More On Alex Pretti

🚨 BBC obtains footage from January 13 of a man they say is Alex Pretti

Videos appears to show him spitting at federal law enforcement and attacking their vehicle
pic.twitter.com/cuXYO6PLIx

— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) January 28, 2026

The X post embedded above shows video footage of the altercation Alex Pretti had with CBP officers the week before he was shot, which reportedly resulted in him breaking a rib. It shows him kicking out the tail light of the CBP van and struggling with the officers. Several scenes in the video appear to show him carrying a firearm in the small of his back, as he did a week later when he was shot. Additional context has emerged this week that suggests he wasn't just a random bystander; he was deliberately dispatched to both scenes by an organized network purposely to disrupt CBP activities.

In yesterday's post, I also speculated that Pretti must have been part of an organized network of agitators with specific job descriptions and responsibilities. Jennifer Van Laar at RedState has summarized X posts by users like Cam Higby and Data republican that go into detail on precisely this subect:

We're learning a lot more about the people who were in the anti-ICE Signal chat groups that independent journalist Cam Higby infiltrated in Minnesota, the organization of the group, its donors, and the significance of the address at which Alex Pretti was obstructing federal officers.

. . . The groups are highly sophisticated. They're set up geographically; within the City of Minneapolis, they're generally divided by City Council district, but also cover St. Paul, Bloomington, and other suburbs. They start a new chat every day and delete the prior day's chat.

She then links to another RedState piece by Ward Clark that summarizes Higby's posts on the groups' training materials:

These training materials and the setup of this online system indicate that someone with some money is behind all this. These materials mention "patrol training" and mention the use of the Signal chat system.

This is precisely the question I've been starting to ask: this costs money. Let's go back to the Van Laar piece to get an idea of how complicated this is:

They have a set of emojis that each user puts around their name [in the Signal chats] when they're on shift, to indicate what position they're working that shift.

She prints a screen shot from a Higby post listing the various positions they work, including mobile patrol, stationary patrol, foot patrol, dispatch, hyper-local group messenger, license plate checker, medic, and aftercare provider. Van Laar links to another RedState piece that goes into more detail on how these functions are coordinated. It turns out that several local politicians, especially state Rep. Brad Tabke, recruit and coordinate the players. Tabke coordinates the Scott County ICE Watch Signal chat; Scott County is outside Minneapolis.

This is a confirmation email from a SignUpGenius ( https://t.co/3GLj420CWa) signup for “Scott County ICE Watch”, and it is very clearly signed by Brad at the bottom:
• He personally thanks me for signing up
• He gives instructions for patrol shifts, Signal app usage, posting… pic.twitter.com/d3FZDXFcuv

— 🇺🇸White Raven🇺🇸 (@White_Raven9515) January 24, 2026

Cam Higby has determined that Alex Pretti was part of one such group and appears to have had a specific role in it:

🚨 ALEX PRETTI IN ON SIGNAL CONSPIRACY?

In the highly organized anti-ICE rapid response signal group “Tom O’Hoch” says “WE suspect an ‘observer’ was shot”

Observers are what they call ICE chasers involved in the signal network dedicated to hunting down agents and harassing,… pic.twitter.com/hTmyJUKXGj

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) January 25, 2026

A Fox News story outlines what appear to have been the specifics of Pretti's dispatch via Signal chat to the scene where he was shot:

At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

"26and 3rd," wrote "Willow," quickly following up with, "Outside Glam Doll."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

After the shootinmg, additional Signal chat posts directed additional protesters to the site. This AP story concedes the existence of secret chat networks but portrays participants simply as public-spirited citizens:

To understand this world, talk to a woman known in the rapid response networks only by her nickname, Sunshine. She asked that her real name not be used, fearing retaliation.

A friendly woman who works in health care, she has spent hundreds of hours in her slightly beat-up Subaru patrolling an immigrant St. Paul enclave of taquerias and Asian grocery stores, watching for signs of federal agents. She can spot an idling SUV from the tiniest hint of exhaust, an out-of-state license plate from a block away, and quickly distinguish an undercover St. Paul police car from an unmarked immigration vehicle.

On the messaging apps, she’s simply Sunshine. She knows the real names of few other people, even after working with some for weeks on end.

She hates what is happening, and feels deeply for people living in fear. She worries the Trump administration wants to push the nation into civil war, and believes she has no choice except to patrol — “commuting” it’s often called, half-jokingly — every day.

