‘I will put you in handcuffs’: Philadelphia DA warns rogue ICE agents in airports
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel have not yet been paid because of the ongoing partial government shutdown. President Donald Trump decided to fill airports with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to staff airports in the country. A Philadelphia District Attorney warned agents against unruly behavior, threatening legal action should any civilian be harmed.
“This is how it works: you commit crimes within the jurisdiction that is the city and county of Philadelphia, I prosecute you. That is how it works,” Atty. Larry Krasner warned on national television. “No, I don’t take a phone call from the president saying, ‘Let him go.’ No, the president cannot pardon you. I’ll say it again: the president cannot pardon you,” Krasner reasserted.
“And yes, I will put you in handcuffs, and I will put you in a courtroom, and if necessary, I will put you in a jail cell if you decide to make the terrazzo floor of this airport anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis, which involved the criminal homicide of unarmed, innocent people,” Krasner continued.
Suffice it to say, ICE agents do not have the authority to shoot protestors. Krasner is merely reasserting legal protections civilians have against law enforcement. Atty. Krasner tweeted on X to affirm his stance, tweeting, “And I’ll say it again.”
Who’s responsible for the shutdown?
GOP Sen. John Kennedy revealed that Trump ripped up a deal that could have paid Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers by the end of the week. Several Democrats in Congress argued that Trump was using the shutdown to force them to approve of the SAVE America Act.
Instead, Trump denied the deal and unleashed ICE agents in airports to assist with logistics. Meanwhile, TSA workers are being denied pay because of Trump’s partisan standoff.
An important reminder for ICE
But why would an attorney have to remind ICE agents, of all people, to abide by the law? In Minneapolis, two American citizens—37-year-old poet Renee Good and 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti—were fatally shot by ICE agents during a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Good was ordered by ICE agents to get out of her car. Instead of doing so, she fled the opposite direction from the agents. ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good thrice on the head. A physician was on the scene, and ICE agents also held him off from checking on Good.
Similarly, Pretti was helping a fellow protestor who was being held down by ICE agents. Pretti pushed the other protester away but would later be restrained and shot by Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Guttierez. Although Pretti was armed, he had license to carry his firearm. Moreover, multiple angles of the incident show that Pretti did not take his gun out to use against ICE agents.
Instead of condemning the shooting, Trump supported Ross and called the crime “an act of self-defense.” Kristi Noem, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), defended the ICE agent, blaming the protesters instead of “domestic terrorism.”
ICE agent Ross was neither fired nor legally held accountable for Good’s shooting. Officers Ochoa and Guttierez were merely dismissed from their positions but not charged. Should these officials be brought to justice, Trump will not be able to pardon them.
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