ICE, Killing, Justice, and Christianity

I'm grieved by much of the news today. We live very much in an "us vs them" culture in the US today. In fact, I pointed out to a person recently that he was behaving in an "us vs them" way, and he just came right out and said, "[T]his absolutely is 'us vs them'." I was shocked. This is supposed to be a Christian working for an apologetics organization at colleges. When you appeal to Christian ethics, and then the Christians tell you your Christian ethics are wrong, what is the world coming to? I was just reading this passage in the Bible today. Keep in mind all that Christ says in the Gospels about being ridiculed, mocked, persecuted, etc., as I cite this verse that talks about the end of times...

Matthew 24:9-10

"“Then they will hand you over to be persecuted, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, betray one another, and hate one another.”"

Keep in mind, this is talking about self-proclaimed Christians. Christ says that Christians will betray and hate one another. I don't know about you, but that should be a wake-up call to us to be very careful about how we treat one another as believers in the Lord. Does this mean that all Christians will hate each other near the time Christ comes back? I do not believe so for a few Biblical reasons. John 13:34-35, 17:21-23, Ephesians 4:11-13, 1 Corinthians 11:18-19 all make it clear that there WILL BE divisions among professing Christians, but, more or less, the true Christians will be unified as Paul says, "[S]o that those who are approved may be recognized among you."

Having said this, I think it may be prudent of me, as someone who lives in the Twin Cities, MN, to speak about the recent killing of Alex Jeffery Pretti in Minneapolis during the protest that Minnesotans were doing against ICE.

Some preliminaries...

First, this man was NOT a radical leftist. He loved his country, though he disagreed with this administration. He has zero criminal record except for a few traffic tickets. He worked as an ICU nurse. Clearly, his intention was not to harm anyone.

Second, anyone saying that ICE has been perfect and has done nothing wrong is on the far side of being loyal to the government, and it is hardly worth dialoguing with these people. ICE has been caught lying red-handed about certain details. Their only retort is, "That's fake news," rather than actually addressing the evidence against them. I'll now give some examples of this...

• Internal emails from 2024 showed ICE agents under the Trump administration exaggerated or made false statements about immigrants' threats, which, these false statements were used to justify the aggressive enforcement policies of ICE.

• DHS lied about the Cato Institute report, saying 70% of arrests were of people who were violent criminals, but the data show it was closer to 30%. Trump's goal, as clearly seen, is to deport all illegals, not just the violent criminals. This is easily verified by statements by Trump saying he wants to do the largest deportation action in the history of America (or the world).

• Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia was detained. ICE agents said he was trying to flee, but video footage shows that he was fully compliant. A blatant lie to cover their tracks.

• There are other issues about ICE lying about the brutality and aggressiveness of ICE officers' tactics.

Having these blatant lies out in the open, which I would encourage you to fact-check, is a symptom of a larger issue. That larger issue is that, while I want justice to be done, and the bad guys not get away with it, it's also a problem when the government turns a blind eye to the brutality of what they are doing and justifies their overly-aggressive actions for the sake of "order."

On to the actual incident...

While I am not an expert, and I have not seen ALL the video footage (And frankly, watching a man get shot to death over and over isn't the first thing I want to do), I think it can reasonably be said that this man did not have to die. Of that, I am sure. ICE agents had the man on the ground. It appears they clear away from him shortly before he is shot several times. There is also a clear image of an ICE agent with the victim's gun some distance away from him before he was shot. Stories are flying around that he might have reached for another gun, but that really makes no sense since people with a concealed carry license legally don't usually carry more than one firearm at a time. Not to mention, there is not a shred of evidence that he even had another gun. There are also images of the victim having nothing in his hands but a cell phone.

Having said that, mistakes happen. Police are often in the moment and have to act very quickly in matters of life and death. That is not what is going on here, as best as I can tell. What is going on here is that ICE took matters into their own hands, didn't at all use the proper amount of force (in fact, one might call it barbaric), and a man was shot and killed because he "got in the way" more than anything else.

What is the Christian response to all of this? Pray for America. Pray for Donald Trump, who has resisted the Gospel at every turn, knowing plenty of people in his inner circle have shared the Gospel with him. Pray for Revival in our country to continue. Pray that Christians can see one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord rather than rivals. Above all, pray for God's will to be done. We are in some dark times, and I don't see any change on the horizon. Christians need to be strong and courageous. They need not be afraid to speak up. Not everyone is like me, and going to talk about these cultural issues. Some of you might be better equipped to simply be a listening ear to people, or to gently weave the Gospel into your everyday conversations. I am not here to tell all Christians they need to get involved in politics. But we all must be using our gifts to benefit the body of Christ—to be His hands and feet. To be his voice. To be salt and light.

Wherever you land on politics, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand. Be vigilant. Be sober-minded. Be discerning. Be shrewd as serpents and harmless as doves.

That's it for this one.

God bless you! Until next time!