So, the story says she "works in health care", but she also patrols every day in her Subaru. This would fit the job description of "mobile patrol" we see above. But someone doing this in a private vehicle would normally be reimbursed for mileage in a regular job. Gas is expensive. The opportunity cost of spending the day on patrol when she might be earning money at a normal job is also significant. And it sounds like many of these people are effectively on call -- this isn't a weekend hobby activity. What's really going on here?

Some of these people are being paid, This looks like serious work, dispatchers, license plate checkers, medics, on call. For instance, it sounds like Pretti was on call and sent to the job site by a dispatcher. it's the only conclusion I can draw. So do they get W-2s, 1099s, or what? Nobody seems to be looking into this.

Questions That Won't Go Away

First Question: Renee Good, the lady who was shot by a federal officer while trying to run him over with her $50,000 Honda SUV, has been characterized in the media as a stay-at-home mom from Kansas City who nevertheless dropped her child off at day care so she could demonstrate against ICE in Minneapolis. Just how did she afford her lifestyle? If she didn't draw an income, what about her partner, Becca? I asked Chrome AI mode, "What did Renée Good's partner do for a living?" It replied,

Becca Good, Renee Good's partner, was a handywoman.

Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the couple moved to Canada for several months before relocating to Minneapolis. During their time in Minneapolis, they were reportedly involved in a local business together, with both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024.

So I asked, "What was the local business in which Renee and Becca Good were both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024?" It replied,

Renee Nicole Macklin Good and her partner, Rebecca "Becca" Brown Good, were both listed as company managers for B. Good Handywork LLC.

The business, which specialized in household repair, maintenance, and interior/exterior upgrade projects, was officially incorporated in early 2024 according to Missouri Secretary of State records. Before relocating to Minneapolis and then briefly to Canada, the couple operated the business from a residential address in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.

But the handywoman business was in Kansas City, not Minneapolis, and in any case, the accounts that descsribe Renee as a stay-at-home mom suggest she wasn't involved in it. It doesn't appear that either Renee or Becca had a visible means of support when they got to Mineeapolis, nor for that matter in Canada. Exactly why they moved to either place is unclear. According to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune,

What brought Good to this city — now the scene of the largest ongoing ICE surge in the country — requires untangling a web of cross-country moves and name changes since growing up in a Christian household in Colorado Springs and twice becoming a military wife. Nearly two decades later, she was in love with Rebecca Good and seeking refuge in Minneapolis.

“I think she just maybe wanted a fresh start, a more open community,” her former sister-in-law Jessica Fletcher told the Star Tribune.

. . . In her only public statement since the killing, Rebecca Good told Minnesota Public Radio they moved to Minnesota “to make a better life for ourselves.

“[T]here was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.”

But none of this answers the basic questions, why did they move to Canada or Minneapolis? How did they afford even to put gas in the Honda Pilot, much less meet the payments and insurance? To make a fresh start just doesn't cut it.

Second Question: From what we know now, Alex Pretti, who was shot by CBP agents while interfering with enforcement activities, was a known figure to CBP prior to the shooting:

Federal immigration officers have been collecting personal information about protesters and agitators in Minneapolis, sources told CNN – and had documented details about Alex Pretti before he was shot to death on Saturday.

It is unclear how Pretti first came to the attention of federal authorities, but sources told CNN that about a week before his death, he suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals.

. . . A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily assigned to the city asked them to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to correspondence reviewed by CNN.

This actually is standard law enforcement practice. Beat cops are expected to know the "frequent fliers" on their beats and provide information to investigators as needed. This is supplemented by field interview records, which document encounters, including date, time, location, name, address, physical description/tattoos, reason for the contact, and vehicle details, even if no arrest is made. It is a key investigative tool.

The fact that Pretti had at least one previous encounter with CBP, which implies that he'd generated field reports, suggests that he was a regular at protests. How did he have time for this -- wasn't he an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital? The answer is that hospital nurses typically work 3/12 shifts, that is, 12-hour shifts, three days per week, or in other words, four days off per week. He had plenty of time to demonstrate. It could even have been a second gig

The question is, was it? The link continues,

“When our law enforcement encounter a violent agitator who is breaking the law, obstructing law enforcement or assaulting them, our law enforcement make records to advance prosecution. This is not ground breaking, it is standard protocol,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

The earlier incident started when he stopped his car after observing ICE agents chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and blowing his whistle, according to a source who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

. . . Earlier this month, a DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned to the state on temporary duty asking them to use a form to input information on protesters and agitators.

The form — titled “intel collection non-arrests” — allows agents to fill in personal information of agitators and protesters who they encounter. It’s not clear whether other agencies in Minnesota are also using the form.

