On the day after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, vowed to hold Trump administration officials who were involved responsible — once they leave office.
For many Democrats, that promise of accountability — even retribution — may be devoutly wished, but given the track record against President Trump so far, doubts predominate about what the practical consequences for his government will be.
Still, spurred by the events in Minneapolis, governors and state lawmakers have taken the lead in positioning their jurisdictions as vehicles for accountability for the federal officials and agents involved in policies that are widely seen as crossing legal and ethical lines. The elected officials calling for a reckoning were joined this week by nine progressive prosecutors from cities around the country, who formed a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws.
The legal obstacles to such prosecutions are formidable for state and local governments. State-level legal actions in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona seeking to hold Mr. Trump and his supporters to account for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election all stalled or fizzled. And in the area of immigration enforcement, courts have long given primacy to the federal government and granted limited immunity to its agents.
At the current moment, the governors’ actions may be more about politics than possibilities.
“They are responding to what people are demanding,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group. “This is out of control and lawless,” he said of the immigration crackdown. “These people must be held accountable. The Trump administration is not going to do anything. So what are you going to do?”
He added of the officials promising accountability, “If they’re saying we’re going to step up and use our powers, that’s good government.”
Trump administration officials don’t see either a legal or a political advantage for the Democrats in the accountability threats. Republicans have done well with their charges that Democrats undermine law enforcement, and they will no doubt try to do so again.
“ICE officers are facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. “ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities, and local officials should work with them, not against them.”
(Some media outlets and a few Democrats have questioned that statistic, though assaults on immigration agents have risen with the intensity of deportation efforts.)
A scattering of Republicans in statehouses and on Capitol Hill have become more critical of the immigration crackdown as well, though none have demanded similar accountability.
Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican consultant who is critical of Mr. Trump, said that most Americans, regardless of party, were probably taken aback “by the blatant lying from officials” about what could be seen clearly in videos of the killing in Minneapolis. He said that Democratic governors had done well to take an immediate, strong stance.
“It’s fascinating for me, as a Republican, to watch Democratic governors try to tap into very real anger out there without going so far that it backfires on them,” he said. “It’s very challenging for Democrats not to overreact to highly emotional situations like this. I think a lot of Democrats feel really burned by the whole ‘defund the police’ debacle.”
Rhetorically, Ms. Hochul may have gone farther than other governors when she warned on Sunday: “No one is above the law. No one, not an ICE agent, not a federal officer, not the president of the United States. And make no mistake, when these people who have abused the power entrusted to them by their offices are finally out of power, states, including New York, will hold them accountable.”
But two other governors, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Gavin Newsom of California — both possible presidential candidates in 2028 — had already moved to put such sentiments into state law. Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, another Democrat, said she would announce a suite of “new actions to protect Massachusetts residents” from federal agents on Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Pritzker signed a measure making it easier for state residents to sue immigration agents, prompting the Department of Justice to sue Illinois in December, arguing that the law placed the agents in physical danger and at financial risk.
Mr. Pritzker also signed an executive order in October to establish an accountability commission that would create a public record of the actions of federal agents deployed in Chicago. The commission will livestream its second meeting on Friday.
Mr. Newsom and Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, created a similar portal in December, and on Tuesday, the men reminded state and law enforcement officials that they had the authority to investigate possible state crimes committed by federal agents.
The California State Senate passed a bill on Tuesday, sponsored by State Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, that would make it easier for private citizens to sue ICE agents, despite Republican concerns that such a law would also expose local police officers to more lawsuits.
Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington described ICE on Monday as “completely and totally out of control” and said he anticipated “a similar escalation by ICE, against our will,” in his state. If that happens, he said, he would act to hold individual ICE agents accountable.
In New York, Ms. Hochul wants to, among other measures, restrict public safety grants from being used to fund technology or personnel for federal civil immigration enforcement.
On Saturday, after Mr. Pretti’s death, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, the group’s vice chairman, released a joint statement demanding “complete transparency and accountability into this federal agent-involved shooting.”
Before the shooting, the two governors had called “on our country’s Republican governors to join us in defending states’ rights by speaking out against these threats for a chaotic and un-American federal takeover.”
Few of them have. Vermont’s moderate Republican governor, Phil Scott, has stood out from most of his party with criticism that called administration actions in Minnesota “deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans.”
Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, a more traditionally conservative governor, also attracted national attention when he told CNN that what happened in Minnesota was “causing deep concerns over federal tactics and accountability,” and that Americans needed to know “what is the end game.”
Holding federal officials legally accountable won’t be easy, as many legal scholars have written, in part because of the broad immunity that they enjoy, compared with state and local officials. Beyond that, the Trump administration is likely to stand in the way.
Referring to Democrats and anyone who doesn’t cooperate with ICE, Ms. Jackson said, “Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals is simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.”
Even so, Alicia Bannon, director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted in an article published earlier this week, that “states have more power than people may realize,” if they can demonstrate that a federal officer’s conduct was “unreasonable or unlawful.”
In 1906, she noted, “in a case with similarities to the Pretti killing, the Supreme Court allowed Pennsylvania to prosecute two soldiers charged with killing a civilian accused of stealing from a federal arsenal.”
Norm Eisen, a Democratic lawyer who has been involved in numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration, said he believed that litigation work done by state attorneys general and public- interest law firms has been laying the foundation for future accountability actions.
“Whatever governors may have said or done so far, now is the time for everyone to step up, because it’s coming to your state in one form or another,” he said.
David W. Chen is a Times reporter focused on state legislatures, state level policymaking and the political forces behind them.
The post Democratic Governors Promise Accountability After Minneapolis appeared first on New York Times.
