About 300 protesters gather outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Williston on Tuesday, January 20, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger The day after federal immigration agents fatally shot Minneapolis protestor Alex Pretti, Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott condemned the violence of federal immigration agents.  “Enough…it’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government,” he said in a statement Sunday.  On Saturday, federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good in the city. In the wake of Pretti’s killing, video analyses by national media have contradicted the claims of federal officials, who asserted that officers shot Pretti in self-defense after he approached officers with a firearm. Video footage shows that Pretti approached the officers holding his phone — not a gun.  In videos of the scene, half a dozen officers wrestled Pretti to the ground in tactical gear. Though Pretti did have a semiautomatic pistol on him, officials said he was licensed to carry it. And videos show that officers knocked away his gun before fatally shooting him. Pretti was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, according to the Minneapolis police chief.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security called its crackdown in the city the largest immigration operation in the department’s history earlier this month, marking a significant escalation since first targeting Somali immigrants in December.  In his statement, Scott called on Trump to change course in Minnesota.  “The President should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants. In the absence of Presidential action, Congress and the Courts must step up to restore constitutionality,” he said.  The two most recent killings of U.S. citizens in Minnesota are far from the first violent incidents involving federal immigration agents. Immigration agents also shot and wounded two people in Oregon, fatally shot one person in Chicago and shot at least eight civilians in vehicles since July.  “At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership,” Scott said. “At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans. Again, enough is enough.”  This story will be updated. Read the story on VTDigger here: Gov. Scott calls on Trump to ‘pause’ immigration crackdown after agents kill Minnesota man. ...read more read less