By Brad Brooks
March 2 (Reuters) – A Minnesota prosecutor on Monday said her office is investigating the “potentially unlawful behavior” of federal agents during a crackdown earlier this year on undocumented immigrants that met widespread resistance and in which agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, sparking nationwide outrage.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose jurisdiction includes Minneapolis, said at a press conference that her office had created a portal that would allow the public to send in videos and other evidence of incidents they witnessed in which they think Gregory Bovino, who once called himself the “commander at large” of the U.S. Border Patrol, and other federal agents committed a crime.
“We will investigate and pursue charging where appropriate, and we’ll seek collaboration with local law enforcement wherever and whenever needed,” Moriarty said. “Make no mistake, we are not afraid of any legal fight.”
While acknowledging the difficulty of successfully prosecuting federal agents, who enjoy strong legal protections against being charged for their actions, and saying that the federal government had not provided any information to her office, Moriarty added: “There is no absolute immunity for federal agents.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol and ICE, said in a written statement that investigating federal officers “does nothing to make Minnesota safer.”
“Politicians are laying blame at the feet of law enforcement instead of looking in the mirror at how they have fueled the hatred and violent attacks we are seeing against federal law enforcement officers,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in an emailed reply, noting that assaults, vehicular attacks and death threats against federal immigration agents had spiked in the past year.
DHS added that “federal officials acting in the course of their duties are immune from liability under state law.”
Moriarty’s office earlier had established similar portals to collect evidence from the public about the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge. She said that investigations into their deaths are ongoing.
The immigration enforcement surge began in early December. After the shootings of Good and Pretti, President Donald Trump’s Border czar, Tom Homan, took over the operation in late January from Bovino, who has drawn heavy criticism from Democrats and civil liberties proponents for his handling of crackdowns in Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S.
In January the Atlantic, citing a Homeland Security official and two people with knowledge of the change, reported that Bovino had been removed from his roving role and was to return to his former job as a Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro, California. Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security has responded to requests for comment on Bovino’s current role.
Bovino has repeatedly defended the tactics of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, arguing that they were facing an angry public on the streets that he said interfered with their attempts at immigration enforcement.
Homan held talks with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and set a less confrontational tone. In February, Homan announced that he was sending home thousands of agents, though he said immigration enforcement would continue.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Donna Bryson, Matthew Lewis and Thomas Derpinghaus)
