Republican senators could end Trump's reign of terror

If you’re outraged by ICE and the deaths it caused in Minnesota, write a couple of letters this weekend. Here's the address.

“’Tis expressly against the law of arms. ‘Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offert, in your conscience now, is it not?” — Fluellen, “Henry V”

Shots to the back of a disarmed man, and 10 shots altogether.

That’s what happened in Minneapolis on Saturday morning as ICE agents dispatched to that city by the Trump regime brutalized and killed a citizen named Alex Pretti.

Shots to the back, 10 shots altogether.

From the Times:

The man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was an intensive-care nurse described by the Minneapolis police chief as a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Federal officials said he was armed, but there is no sign in videos analyzed by The New York Times that he pulled his weapon, or that agents even knew he had one until he was already pinned on the sidewalk.

There are by now hundreds of Instagram or TikTok videos of ICE agents being nasty, arrogant and cruel. Some people, when they see such videos, declare them fake or staged. I suspect that most of those people are Trump supporters. Or they could simply be Americans who refuse to believe we are living in a police-state.

But Saturday’s videos from Minneapolis, showing ICE agents murdering Alex Pretti, are undeniably real; neither Trump trolls nor naive non-believers get to declare them fake.

Shots to the back of a disarmed man, 10 shots altogether.

Think about that.

Americans killing an American, and for what reason?

It’s impossible to believe what the Trump regime says, and not because the regime’s hasty account of the Pretti shooting contradicts what we see in the video. It’s because Trump and everyone in his cabinet have no credibility; they have lied about everything, starting with the purpose of ICE’s presence in Minneapolis and other American communities.

It should be clear to everyone — including Republicans in Congress — that the regime has unleashed a masked police force to terrorize citizens in diverse communities that are rich with immigrants and Democrats who did not support Trump in the last three elections. It should be equally clear that many of the ICE agents are undertrained and overly aggressive. For all we know, the Department of Homeland Security, in its haste to ramp up Stephen Miller’s racist immigrant purge, enlisted men with histories of criminality or mental illness.

Shots to the back of a disarmed man, 10 shots altogether.

I have little hope that this will happen, but I will make the appeal anyway. It needs to be stated:

Republicans need to join the outrage over ICE’s unnecessary presence and aggression in Minneapolis. Senators— any who still retain a conscience — need to go to the West Wing and tell Trump to fire Stephen Miller and rein in ICE agents and others participating in this reign of terror. If he doesn’t do that, then they should warn him of another impeachment.

It takes 67 senators to convict a president in an impeachment trial. In Trump’s second impeachment, 57 senators (48 Democrats, two Independents and seven Republicans) voted to convict. There are three fewer Democrats in the current Senate, so more Republicans — at least 20 of them — would be needed to convict Trump.

I know, I know: It’s hard to imagine that there are 20 people of conscience left in the Republican caucus. The regime inflicted all sorts of damage and pain in 2025, and Republicans went along with all of it.

But this time, just 20 of them need to stand up to end the violence being inflicted on our fellow Americans. Twenty Republican senators calling for Miller’s removal and ICE’s retreat would send a message to Trump: We can’t guarantee protection this time, especially after the mid-terms.

If you’re sitting through the storm this weekend, wondering what you can do about this horrible situation, write a couple of letters. I know: It’s old school. But, if a few million Americans flooded Senate mailboxes, it could be effective.

Click on this link for a list of Republican senators from each state. And here’s some prose you can use:

Dear Senator ______:

Please use your influence to convince President Trump to pull ICE and Border Patrol officers out of Minneapolis and fire his advisor Stephen Miller. The aggressive and deadly tactics used by ICE are un-American and make Minneapolis and other communities less safe. The government in the past always managed to deport people who did not belong here without turning our country into a brutal police-state. Please join other Republican senators in telling President Trump to stop the reign of terror against our fellow Americans and law-abiding immigrants.

Here’s the simplest way to address the letter:

Sen. (Name)

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

The current cost of a First-Class Forever stamp is 78 cents.

Here is a list of Senators who might be amenable to this appeal — not because they openly oppose Trump but because they are not as vulnerable as other senators or might still have a conscience:

John Thune (South Dakota)

John Boozman (Arkansas)

Tim Sheehy (Montana)

Bernie Moreno (Ohio)

Dave McCormick (Pennsylvania)

Jim Justice (West Virginia)

John Curtis (Utah)

Jim Banks (Indiana)

John Hoeven (North Dakota)

Katie Boyd Britt (Alabama)

Ted Budd (North Carolina)

John Kennedy (Louisiana)

James Lankford (Oklahoma)

Eric Schmitt (Missouri)

Bill Cassidy (Louisiana)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Susan Collins (Maine)

Thom Tillis (North Carolina)

Jerry Moran (Kansas)

Rand Paul (Kentucky)