Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s daughter, Hope Walz, derided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a social media video Saturday, calling the agency a “horrible Gestapo” and urging lawmakers not to fund it following a fatal Border Patrol agent-involved shooting in Minneapolis.
Hope Walz: “This horrible Gestapo cannot be funded. It is deplorable at this point. Horrific. I don’t even have words for it. I wish Donald Trump and this entire administration would leave my state the fuck alone. History is not going to look kindly upon these people.” pic.twitter.com/yfpDIpwAEY
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) January 26, 2026
In a TikTok video, Hope Walz addressed the recent shooting death of Alex Pretti, 37, saying she felt “profound sadness” as well as “a lot of anger” over the incident.
“ICE brutally beat and murdered, executed may be a better word, a resident of the Twin Cities,” Walz said in the video. “A nurse at the Veterans Hospital — in broad daylight, and then they proceeded to lie about it.”
Walz encouraged viewers to contact their elected officials and oppose funding for the agency.
“This horrible Gestapo, essentially, should not be funded, cannot be funded,” she said. “So, call your senators — call all the senators, and tell them not to fund ICE, because it is deplorable at this point.”
According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Border Patrol agents were “conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault” when the encounter occurred. DHS said that during the operation, a man identified as Pretti approached agents with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.
Agents attempted to disarm Pretti, according to DHS, but he violently resisted. The department has stated that an agent shot Pretti in self-defense.
NBC News reported that a DHS spokesperson confirmed investigators are reviewing body-camera footage from immigration agents involved in the incident.
The shooting comes amid heightened scrutiny of federal immigration enforcement following another recent fatal incident. Renee Good was previously shot and killed by an ICE agent after allegedly weaponizing her vehicle against officers.
Walz’s remarks are the latest in a string of online statements that have placed her in the national spotlight. Last year, she criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to invoke Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, placing the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and activating the National Guard in response to rising crime in Washington, D.C.
In a separate TikTok video, Walz derided Trump’s move as “b**ch baby, wussy, scaredy cat behavior,” arguing that the administration was seeking to incarcerate “people that aren’t rich and white and men.” She attempted to frame her critique through references to books on mass incarceration, including Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr. and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and claimed that crime in Washington was “at the lowest it’s been in 30 years.”
Walz has also faced backlash for targeting individuals outside of government. Last year, she criticized fitness influencer Kate Mackz after Mackz participated in a White House media segment with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as part of Mackz’s “Post Run High” series. The video, which featured a behind-the-scenes tour of the White House, garnered nearly two million views.
In response, Walz posted a TikTok video arguing that running itself is a “political act” tied to privilege, a view she attributed to her father. She said access to running requires time, money for equipment, nutritious food, and a stable mental and physical environment. Walz accused Mackz of “normalizing” political figures she opposes and criticized her for previously featuring Gov. Walz while later engaging with the Trump administration.
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The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the dying tree
But the welfare and child care fraud should be funded, eh. Hope-less.
She appears to me to be rather spoiled. But she also agrees with her father. It appears she is lyying down doing this video and uses some foul language. I wouldn’t want my daugher to be doing what she did.