. . . Pretti’s name was known to federal agents, according to a source – though it’s unclear whether the new intake form was used to share his information.

Every indication points to the possibility that Pretti was part of an organized network of "rapid responders" who were trained to interfere in immigration enforcement activities.

The encrypted Signal messages obtained by Fox News Digital in real time show that anti-ICE "rapid responders" were actively tracking, broadcasting and summoning "backup" around federal agents outside Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet Avenue, where the shooting happened.

. . . At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

In both the Renee Good and Alex Pretti cases, evidence points to their membership in a highly organized, specially trained cadre. Are such members paid? How are they recruited? What are their specific responsibilities? How do the organizers make sure they aren't feds?

I ask these sorts of questions for free. There are highly paid people who ought to be asking them, with the resources to follow them up. Why aren't they doing this?

Suddenly, Nothing New Out Of Minnesota

Yesterday, there was basically no news out of Minnesota. As usual, alt media was no better than legacy -- just nothing. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, flew there to meet with Gov Walz last night, but there's been nothing from that meeting. As of Thursday, Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino was in Minneapois making hard line statements, but following Saturday's shooting, and potentially connected with Homan's visit,

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, a White House official and another Trump administration official familiar with the decision told NBC News.

. . . Bovino will be returning to the border in El Centro, California, a senior White House official and an administration official told NBC News. The officials said he is losing his "commander" title and will return to his previous job as Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro. He will not continue overseeing Border Patrol agents making immigration arrests in interior U.S. cities, they said.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X that Bovino "has NOT been relieved of his duties," calling Bovino "a key part of the President's team and a great American."

Whatever the outcome of Homan's meeting with Walz, the result of yesterday's calls with Walz and Frey is a plan:

The plan calls for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democratic leaders to turn over all criminal undocumented immigrants that are currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails to federal authorities. Those with active warrants or known criminal histories would be immediately deported, Leavitt said.

The plan also calls for state and local law enforcement to agree to turn over all undocumented immigrants who are arrested by local police and for local police to assist federal law enforcement in apprehending and detaining undocumented immigrants who are wanted for crimes, especially violent ones, she added.

“If Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey implement these commonsense cooperative measures,” she said, Customs and Border Patrol will not be needed to support ICE agents in Minnesota.

Trump also said Monday that his border "czar," Tom Homan, would travel to Minnesota this week and would take over as the main point of contact on the ground, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The precise substance of the subsequent meetings among Homan, Walz, and Mayor Frey is unclear, but media across the spectrum are having a hard time figuring this all out. I think Don Surber has a view of the situation that meets my surmise, Tim Walz is Caving in on Trump:

In his negotiations, President Trump always carries a big stick. Sometimes the stick is a squad of B-2s loaded with bunker busters. Other times, it is 150 aircraft and special forces carrying a discombobulator that will send your troops home in oversized shoe boxes.

This time, the presidential stick is the Insurrection Act of 1807, signed into law by Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

I've repeatedly referred to a business-school analysis of Trump's negotiating style that stresses he prefers to negotiate with opponents who have no options. The Insurrection Act can be triggered when, among other things, domestic violence hinders law enforcement to the point that people are deprived of constitutional rights, and state authorities cannot or will not protect them. Surber goes on,

Presidents have used this power 30 times. According to Grok, no court has ever successfully blocked or enjoined a president’s invocation of the Insurrection Act before or during its use.

. . . Early this morning, Sarah Fields tweeted with video, “Minnesota State Patrol has now been activated. They could have done this the whole time, but it wasn’t until after the call between Walz and Trump, and the discovery of the Signal groups involving Minnesota government officials, that this happened.”

. . . DC Draino tweeted, “I find it very interesting that Tim Walz called President Trump to work with him on ICE less than 24 hours after all the 5,000+ donors to the anti-ICE domestic terror network were indexed and exposed by Data Republican.”

It's worth pointing out that the agents who shot Alex Pretti were with Customs and Border Protection, not ICE. Greg Bovino was the informal head of CBP and had nothing to do with ICE; in any case, he no longer has that position. Surber continues,

Oh and President Trump will pull out Customs and Border Protection agents from supporting ICE on the ground in Minnesota because Tim Walz agreed to cooperate with ICE.

This appears to be the informal agreement that was reached in Walz's call to Trump and Trump's call to Mayor Frey. Of his call with Trump, Frey said,

“I spoke with President Trump today and appreciated the conversation. I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end[.]”

. . . “The president agreed the present situation can’t continue,” he added.

The mayor also wrote that some federal agents will begin leaving the Twin Cities on Tuesday and he “will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.”

