Attorney-General Pam Bondi has demanded that Minnesota’s Governor hand over the state’s voter rolls in exchange for federal help after another U.S. citizen was killed by federal immigration agents.
Hours after Customs and Border Patrol officers shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, Bondi seized on the shocking incident to demand access to voters’ unredacted personal data, reigniting fears that Donald Trump is trying to “steal” the next election.
The demand was made in a letter the Attorney General sent to the state’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz, who had earlier called on the president to get ICE out of his state in order to de-escalate tensions over his deportation operations.
But Bondi slammed state and local officials for the unrest, telling him: “You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota. Fortunately there are common sense solutions to these problems that I hope we can accomplish together.”
The letter then makes a list of demands: the first requires Minnesota hand over its Medicaid and supplementary food assistance records; the second is to repeal the state’s “sanctuary cities” policies and collaborate with ICE; and the third is to “allow the DOJ Civil Rights division access to state voter rolls”.
“I am confident these simple steps will help bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans,” said Bondi, whose department has been investigating welfare fraud in the state.
However, others believe the administration’s motivations are far more sinister, likening it to “extortion.”
Elections attorney Marc Elias warned that the move was part of a broader effort to “collect big data, to make it harder for you to vote, and easier for them to cheat.”
“In the history of our country no other administration has ever sought to collect this type of sensitive information on this scale,” said Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket.
Democrat Senator Seth Moulton agreed, writing on X: “Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.”
The president has repeatedly falsely claimed the he won the state of Minnesota in the past three elections. Democrat Senator Chris Murphy told CNN: “Trump has told you over and over again that he regrets that he didn’t interfere in the prior election, and this letter seems pretty definitive proof that they are trying to trade the presence of ICE, and the murder and mayhem they are causing, for control of Minnesota’s elections.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
Bondi’s letter comes amid growing national outrage after Pretti, 37, was shot multiple times by federal agents who pepper-sprayed him in the face and then wrestled him to the floor as he filmed an immigration operation on his phone in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.
The shooting is the latest to take place against an American citizen by immigration enforcement officers, coming merely weeks after Renee Good, an unarmed mother-of-three, was also killed during an immigration operation.
Pretti was an intensive-care nurse with no criminal record who held a legal permit to carry a firearm.
However Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and CPB Commander Greg Bovino have sought to portray him as a “domestic terrorist” who wanted to “massacre” law enforcement officers.
They claim Pretti approached officers with a 9 mm handgun, resisted attempts to disarm him, and was shot.
However, images show agents tackling Pretti to the ground, spraying him with a chemical agent, and then firing multiple shots while he appears restrained or unarmed.
Pretti’s handgun is not clearly visible in the recordings prior to the shooting, and some analyses suggest it was taken from him before shots were fired.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Alex’s parents said in a statement on Saturday night.
Tensions in Minneapolis have been escalating for weeks, but Bondi’s letter directly ties the Trump administration’s quest for voter rolls to its aggressive immigration raids across the state.
The state has also come under fire over its longstanding welfare fraud scandal, some of which took place under Walz’s watch.
Meanwhile, Trump said this month that he won the election in Minnesota “all three times” - a comment that prompted a furious response from Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin who wrote on X: “You lying piece of s‑‑‑.”
“I chaired the Minnesota DFL for all three of your runs here,” he continued, referring to the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. “I watched you lose. Three times.”
