THE ICE PROBLEMLicense to Kill? The Legal Black Hole of Federal Misconduct
The killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents reveals a disturbing reality: everyday Americans falling victim to a system that enables—or even encourages—gross misconduct. To understand how we got here, we have to look at the bolted-shut doors of the American courthouse—a legal regime designed to ensure federal agents remain untouchable.
Nearly three weeks ago, I wrote about how the January 7 killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent followed a familiar script. Seventeen days later and just over a mile away, the scenario played out all over again. On January 24, 2026, 37-year-old Alex Pretti—an ICU nurse and US citizen—was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent.
Like the killing of Renee Good, Pretti’s killing occurred amidst a massive urban occupation as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Nearly 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents now occupy the city of just over 400,000 residents, dwarfing the city’s 600-officer-strong police force. And like the Good case, the Department of Homeland Security immediately deployed a familiar playbook. Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino claimed that Pretti “wanted to do maximal damage and massacre law enforcement,” a claim not substantiated by video evidence.
DHS claims that Pretti approached agents with a handgun; yet bystander video reveals a different reality. The footage shows Pretti holding only a cellphone, recording as he attempted to shield a bystander from being shoved. He was pepper-sprayed, tackled, and disarmed of a legally permitted firearm he never brandished—and then he was shot ten times in less than five seconds while pinned to the ground.
The reality is that these are everyday Americans falling victim to a system that enables—or even encourages—gross misconduct. To understand how we got here, we have to look at the bolted-shut doors of the American courthouse—a legal regime designed to ensure federal agents remain untouchable.
If a local police officer violates your rights, you can sue under a longstanding federal statute commonly known as Section 1983. But for misconduct by federal agents like those who killed Good and Pretti, no such statutory remedy exists. Instead, victims must rely on the Bivens Doctrine, a 1971 Supreme Court precedent that created an implied right of action to sue federal officials.
Over the last several decades, however, the Supreme Court has pared Bivens down to near irrelevance. Courts now routinely rule that if a case has even a new context—such as involving immigration enforcement—the right to sue simply doesn’t exist. The result: Your constitutional rights are unenforceable when violated by federal agents.
