Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein obtained access to private group chats of several ICE and Border Patrol agents and reported on the morale of the troops in Minneapolis — the feds are fed up.
Klippenstein also spoke to six agents for the Substack article he wrote, titled “ICE Unloads.”
Morale inside the operation is collapsing. Agents appear to have turned on the Minneapolis operation and their colleagues who attacked and killed private citizen Alex Pretti, and some are claiming the Minneapolis mission is lost and it’s time to pull out.
- One veteran agent claimed that “the brand new recruits are idiots,” and blamed low hiring standards for the chaos in Minneapolis.
- Another newer recruit admitted that some of the guys are “pretty sketchy,” and have been seen passing around a flask and their weird tattoos on stakeouts.
- Agents are also frustrated that the administration’s narrative forces them to confront demonstrators who are branded as “Antifa,” leftists, and radicals who are impeding federal functions.
Regarding the Alex Pretti shooting:
“As much as I support this administration there needs to be more common sense in situations like this, not a knee jerk damage control narrative that does not line up with the evidence on video,” one Border Patrol agent said in a private chat group that was shared with me. “This individual was shot 8 to 9 times while unarmed.”
An ICE agent was even more critical. “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting … ten versus one and somehow they couldn’t find a way to subdue the guy or use a less than lethal [means],” the agent said. “They all carry belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back?”
ICE is relying on volunteers to go to cities like Minneapolis for temporary deployments, and often they are the new recruits whose tattoos reveal a more ideological alignment. The agents Klippenstein spoke with agree that reinforcement from the FBI is lacking, their reluctance due to “bad press.”
Threat briefings are now fixated on alleged “retaliatory” plots against ICE and Border Patrol after the deaths of Pretti and Good. “Lots of people are freaking out,” one officer told Klippenstein, saying agents are “getting seriously paranoid, afraid of being targeted by ‘retaliators,’” and talk as if “we are fighting insurgents,” turning Minneapolis into a domestic Baghdad.
The Klippenstein Substack is here.
Daily Beast also picked up on this report.