Oklahoma’s Governor Kevin Stitt took a strong stance Sunday against the Trump administration’s ICE activities in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following the shooting death of VA nurse Alex Pretti.
“We have to stop politicizing this,” the Republican insisted to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
“Well, first off, this is a real tragedy. And I think the death of Americans, what we’re seeing on TV, it’s causing deep concerns over federal tactics and accountability. Americans don’t like what they’re seeing right now,” Stitt began. “But I want to step back for just a second, because President Trump was elected to fix immigration issues. And there was broad agreement that we had to close the border.”
He continued: “So the Biden era of four years of open border policies was disastrous. So, broad agreement, President Trump closed the border, promised to get violent criminals out of our country. And I think everybody agrees with that. But now Americans are asking themselves, ‘What is the endgame? What is the solution?’ And we believe in federalism and state rights. And nobody likes feds coming into their state.”
“And so what’s the goal right now? Is it to deport every single non-U.S. citizen? he asked. “I don’t think that’s what Americans want. We have to stop politicizing this. We need real solutions on immigration reform.”
When asked if ICE should be pulled out of Minnesota, Stitt insisted that only Trump can decide that.
“The president needs to let the American people … what is the solution? How do we bring this to conclusion?” he said. “And I think only the president can answer that question, because it’s complicated. We have to enforce federal laws, but we need to know, what is the endgame?”
“And I don’t think it’s to deport every single non-U.S. citizen. I think we need employers and employees… if you’re not on welfare or government assistance or Medicaid, we need to allow an employer to match up with that work force,” Stitt added.
In the hours that followed Pretti’s death, Trump took to Truth Social to insist that news of the shooting death was a “cover up” for “the billions of dollars that have been stolen” from Minnesota.
The Trump administration justified the deployment of ICE agents to Minnesota in response to what they have described as “massive fraud empires” throughout the state. In September 2022, then Attorney General Merrick Garland announced 47 people were indicted for allegedly defrauding $250 million from a state-run child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A large portion of those indicted worked for the nonprofit Feeding the Future. The founder, Aimee Bock, is a white American, but many of her employees and co-defendants are Somali-Americans. The Trump administration has since attempted to tie the alleged fraud to the larger immigrant community in Minnesota.
Abdimajid Mohamed Nur was sentenced to 120 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the fraud scheme. Trump has since deployed more than 2,000 ICE agents to Minnesota.
