(Minneapolis) Thousands of demonstrators march in the streets of Minneapolis on Friday to denounce the immigration police raids and the policies of the Trump administration, which arrested a former CNN anchor for his coverage of the events.
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The death of two American demonstrators since the beginning of January under the bullets of federal agents in this northern city has sparked a wave of indignation across the United States.
One of them, Alex Pretti, shot ten times by border police agents (CPB) on January 24, was described on Friday as an “agitator” by Donald Trump, who continues to blow hot and cold on the protest movement against his desire to massively expel undocumented immigrants.
Despite a still massive deployment of federal agents supposed to embody this turn of the screw, thousands of demonstrators still took to the streets on Friday under signs hostile both to Donald Trump himself and to his federal immigration police, ICE, which is crystallizing tensions.
“I live here (…) and I don’t think our government should terrorize us like this,” Sushma Santhana, a 24-year-old engineer, told AFP.
“Putin would be proud”
Two American journalists were arrested in connection with the recent demonstrations, said Attorney General Pam Bondi, who congratulated herself on X for having herself led the arrest of a former CNN presenter, Don Lemon.
This former television figure was arrested for covering a demonstration in a Minnesota church and finds himself being prosecuted for obstructing freedom of worship, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
In total, three people were arrested, including an independent journalist and a former Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned a “blatant attack” on the press.
Sarcastic and bitter, the Democratic governor of California Gavin Newsom, a virulent critic of the Trump administration, estimated on X that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would be proud”.
“Insurgents”
The US Department of Justice on Friday mentioned the opening of a new investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, this time concerning the violation of his fundamental rights, while emphasizing that this is a “standard” procedure.
“We are looking at everything that could shed light on what happened that day,” the department’s number two, Todd Blanche, explained to the press, adding that this investigation and the one already underway on the use of their weapons by federal agents would be carried out in parallel.
SCREENSHOT OF DONALD TRUTH’S TRUTH SOCIAL ACCOUNT
After speaking in recent days about “de-escalation” and mentioning a reduction in the number of masked agents who carry out raids in Minneapolis, Donald Trump on Friday relaunched virulent criticism of the demonstrators: “insurgents”, “agitators” and “troublemakers financed” by “professionals” of the rebellion, according to him.
“I’m not paid to be there,” mocked protester Sushma Santhana. “I don’t know anyone who would get paid. We are here because we love our community, our neighbors and because we don’t want anyone to be treated like this,” she added.
“He deserved to die?” »
On his Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump also scratched Alex Pretti, whose “demonstration of violence” he castigated in a video that went viral, in which we see the nurse, eleven days before his death, rebelling during an arrest by federal police officers.
PHOTO ROBERTO SCHMIDT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
People gather in front of the makeshift memorial to Alex Pretti, at the same spot where he was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 29, 2026.
AFP was not immediately able to verify these images.
“The guy kicked the headlight of a car. Does that mean he deserved to die? “, said Pedro Wolcott, owner of a sandwich shop in Minneapolis.
In the first public reaction from a senior European Union official, Teresa Ribera, vice-president of the European Commission, deplored “indiscriminate violence” on Friday.
Before Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old mother, Renee Good, was killed on January 7 by an ICE agent.
The subject is tense all the way to Washington, where Democrats refuse to adopt a budget for the Department of Homeland Security without reforms to ICE.
And opponents of this policy also continue to mobilize across the United States, such as in Los Angeles, where around a thousand people demonstrated on Friday.
