Kaine, Warner won't back homeland security funding without reforms

Virginia's junior senator already had said he would not support homeland security funding without reforms, but the fatal shooting of protester Alex Pretti by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on Saturday — with the entire country watching videos of the incident that appeared to contradict the initial account by President Donald Trump and his administration — has galvanized opposition by Senate Democrats, including Warner.

"I wanted to get all of the facts first, but the shooting was so horrific," Warner said in an interview on Monday. "Almost equally horrific was the administration immediately leaping to judgment about Mr. Pretti before it had any facts.

"If it could happen in Minneapolis, it could happen in Richmond or Norfolk or Roanoke," he said.

Lawmakers in both parties are calling for a full investigation of the shooting, despite the federal refusal to allow state and local law enforcement to enter the scene to conduct their own investigations of what happened. A day after the shooting, a federal judge issued an injunction to prevent federal officials from destroying evidence from the shooting.

Trump sought to lower the temperature on Monday by reporting that he had "a very good call" with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about the incident and had dispatched White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take control of the situation there. The president said three federal investigations of the incident are underway.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a former U.S. Postal Service criminal investigator and CIA officer, said on Saturday, "There must be a full investigation into what happened, and there must be accountability."

Spanberger said the "chaotic law enforcement actions" that led to Pretti's death and the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 have raised questions about vetting, training and accountability of immigration enforcement agents.

She also raised questions about "the purpose and intent of their engagement across communities" and the "long-term damage their reckless actions are doing to the trust other law enforcement agencies and police departments have built over years as they have worked to investigate crimes and keep communities safe."

On the floor of the House of Delegates on Monday, Del. Josh Thomas, D-Prince William, a former U.S. Marine and Afghanistan combat veteran, said, "What we have witnessed in Minneapolis and increasingly across the country is the opposite of public safety."

"Let's be clear about what happened over this past weekend," Thomas said. "A lawful gun owner, properly carrying a concealed firearm, displaying no threatening intent, recording law enforcement, as is his First Amendment right, was swarmed, thrown down, disarmed and shot in the back."

"In a single moment, three constitutional rights were violated," he said, citing the First Amendment right to free expression, the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

Shortly after the shooting, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a veteran's hospital in Minneapolis, "a domestic terrorist" who was carrying a concealed weapon and ammunition to shoot law enforcement agents.

Kaine accused Noem of lying about what had happened.

"She's lying because she's very scared," Kaine said. "She knows that she's been implicated in gross abuse of people's human rights."

Warner said that with a severe winter storm keeping many people snowbound at home, they "had time to look at the videos."

"Their eyes are not lying about what they see is happening," he said.

Republican lawmakers also have voiced their concern about the shooting and the Trump administration's response. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, suggested that Trump pull ICE and Border Patrol out of Minnesota, and a number of GOP senators have called for an investigation of what happened there.

The question is whether Congress can agree on what Kaine called "guardrails" on immigration enforcement before a midnight deadline on Saturday to adopt six appropriations bills to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. House members left town after passing the bills separately and then combining them into one package for Senate action.

Kaine and Warner said they favor separating homeland security funding from the other bills, which would maintain funding for defense, health and human resources, education, labor and transportation. Congress has already passed six appropriations bills, including three as part of the compromise that ended a 43-day government shutdown in November.

But the Virginia senators say they won't support the homeland security funding bill without significant reforms, which have yet to be fully defined.

"I have a feeling that Democrats are going to be solid on that this week," Kaine said.

However, Warner cautioned that Congress already wrote a big check to Homeland Security agencies when it adopted a budget reconciliation bill in July.

Even if Congress blocks the appropriations bill, he said, Homeland Security still can operate under the stopgap funding bill adopted to end the shutdown.

"ICE is still going to have enormous amounts of money," Warner said.