In another report,

Frey added that Minneapolis would cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on "real" criminal investigations, but drew the line at what he described as "unconstitutional arrests."

In other words, the outline of the deal appears to be that Minnesota state and municipal law enforcement will turn over illegal migrants with convictions or warrants to ICE. In return for this, it will not be necesssary for CBP to hunt them down, which had been forced on DHS due to Minnesota and Minneapolis sanctuary policies. As a result, CBP will be able to leave Minnesota, but ICE will remain, although their profile will be lower, since they will be collecting the illegals directly from jails, not off the streets.

Homan is there to "coordinate" (read enforce) the deal and report directly to Trump. Surber thinks Walz is afraid of being fingered for organizing the riots, and he may have been given to understand that the FBI won't pursue this as long as the riots end now. But it's also possible that the Insurrection Act of 1807 is enough of an inducement to Keep Walz and Frey with the program; that Walz would activate both the National Guard and the State Patrol is a sign that he doesn't want to surrender control.

Trump gives Walz and Frey the latitude to claim they've gotten rid of CBP in Minnesota and thus "won", but under the deal, they appear to have agreed to turn over illegals directly from jail, so CBP is no longer needed, and nor is Bovino, who had been in charge.

So the bottom line is that Homan gets something he'd wanted since he's been border czar, that sanctuary policies that forced CBP to hunt down criminal illegals after release from jail end in Minnesota, because it sounds like Minnesota will now begin turning them over to ICE directly from jail. Walz and Frey get to claim a win by making CBP leave the state, but this is only because CBP is no longer needed there due to the agreement. Bovino leaves as well, but largely because CBP leaves. Walz and Frey end the riots in return for Trump not invoking the Insurrection Act, and the whole controversy dies down.

Never underestimate Trump. There's the remaining question of the Democrats threatending a shutdown over DHS funding, but with the main pressure point taken out of the picture, there may be a greater possibility to work this through as well.

This Is Neither Unique Nor New

Vice President Vance's X post saying the Minneapolis case is unique because it involves far-left agitators working with local authorities isn't really on the mark: local auithorities have been complicit in the migrant fraud business model everywhere. For instance, I linked to this reporter's conclusions about the Springfield, OH Haitians in a September, 2024 post here:

My investigation discovered a long rotten beam extending from the Mayor down to NGOs, pastors, corporations, and local mediocrities looking to make a fast buck. Everyone is on the take. And Springfield is not an outlier. It is a standard example of local partnerships with federal and corporate resettlement programs working together to profit themselves.

In this post, I linked to a story that suggests the Springfield police were complicit in not enforcing traffic laws against unlicensed Haitian drivers:

An Ohio police chief says his access to Springfield’s police radio frequency was cut off after the beleaguered city became a political lightening rod over its Haitian immigrant crisis.

. . . [Tremont City Police Chief Chad] Duncan told the Blaze that the immigrants are often not licensed to operate vehicles, but Springfield appears to be protecting them from facing any real consequences for their reckless driving.

“People that shouldn’t be driving, they’re out there and they’re allowing them to drive,” Duncan remarked.

. . . Duncan told Rosas about a recent traffic stop in Tremont City involving a Haitian national going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone.

“He didn’t even have a license,” he said, adding that it was the second time over a two-week period that he pulled the driver over so he had the individual’s car towed.

Duncan told [reporter Julio] Rosas that he didn’t think Springfield police would have towed the vehicle in that instance, and speculated why he thought that was the case.

“If you get two misdemeanors, you are subject to be deported,” he explained.

Police chiefs are normally civil service positions subject to removal by mayors or other political bodies. In the case of Springfield, the first link above pointed out that the Springfield mayor himself owns slum apartments that are rented to Haitians, so even if the Springfield police chief isn't in on the boodle himself, if he doesn't get with the program, he'll be out of his job. So let's look at the Minneapolis police chief:

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara warned on Face the Nation Sunday that public anger over a string of federal‑involved shootings has reached a breaking point, saying the city is so overwhelmed that even a finding of legal justification in the latest incident “does not matter at this point.”

. . . He noted that his department recovered roughly 900 guns last year without firing a shot, yet now finds itself managing escalating chaos with only 600 officers. “This is not sustainable,” he said, describing the toll on a force he says is stretched “incredibly thin” as the city waits for leaders “on both sides to come together and figure this thing out.

O'Hara has used the term "unsustainable" before:

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS looked at city payroll records and found between 2020 and 2022, the Minneapolis Police Department had 273 officers leave their jobs.

