ability to capture personal information and to ensure that the state’s National Guard was not used for immigration enforcement and for the state’s U.S. senators to vote no on additional funding for ICE.