In his recent State of the Union address, President Trump declared that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens.”

Yet under his administration’s expanded immigration enforcement, that promise has been contradicted by tragic reality.

ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota have used aggressive tactics that have led to the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens, including Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti - who were shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis this January.

These deaths occurred even though Good and others were American citizens, not undocumented immigrants — raising urgent questions about enforcement policies that are supposed to protect all Americans.

We call on President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to stop killing US citizens.

Then maybe your claim that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens" might make sense. 

No one should be killed by agents of their own government in the name of enforcement.

If protecting Americans is truly our government’s first duty, then enforcement must not come at the cost of American lives.