This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, Feb 2, 2026
As I sit down to write this, my heart is in Minnesota—a state currently gripped by a tragedy that didn’t have to happen. Two lives, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have been lost. Two families are shattered. And a group of Federal officers are going home with the weight of a fatal encounter on their souls. It is time we stop shouting and start praying—not just for the victims, but for the leaders whose rhetoric has led us to this cliff.
Regardless of what side of the immigration issue you are on, you have to admit that neither side of this issue is happy with what is happening. I feel sorry for the people of Minnesota, both documented and undocumented, and I also feel sorry for the ICE officers. Both sides have been put in an impossible situation.
And why is this situation in Minneapolis so difficult? Why has this immigration enforcement become such a hot-button issue there when ICE agents are making arrests in almost every metropolitan area in the United States? Why do we hear nothing elsewhere, yet Americans are being killed by these officers in only one place? This is where we find the place where the blame for this atrocity belongs: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her.
While Mayor Her is new to the office, she has inherited—and embraced—a culture of resistance that prioritizes campaign promises over public safety. Mayor Frey and Governor Walz have been very outspoken in support of people who are protesting ICE. Their rhetoric has given permission for people to go out and obstruct, in any way possible, the work that ICE has been tasked to do.
You can feel any way you want about whether or not a Federal agency has the right to enforce Federal laws, but that does not change the fact that when you encourage people to go out and have confrontations with Law Enforcement officers, the odds of terrible things happening go up exponentially.
The number of interactions between ICE officers and the general public would be reduced significantly if the powers that be in Minnesota would cooperate with federal authorities. If a person is detained for breaking another law, local authorities could contact ICE, and the arrest could happen in the safe confines of a jail. As it is now, these confrontations are happening on city streets with people blowing horns, shouting, and being aggressive with officers who are there to do a job. This is what Walz and Frey are encouraging, and they have the audacity to blame ICE for the result.
I have to ask myself: if ICE are the “murderous thugs” that Walz and Frey want to make them out to be, then why on earth would a Governor and a Mayor encourage people to go confront them? What would we think if there was a dangerous wild animal running through the streets of St. Marys and our Governor and Mayor told us to go out and poke it with a stick? We could only conclude that the Governor and Mayor had some other agenda that was more important to them than the lives of the people who voted for them.
It is worth noting the timeline: Hours after allegations of a massive fraud scheme began to circulate—a situation so severe it led Governor Walz to announce he would not seek reelection—the protests began. With the encouragement of Walz and Frey, the public’s attention shifted from the statehouse to the streets.
What side of this issue am I on? I am on the side where people are not getting killed while Federal officers are carrying out Federal orders. There are better ways to have your voice heard than putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. This is especially true when you realize that the risk these people are taking is being encouraged by people who are in the process of covering up allegations of widespread embezzlement. Enforcing the law shouldn’t require a body count, and it wouldn’t if leaders prioritized order over optics.