During that same three-year time period, the city hired 117 new officers, which equates to a net loss of 156 officers and an average net loss of 52 officers over the last three years.

If that trend were to continue, MPD would have fewer than 400 sworn officers. As recent as 2019, MPD had about 900 sworn officers on its payroll.

So by Chief O'Hara's own account, his department is down to 600 officers from 900 before the George Floyd riots, a 33% drop. There's been a general observation that Minneapolis officers have been leaving due to the hostile political emvironment, allegedly now also to join ICE. Chief O'Hara on one hand is trying to support the narrative of his superiors in the city, but his remarks also sound like a cry for help. The story continues,

Chief O’Hara stated that the decedent, 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was legally exercising his First and Second Amendment rights to protest and to be legally armed. The chief left out that Minnesota law requires a person to carry their permit and a photo ID to legally carry a sidearm. Minnesota law also states that a person must be carrying for a lawful purpose. A finding that he was interfering with a federal law enforcement operation could also negate the chief’s claim.

The bottom line is that the Minneapolis Police Department has been, by the chief's own account, in an "unsustainable" position since the George Floyd riots, but now he's trying to shift the blame onto ICE, when it should actually be on the city's political environment.

🚨 BREAKING: Rioters are now DESTROYING the hotel they believe ICE agents are staying at in Minnesota

No evidence suggest there are ACTUALLY agents staying there

Local PD ONCE AGAIN allowing it to happen.

You’re a DISGRACE, @Tim_Walz pic.twitter.com/h8iOSqzCAb

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 26, 2026

As a practical matter, the Minneapolis Police Department is not in a position to enforce the law, a situation that's been fostered by the political establishment, while the chief seems unwilling to go against it himself. But this is precisely the situation we saw in Springfield, OH. If the chief isn't getting kickbacks himself, he's afraid to buck those who are.

Below, we see that Chief O'Hara "avoids the question" when he's asked if the police have been ordered not to protect ICE, but it appears that there's a shortage of officers to perform even routine duties -- nobody needs to order them to stand down, there aren't enough to do even their normal job.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara avoids the question when asked if police have been ordered not to protect ICE.

There wouldn't be so many immigration agents in Minneapolis if local authorities controlled the chaos—but they refuse to do so. pic.twitter.com/OEywNZuw71

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 25, 2026

As of Saturday,

At the recommendation of the Minneapolis Police Chief and out of an abundance of caution, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey formally made a request to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for the Minnesota National Guard to help reinforce local law enforcement resources in Minneapolis. Local law enforcement resources are stretched thin because of the disruption to public safety caused by thousands of federal immigration agents in our neighborhoods.

. . . To be clear, the Minnesota Guard deployment comes at the request of local officials. The federal government has no involvement in their activities. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has also announced it is requesting the Guard to activate to the B.H. Whipple Federal Building where it needs additional officers to help fill shifts.

However, as of last night, there was no evidence that the Minnesota National Guard had actually been deployed, for instance to protect the local hotels being attacked by rioters. The problem for the political establishment is that the Trump administration's moves are in fact cutting off the money spigot, as they have in Springfield:

Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s termination of the humanitarian parole program for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, in June. On top of that, the government has ended temporary protected status, affecting the immigration status of more than half a million Haitians, which comes into effect on or before 5 February 2026.

. . . The consequences of these moves are being keenly felt in places such as Springfield.

Since January, when the Trump administration took office, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in Springfield has been falling by double digits as the civilian labor force also declines, something thought to be partly fueled by Haitians leaving the city due to fear of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

At Topre America, an automotive parts manufacturing company north-east of downtown Springfield, dozens of jobs that Haitians had once filled – forklift drivers, supervisors and stackers – have remained unfilled on the company’s employment webpage for months.

That is, they remain unfilled at the rates Topre America was willing to pay Haitians. But agsin, what we're seeing is a business model that works across the board, which involves mayors, city councils, police chiefs, businesses, and local mediocrities, all of them on the take. They have slightly more control in Minneapolis than they did in Springfield due to the ability to mobilize protesters, that's the only difference -- and there are rent-a-rioters in places like Portland, OR as well.

Legacy Media Is Struggling With Minneapolis

Predictably, Real Clear Politics this morning is gengerly tiptoeing through an it's-not-clear-what-happened-both-sides-are-at-fault narrative. From their link to The Wall Street Journal:

Videos of the incident appear to show that before the shooting, Pretti was filming federal agents, something that has become common in Minneapolis as citizen observers document ICE actions. Agents appeared to spray a chemical irritant at him and another person. In the milliseconds before shots were fired, it was less clear what happened during a scuffle in which Pretti was on the ground, surrounded by multiple agents.

