Former President Bill Clinton said Americans could “never” win back their freedoms if what he described as the Trump administration’s “increasingly aggressive” federal raids are allowed to continue unchecked, following the fatal Border Patrol shooting of ICU nurse and VA employee Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Clinton, 79, said in a statement shared on social media that “we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come.”
The Pretti shooting, he warned, “is one of them.”
“In recent weeks, we’ve watched horrible scenes play out in Minneapolis and other communities that I never thought would take place in America,” he wrote.
Clinton said both adults and children have been “seized from their homes, workplaces, and the street by masked federal agents,” while peaceful observers were “arrested, beaten, teargassed,” and protesters such as Renee Nicole Good and Pretti, both 37, were “shot and killed” by them.
Clinton did not name President Donald Trump or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem directly. But he accused “the people in charge” of misleading the public—urging Americans not to trust what they see with their own eyes—while employing “increasingly aggressive and antagonistic tactics,” including efforts to block local investigations.
“All of this is unacceptable and should have been avoided,” he added.
He ended his statement with a call to those who “believe in the promise of American democracy to stand up, speak out,” and prove the country still belongs to “We the People.”
“If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back,” Clinton wrote.
The criticism comes as Noem’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) faces intensified scrutiny over the killings of Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 and Pretti two weeks later—shootings that unfolded amid Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Under Trump and Noem, DHS has embraced aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that officials say are aimed at the “worst of the worst.” But The Washington Post noted on Sunday that the department’s current focus represents a “marked departure” from its original purpose.
DHS was created by the Homeland Security Act signed on Nov. 25, 2002, after 9/11, consolidating 22 federal entities into a single department focused on preventing terrorist attacks and coordinating disaster response.
Over time, DHS responsibilities expanded to include aviation security, coastal patrol, immigration detention, cybersecurity, and disaster relief—growing into one of the largest Cabinet departments, with roughly 240,000 employees.
Critics cited by the Post argue that the department’s size and scope have made it especially vulnerable to mission creep and political pressure, particularly on immigration. A 2021 review by the Brookings Institution noted that while DHS helped address major gaps exposed by 9/11, it also faced ongoing concerns related to civil liberties, oversight, and effectiveness.
Those concerns intensified during Trump’s first term when DHS deployed camouflaged federal teams to Portland, Oregon, amid racial-justice protests. DHS intelligence officials also compiled “open source intelligence reports” on journalists who published leaked documents about the operation, prompting an internal investigation, the Post reported. TIME documented how federal officers in unmarked vehicles detained protesters and drove them away in vans, fueling fears of an emerging secret police force.
In Trump’s second term, those tactics have become even more visible. As the Post reported this weekend, Noem’s DHS is now “almost exclusively focused” on rounding up undocumented migrants, with ICE and Border Patrol teams pushed into city neighborhoods, storming homes, and firing tear gas into crowds.
“DHS has now become an immigration department, and that’s not what it was founded for,” a former senior DHS official who worked with Noem told the Post.
The former official said the shift is worrying even to some conservatives who have watched the buildup and change in priorities “in ways that are almost prophetic for what people were concerned about back when DHS was first established.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Clinton’s office, the White House, DHS, and ICE for comment.
