The protests against ICE have been going on for some time and gained new momentum after Pretti, 37, was shot dead by federal agents on Saturday.
"It's an enormously tense atmosphere," says Dag Blanck, professor of North American studies at Uppsala University.
"There could be a backlash"
Meanwhile, political tensions are heating up. Both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are sharply criticizing ICE's actions. Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, has claimed at a press conference that Frey and Walz are encouraging violence - and that Pretti was engaging in domestic terrorism.
"There could be a backlash for Donald Trump if public opinion begins to believe that he was not a terrorist and that he was murdered for no reason," says Dag Blanck.
Jan Hallenberg, associate senior researcher at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, believes that the Trump administration is using the concept as a kind of political protection.
"If they are domestic terrorists, you think you have the right to do anything against them," he says.
Where is the limit?
Donald Trump has a tendency to exacerbate every existing divide in American society, Hallenberg believes. He points out that the president still has many supporters when it comes to closing the country's borders - but that the majority think the events in Minneapolis have gone too far.
"This police force is behaving in a way that should not be acceptable in a democracy," says Hallenberg.
The development of events in Minneapolis is not in Trump's favor, Hallenberg believes. What happens next depends a lot on the resistance the president will face from his own party. Somewhere, Hallenberg believes, the line is drawn.
"One border was at Epstein, another at Greenland. Where the border is in this matter, we don't know."
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot and killed on January 24. Authorities say he was shot in self-defense by a Border Patrol agent. However, according to U.S. media analysis of video footage of the incident, he was shot multiple times while lying on the ground after being subdued and disarmed by several agents.
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and poet, was shot dead by an ICE patrol on January 7 in her car. Authorities claim she tried to run over immigration officers, while critics say analysis of video footage suggests that she tried to swerve and leave the scene.
