Even after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Good earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her closest allies in carrying out President Donald Trump's cruel purge of immigrants seemed untouchable. Good's death only prompted a mediocre package of reforms to be included in the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the year, none of which would truly restrain federal officers from carrying out mass deportation efforts.
But Alex Pretti's death occurred just one week before the Senate's deadline to pass that bill.
The Trump administration is now on its back foot, and even Republican lawmakers have raised questions about whether Pretti really deserved to die. The swiftly shifting political headwinds have left Democratic lawmakers, who had seemed sure to begrudgingly fund DHS later this week, looking to press their advantage. Given the stakes, and what is likely to be a brief window for action, there's little room for error or delay to prevent the rot within DHS from metastasizing further.
And while an understandable target, an undue focus on Noem would be an ironic shadow of the conservative ethos, looking to solve problems at the individual level rather than taking on the system.
This is a preview of Hayes Brown's latest column. Read the full column here.
