Ileana Garcia blasts Donald Trump admin’s ‘distorting, politicizing’ of Minneapolis shooting

Like millions of others, Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia watched videos of a U.S. Border Patrol agent shooting and killing Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti this past weekend, and she’s calling out members of President Donald Trump’s administration for lying about what she saw.

In a post to X, Garcia took Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller to task for calling Pretti a “would-be assassin” who tried to “murder federal law enforcement.”

Miller’s post had been viewed more than 15 million times by Monday morning, when Garcia responded to it.

Garcia noted that, contrary to Miller’s assertion and similar narratives from others, Pretti never drew his licensed, concealed handgun. He also never attacked any agent, she said, adding that one agent removed the weapon from its holster, securing it before another began shooting Pretti.

“Distorting, politicizing, slandering — justifying what happened to Alex Pretti contradicts America’s values the administration campaigned on. He was neither a domestic terrorist nor an assassin. Neither was Ashley Babbitt,” Garcia said, referencing a woman Capitol police shot and killed during the Jan. 6 riot.

“Allowing individuals like Stephen Miller, among others, who represent the government and make hard-line decisions, to make such comments will have long-term consequences.”

Garcia then added, “This is not what I voted for!” — echoing a statement she made in June 2025 as part of a criticism of the Trump administration’s “unacceptable and inhumane” treatment of immigrants.

Notably, Garcia was a founding member of Latinas for Trump who later served as Deputy Press Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump’s first term. In his endorsement of her during the 2024 Election cycle, Trump commended Garcia for standing ‘with law enforcement, and (defending) our always under siege Second Amendment.”

Miller wasn’t alone in misrepresenting the events that preceded Pretti’s killing. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” the firearm and “reacted violently’ when agents “attempted to disarm him.”

The footage does not show Pretti, an ICU nurse with no criminal record, drawing his weapon. He initially stepped in to help a woman whom an agent shoved to the ground. He was then pepper-sprayed. When an agent shot him point-blank — the first of 10 shots fired within five seconds — Pretti was on his hands and knees, disarmed and had just been hit in the head with a pepper spray can.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel asserted shortly after the shooting that a person “cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want.”

Several gun rights groups fired back, including the National Association for Gun Rights and the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, calling Patel’s statement “completely incorrect” and a “dangerous precedent for Second Amendment rights.”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier — whose September decision against defending Florida’s open carry ban allows guns to be brandished during public protests — did not comment online about Pretti’s killing or the related comments from the Trump administration.

He did, however, signal approval of Trump sending “border czar” Tom Homan to Minneapolis as an escalation in activity there, writing, “When the hammers are ineffective, send in the wrecking ball.”