Americans are deeply skeptical of the Trump administration’s account of the fatal Border Patrol shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, according to a new poll.
A YouGov poll conducted on Jan. 25 shows that about half (48 percent) of respondents do not think the shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday was justified. Only 20 percent of those polled said it was justified.
Public skepticism has sharpened among those who have seen footage of the incident. Multiple bystander videos appear to show Pretti holding a phone—not a weapon—in the moments before he was tackled and shot multiple times, even as Trump officials have rushed to claim he “attacked” officers and was intent on committing a “massacre.”
Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents who have seen video of the shooting say it was not justified.
Views break sharply along partisan lines. Democrats are nearly unified in rejecting the shooting (83 percent), while half of independents say it was not justified. Republicans, by contrast, are split: About the same share say the shooting was justified (44 percent) as say they are unsure (43 percent), and only a small minority (13 percent) conclude it was wrong.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Pretti, a Veterans Affairs ICU nurse, was shot dead in the street by federal agents who pepper-sprayed him in the face and then wrestled him to the ground before shooting him.
Despite footage suggesting otherwise, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino asserted that Pretti had attacked officers with a firearm and “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described Pretti as an “assassin” who “tried to murder” federal agents in a post on X.
He later wrote in an X post, “This level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly branded Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”
“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts,” she said at a news conference Saturday.
But Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has fired back, saying on Sunday: “The world knows how he died. He died at the hands of ICE agents on the streets of Minneapolis.”
Pretti’s death followed the fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month. Trump has deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to the city as part of his “worst of the worst” immigration crackdown. Polls also showed that half of Americans think Good’s killing was “not justified,” compared to 30 percent who said it was.
Amid the violence, polls show Americans increasingly turning on President Trump on immigration, once a key strength for the president. Pollster Nate Silver’s tracker shows that Trump’s net approval rating on the issue now stands at -12 points, down from -4 points on Dec. 10.
Americans also appear to be turning on ICE. Recent polling from YouGov and The Economist shows that support for abolishing ICE has edged up. About 46 percent of Americans now say they favor eliminating ICE, compared with 41 percent who oppose the idea, marking a slight shift from earlier this month when support and opposition were nearly equal in multiple surveys.
Behind the scenes, officials acknowledge growing concern that public opinion is souring on the administration’s immigration crackdowns in major cities.
According to The Wall Street Journal, aides have debated how to carry out deportations while avoiding confrontations with demonstrators. Even so, Miller has pressed to stay the course, insisting the administration double down on hardline enforcement and resist any pullback in Minneapolis, the Journal reported.
In a brief phone interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump twice declined to say whether the federal agent who fatally shot Pretti had acted appropriately.
“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” he said.