Then they dug up an X post from sometime never Trumper Erick Erickson, whom they never ordinarily link:

(5) I think Tim Walz and Jacob Frey have made the situation far worse and destabilized by amping up white progressives and refusing to assist immigration agents.

(6) I think Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino have made the situation far worse by being unrestrained in how they proceed, not prioritizing the criminals, gang members, and more seriously problematic illegals, and not thinking of the public relations fall out should things like what are happening actually happen.

(7) I think Trump supporters who want an unrestrained and unmeasured deportation response are playing into the hands of progressives' PR and alienating normal voters.

The problem is that Erickson and others like Bp Barron who suggest ICE should target only the worst criminal migrants apparently don't recognize that this is precisely what ICE was doing when the victim inferfered:

Immigration officials said Pretti was shot several times shortly after 9 a.m. local time when federal officers were conducting a targeted operation against a different man who was undocumented and wanted for assault.

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse isn't always right, but he does get it right in this post:

In the surface this looks like an immigration and customs enforcement operation; however, just below the surface is a large criminal network operating in coordination with state and municipal leadership. This is why the Mayor and Governor are trying desperately to keep riots on the streets.

And as I surmised yesterday, this in fact looks like a national network operating in many states with a common business model. If ICE were to be defunded tomorrow, Trump's strategies have already had a major effect. Let's not forget that one of Trump's most visible opponents, Gov Walz, has already had to withdraw from his reelection campaign due to Somali scandals, and his troubles aren't over:

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has started raising money for a legal defense fund after the Department of Justice subpoenaed Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and with others for allegedly conspiring to impede law enforcement. This also comes as there has been massive fallout from a fraud scandal that has plagued Minnesota.

In addition, the administration has frozen a wide range of payments connected to allegedly fraudulent programs involving Somalis, as well as limiting the money flow from Somali businesses back to Somalia. This is a Trump strategy that I've been noting over the past year: he recognizes that money is at the root of most problems, and he acts to turn off the money. For instance, the fraudulent programs exist due to kickbacks to power brokers and politicians. If Trump stops the money, it stops the kickbacks.

This is anothwr factor behind the Minnesota unrest, but it's also going to make it harder to pay the protesters -- that money is coming from somewhere. This continuing restriction on the money flow will be a problem for the whole frammis, whether ICE operates or not. But what will be the impact of new attempts in the Senate to limit ICE funding?

A sweeping government funding package is facing new hurdles in the Senate after another person was shot and killed by a federal officer on Saturday in Minnesota, raising the specter of a potential shutdown next Friday at midnight.

The legislation needs 60 votes to secure passage in the chamber, where Republicans control 53 seats. And a number of key Democrats who have voted for recent appropriations measures said they’ll vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security unless restrictions are put on how immigration officers carry out enforcement operations.

What we're beginning to see about Trump is that he's lucky, but the harder he works, the luckier he gets. I strongly suspect he's gamed this through, and the conditions that are buiding up on his side include the fact that the Minnesota opposition is simply unattractive. Senators who oppose ICE will also be supporting figures like Gov Walz, Mayor Frey, and Rep Ilhan Omar. Criminal investigations are continuing on these and others, while the various kickbacks that maintain the Minnesota power structure are running dry.

Add to that last year's shutdown didn't work out for Democrats. They'll again be on the wrong side of an 80-20 issue. I keep saying it's a major mistake to underestimate Trump.

There's A National Business Model. Who's Behind It?

I've noticed a steady trickle of stories about how Somali fraud businesses in Maine seem to be emulating the same overall pattern of those in Minnesota:

🚨 HOLY SMOKES. Journalist finds $2M "home health" center in Maine located next to a SOMALI MONEY WIRING SERVICE

They don't even freaking hide it.

In one building, TEN businesses are home health. Nobody is ever there.

They are funded by our tax dollars. IT'S FRAUD.

"That's a… pic.twitter.com/w5TPHk9C3x

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 21, 2026

ICE seems to be belatedly on the case: As ICE Begins Enforcement Raids in Maine, New Allegations of Somali Fraud Emerge:

Somali-led fraud is a nationwide epidemic. Minnesota is the epicenter due to excellent reporting from Nick Shirley and the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, who was killed after she tried to ram an ICE agent in Minneapolis. But Washington State, Ohio, and Maine also have fraud issues, and now ICE is heading north

The piece quotes a New York Times story behind a paywall:

The Trump administration has started an immigration enforcement operation in Maine, targeting Somali immigrants in the state, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

. . . A number of asylum seekers from African countries who arrived in the United States during the Biden administration have settled in Maine, joining a Somali population that started arriving there in the early 2000s, when refugees from the country began settling in Lewiston. Yet Maine remains an overwhelmingly white state, with one of the oldest populations in the country. Some employers have begun looking to immigrants to fill labor gaps, as native-born employees have either left the work force or retired.

