Reno 911!<\/em>) than a Gestapo on the march. Yes, they agree that Washington is a huge problem and are uncomfortable with the mission creep that is taking them away from actual immigration enforcement. But internally? Theirs is also a story of gung-ho 19-year-olds, drunken stakeouts, and senior officers disappearing into meetings and all of a sudden needing time off.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThey are also frustrated with the narrative unfolding and the information war being waged from Washington, including the flamboyant defense of the shooting and other controversial moves on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs much as I support this administration there needs to be more common sense in situations like this, not a knee jerk damage control narrative that does not line up with the evidence on video,\u201d one Border Patrol agent said in a private chat group that was shared with me. \u201cThis individual was shot 8 to 9 times while unarmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t always support what happens just because it\u2019s one of us,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An ICE agent was even more critical. \u201cYet another \u2018justified\u2019 fatal shooting \u2026 ten versus one and somehow they couldn\u2019t find a way to subdue the guy or use a less than lethal [means],\u201d the agent said. \u201cThey all carry belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, as someone who has been covering this for months, I am struck by how angry homeland security officers are with their own agencies, and their blunt dismissal of the Washington leadership. All of the immigration officers I interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sagging morale and declining standards are a constant theme I picked up, problems that these sources say have been festering long before the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good (and ones that very much contributed to these outcomes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than one ICE agent in particular complained about how Washington\u2019s focus on labeling protestors as \u201cimpeding\u201d federal functions (and thus breaking the law), and the vilification of \u201cAntifa\u201d and others labeled paid agitators, leftists, radicals, extremists, and terrorists is confusing the ranks while also distracting everyone from the immigration enforcement mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can go on and on but overall it\u2019s been a ridiculous experience,\u201d one ICE agent told me. He says that many agents on the ground are just going along with the expanded mission because they are more interested in their away-from-home per diem pay and collecting overtime than whatever the mission is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others express the cynicism typical of everyone who toils at the bottom of any bureaucratic food chain, pooh-poohing rapid expansion of the ICE army and shaking their heads over the ridiculous budget increases being fought for in Washington that will have no impact where they work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe brand new agents are idiots,\u201d an experienced ICE agent assigned to homeland security investigations told me. This same sentiment was echoed by virtually everyone I talked to, with several conveying the view that Pretti\u2019s death was the fault of some skittish young recruit who panicked when he heard the word \u201cgun\u201d (if that\u2019s what happened).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even one of the new ICE recruits agreed with the experienced agent\u2019s low assessment of the Trump freshman class. \u201cA lot of the guys,\u201d he said, referring to the new ICE recruits he worked alongside, \u201care honestly pretty sketchy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new ICE officer continued: \u201cI thought federal agents were supposed to be clean cut but some of them pass around a flask as we are watching a suspect,\u201d observing as well that the new guys \u201chave some weird tattoos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those tattoos, I\u2019m told, are symbolic of the fact that the new recruits tend to be more ideologically motivated than those of the past. This problem is compounded by the fact, raised by several officers, that ICE is relying on volunteers to go to Minneapolis and other Democratic cities on these temporary deployments. This tends to favor new recruits and those who are chasing overtime pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is unclear how these task forces are organized in cities like Minneapolis or indeed \u201cwho\u201d is in charge and in control, but those who I interviewed agree that the tide is turning, that some agencies (like the FBI) are increasingly no shows in the field, and others are expressing a reluctance to participate in non-immigration missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLast I heard,\u201d says one ICE officer, \u201cFBI didn\u2019t want to help us out much anymore, especially in Minneapolis, due to the bad press.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another branch of ICE, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) \u201cis being squeezed heavily [to serve on the streets against protestors],\u201d the officer says, adding that \u201clots of guys [are] totally exhausted out there with a lot of pressure on them\u201d to conduct non-immigration missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the bravado of an uncompromising operation and the absolute support Washington expresses for the shooters, there are signs that the Trump administration is growing worried about the public (and bipartisan) backlash. President Trump today posted an unusually conciliatory statement on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGovernor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota,\u201d the post reads. \u201cIt was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s a very different tone than the one adopted by his homeland security advisor Stephen Miller, who asserted shortly after Pretti\u2019s death that the intensive care nurse (who actually was a federal government employee) was a \u201cdomestic terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked today if Trump agrees with Miller, replied: \u201cI have not heard the President characterize Mr. Pretti in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And tonight, news broke that Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino has been demoted from his role and reportedly plans to retire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are even signs that Congress has also finally decided to get off its ass, perhaps to do something that captures the on-the-ground sentiment and works towards deescalation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a good news\/bad news consequence of a new reluctance on the ground in Minneapolis, one officer told me. The good news is that leadership \u201cis disappearing into urgent legal meetings,\u201d increasingly worried about the possibility that they will oversee similar killings but also absent on the streets as leaders who might encourage deescalation and discourage the gung-ho and the overzealous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Worse though, sources say, homeland security in Washington does its stupid thing of trying to divert criticism of their own behavior by raising the specter of protestors (and others) attacking ICE and Border Patrol in revenge for the Pretti and Renee Good killings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThreat briefings are now focusing on \u2018retaliatory\u2019 threats \u2026 , and now they\u2019re scheduling more with contracted DHS attorneys tomorrow and the next day,\u201d one officer told me this weekend. \u201cI know managers got called into meetings all night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the meetings are held, the ICE agents and others I\u2019ve talked to say the government versus terrorists narrative is having a tangible (and negative) impact on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLots of people are freaking out,\u201d one ICE agent told me. \u201cAgents are getting seriously paranoid, afraid of being targeted by \u2018retaliators.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several agents described receiving briefings about retaliatory threats to ICE inspired by the Minneapolis shooting. \u201cGuys take it really serious, like we are fighting insurgents,\u201d as if Minneapolis is Baghdad, an ICE officer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though all of the federal agents I\u2019ve spoken to this weekend support immigration enforcement, they indeed see the Minneapolis operation as something else entirely \u2014 an open-ended counterinsurgency in a faraway land and under an out-of-touch leadership in Washington more concerned with optics than immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall,\u201d a Border Patrol agent said in the private group chat shared with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He closed on a plaintive note: \u201cI think it\u2019s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFuck this,\u201d a senior ICE officer said about the shooting of Pretti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subscribe if Bovino\u2019s demotion made you smile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wish this was louder for the blind trump supporters and troll bitches saying these murders (and the execution of Alex Pretti Saturday) https:\/\/www.kenklippenstein.com\/p\/ice-unloads ICE Unloads Immigration officers speak out: \u201cFuck this.\u201d Ken Klippenstein Jan 26, 2026 Help me stay on ICE, Border Patrol and the national security state by becoming a paid subscriber! I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-memes","category-news"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ponderance","author_link":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/author\/emptyhope_fldf5w\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"I wish this was louder for the blind trump supporters and troll bitches saying these murders (and the execution of Alex Pretti Saturday) https:\/\/www.kenklippenstein.com\/p\/ice-unloads ICE Unloads Immigration officers speak out: \u201cFuck this.\u201d Ken Klippenstein Jan 26, 2026 Help me stay on ICE, Border Patrol and the national security state by becoming a paid subscriber! I…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emptyhope.com\/finality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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