Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is blaming Democrats for the political unrest in Minnesota and wants to include Department of Homeland Security funding in a spending vote expected this week.
On Saturday, federal immigration officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, an American citizen and VA nurse. Video of his killing is sparking outrage and pushback from the public, congressional Democrats and a number of Republican lawmakers. It’s the second time this month that federal officers shot and killed someone demonstrating against immigration operations inMinnesota; the first being Renee Good on Jan. 7.
Speaking on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Johnson accused Democrats of goading residents to interfere with Immigration and Customs Enforcement missions.
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“These things just don’t happen,” Johnson said. “This is being ginned up by somebody on the left. This is the resistance movement. You could have predicted these deaths.”
“Now, they’ve got their martyrs,” he continued. “And what I’m trying to point out is that there are many, many, many more victims of the open border policy, of the human trafficking, of the sex trafficking, the drug trafficking, the rapes and the murders.”
Johnson said the shooting of Pretti is a tragedy and called for a full investigation of the events that led up to his death. But he stopped short of accusing the officers involved of wrongdoing.
He said ICE agents and fellow officers are “under threat” from protestors, and such high-pressure situations can lead to violence.
Some Republican lawmakers like Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Tom Tillis of North Carolina are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign over her handling of the situation in Minnesota.
Johnson said Noem “got over her skis” when she initially accused Pretti of brandishing a weapon and attempting to attack federal agents. Video evidence and an internal report contradict Noem’s accusations. When asked if Noem should step down, Johnson said he believes it’s President Donald Trump’s decision on what to do with the DHS secretary.
Later this week, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a funding bill to keep the government open. After the killing of Pretti, Democrats are now vowing to block the bill unless lawmakers carve out $64.4 billion in DHS funding, including $10 billion for ICE. Failure to pass the bill by Jan. 30 will result in a partial government shutdown.
Johnson said he’s unwilling to negotiate on splitting DHS funding from the spending package, calling such an idea a continuation of the movement to defund police. But Johnson said he doesn’t want another government shutdown.
Instead, he said he wants the federal government to adopt a spending policy similar to how Wisconsin’s state government operates. In Wisconsin, if state lawmakers fail to pass a budget before a deadline, the government remains open and funding continues along established budgetary levels.
“I’m trying to eliminate these shutdowns,” he said. “I’m trying to eliminate this dysfunction. Unfortunately, we don’t really have cooperative partners on the other side of the aisle.”
Fellow Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, said this week she would vote against the bill if it included DHS funding unless Congress added “serious accountability” measures.
Johnson accused any Democrats who claim they would be willing to fund DHS in some way of lying.
“You cannot believe, I’m sorry, what Democrats say,” he said. “If they really believe (the way to pass DHS), they’d work with us in good faith to close the border, to clean up the mess, to deport criminals. But they’re not.”