What we began to see piecemeal during the 2024 campaign was a vague picture of a business model -- "faith-based NGOs" identify groups of "refugees" that can be resettled en bloc into small cities in the US interior, with the connivance of slumlords, used car dealers, sweatshop employers, and local politicians. They exploit federal subsidies to maintain these groups as essentially separate economies, while swamping schools and social services, and driving up rents, insurance rates, and crime in the overall communities. This was a picture we began to see in particular with Haitians in places like Springfield, OH and Charleroi, PA in mid-2024.

There's an added factor coming into the picture in the last several months, systematic large-scale fraud. This has been appearing mostly in Somali enclaves, and we've been seeing somewhat far-fetched attempts to explain it by claiming that Somalis are somehow "tribal", which I've been saying is simply meaningless. The ancient Romans were "tribal", too.

I think the actual situation is that fraud is simply one part of the overall mass migration business model, which we're coming to understand only in bits and pieces as individual reporters like Christopher Rufo at City Journal reported on Springfield and Charleroi, and more recently Nick Shirley reported on Somalis in St Cloud, MN and the Twin Cities. Neither had the resources to do comprehensive stories on the overall problem, so that Rufo concentrated on issues like sweatshop employers and slumlords, while Shirley concentrated on fraud.

But the overall patterns of migrant abuse seem to be consistent across the US: a dozen or so "faith-based NGOs" reappear in many cases, no matter where they emerge. There's a consistent pattern of settling particular ethic groups in particular small cities, often in coordination with food industry employers. The overall schemes appear to have been enabled by the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Immigration Act of 1990, and they tend to rely on Temporary Protected Status to place migrant groups in quasi-legal situations.

And so far, at least as it involves Somalis, there's a national pattern of Medicare fraud. Now in Maine,

Federal prosecutors charged three people connected with a Lewiston company in a tax fraud case alleging publicly funded interpreter services were never delivered.

. . . In February, the U.S. attorney’s office charged three people connected to the company for allegedly billing for interpreter services that didn’t happen, court documents show. The case is the first federal prosecution since an investigator authored a 2021 report outlining a suspicious billing pattern for interpreter services, especially among providers working with the state’s Somali community, that indicated widespread fraud within the MaineCare system.

This case has so far gained little attention in part because it is being prosecuted as tax fraud, not health care fraud. But it is similar to fraud schemes alleged in a massive wave of November prosecutions centered on Minnesota’s Somali community. Those cases reignited scrutiny of Gateway among Maine conservatives that dates back to the spring.

Extravagant billing for "interpreter services" is just one of the schemes discovered by Nick Shirley in his Minnesota videos. It's likely that further investigation in Maine and elsewhere will show clones of all the Minnesota fraud schemes operating in other states, and my instinct is that such schemes aren't limited just to Somalis.

So what we're seeing is an overall business model that manifests in multiple states, coordinated by multiple "faith-based NGOs", that appears to exploit similar types of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, almost certainly extending to fraud in other social services, and likely involving similar schemes of money laundering in multiple jurisdictions. This says to me that there's an overall plan in place, and politicians at the state governor level are likely involved, not just in Minnesota, although the Minnesota scheme is likely to be the first one uncovered:

WOAH 🚨 Not only did Amiee Bock, the woman behind the $250 million Minnesota Somali fraud scandal confirm Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison KNEW about the fraud taking place

But AG Keith Ellison “met with Somali fraudsters WHO WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION BY THE FBI.” He… pic.twitter.com/YbRKExtffD

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) January 23, 2026

I think we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg so far, and the pattern won't be just Somalis. If cerain masterminds set things up with Gov Walz in Minnesota, what are the chances that the same people talked with Gov DeWine in Ohio? He's been a staunch supporter of the Springfield Haitians, for instance, and there are Somalis in Ohio as well. But how much do the "faith-based NGOs" know about the fraud? Are they getting kickbacks? The US Catholic Bishops really need to get ahead of this.

Broken Brains, Exploding Heads?

🚨 Byron York nails Trump’s Greenland play: Classic Art of the Deal!

“He asks for ten times what he wants, the other side freaks out, huge news cycle, back & forth, then they settle for what they could’ve had day one.”

Trump always wins! pic.twitter.com/mC4aMf0Pms

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) January 22, 2026

So, did Trump have a good week or a bad one? Scott Pinsker at PJ Media:

By overwhelming numbers, the American public doesn’t like Trump’s Greenland policy or approach. His polling is in the toilet.

. . . With U.S. opinion polls so dismal, Trump is in a difficult spot. Perhaps there’s a way out — and perhaps a deal can happen. Perhaps we’re just one handshake away from Denmark giving us Greenland.

But despite yesterday’s blockbuster announcement, I doubt it. The Danes won’t just give Greenland away; they’ll almost certainly demand trillions of dollars and an irrevocable war guarantee.

Why is anyone talking about "the polls" at this stage? Back in November, I pointed out that the Real Clear Politics averages for the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races were well outside the margin of error for the individual polls in the average. As best we can tell, "the polls" have a major problem, and unless wwe can get a handle on what's wrong with them, or with the RCP averages, I don't think we can cite them as a reliable indicator. Pinsker goes on,

Prediction: There won’t be a deal. (I suspect the White House knows this and used yesterday’s announcement as an offramp.)

Domestically, Trump’s focus on Greenland is politically costly. It leaves Trump vulnerable to Democratic accusations of caring more about empire-building than the cost of groceries, healthcare, and housing.

His solution is an incoherent mix of demanding NATO countries spend 3% (or whatever) of GDP on defense in return for not invading Greenland, or maybe invading Greenland for the good of the world anyhow, or something like that. The bottom line is that it shorts Trump, which I think is always a bad idea. The Wall Street Journal takes a similar line, mostly behind a paywall, but we get the gist:

A funny thing happened this week that you wouldn’t think possible from reading the common narrative of President Trump as a Frankenstein’s monster unchained to do whatever he wants: He backed down from his demands to own Greenland. And he did so after financial markets, European allies and the U.S. Congress raised objections. The “authoritarian” Trump narrative was wrong again.

This isn’t to dismiss Mr. Trump’s often wild demands and threats. They have consequences in lost trust among allies and doubts about American reliability. These costs are hard to quantify, but they are real and may show up in a future crisis.

On one hand, we know nothing about the specifics of any "framework" Trump announced, so any conclusion that he chickened out in some way is premature. What he wanted was a particular level of access to Greenland, equivalent to territoriality, and he says he's happy with what's being offered. But on the other hand, his overall statements surrounding the World Economic Forum have caused key NATO members to threaten military action against the US, which is simply an acknowledgement that the alliance is shakier than anyone thought, and Trump has been making his views known:

"What we have gotten out of NATO is nothing," Trump said at the World Economic Forum. "We paid for, in my opinion, 100% of NATO because they weren't paying their bills. And all we're asking for is Greenland."

. . . "What I'm asking for is a [oiece] of ice. . . that can play a vital role in world peace and protection," Trump insisted. "The problem with NATO is we'll be there for them 100% but I'm not sure they'll be there for us."

The inevitable consequence, as I 've also discussed earlier this week, has been for NATO members to consider their relative positions vis-a-vis US sttrength:

Canadian military chiefs have wargamed a US invasion and concluded that they would be overpowered in only two days.

. . . Under the plans, which officials stressed were precautionary and hypothetical, forces would use asymmetric tactics whereby a weaker army attempts to counter a dominant force. Canada would rely on drone warfare and would also request assistance from European allies, namely the former imperial powers Britain and France.

. . . Canadian military positions on land and at sea would be overcome in as little as two days, leaving an insurgency‑style campaign including ambushes and “hit‑and‑run tactics” as the only option, the report said.

Canada’s military is dwarfed by the US armed forces, having only 63,500 active duty personnel as of 2024 while the US has 1.3 million.

As far as I can see, Trump at the World Economic Forum was able to portray himself as a dominant figure, the center of discussion, and the center of attention, which for Trump is never a bad thing. He was able to make an entirely new point about NATO, suggesting on one hand that the US is willing to walk away from it as a deal, which is a standard Trump negotiating posture. On the other hand, he was able to raise the issue that the other NATO countries are neither individually nor collectively able to form a force that would be any factor in a global balance of power -- if the US walks away from NATO, it has very little to lose, while NATO loses everything.

This is another standard Trump negotiating posture -- he negotiates with opponents who have no alternatives. And he did this at the WEF, not at a NATO meeting, when those behind the WEF presumably had an entirely different agenda. I have a hard time understanding the position that Trump comes out of the week in any diminished state.