WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate in response to the situation in Minneapolis, and the failure of leadership and accountability by the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.
In the speech, Slotkin called on Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Advisor Stephen Miller to resign, be fired, or in Noem’s case, be impeached. She stated that there needs to be consequences for what happened in Minneapolis. Slotkin continued to sound the alarm on the authoritarian tendencies of this administration, stating that if they can do this in Minneapolis, there is no stopping them from coming to other American communities.
Watch the speech here.
Download the speech here.
Key Excerpts:
Minneapolis
- “Alex Pretti—37 years old, nurse at a VA hospital, shot multiple times and killed by Border Patrol agents while exercising his right to peacefully assemble.”
- “The video shows us what happened—Alex was disarmed, defenseless, and not a threat when he was shot and killed.”
- “Before him was Renee Good, shot and killed by ICE agents in her car on January 7.”
- “Separate from those two, we have 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025, including one in Baldwin, Michigan. Most fatalities in one year in more than 2 decades.”
Attacks on Freedoms
- “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. In Michigan we’ve seen political protests over the last 5 years… But I want people to imagine that if they’re doing this in Minneapolis, there is no stopping them or a future Administration doing this to you for what you care about.
- “It’s lucky we grew up in this country, and we are taught over and over about the values of freedom of speech and peaceful protest.”
- “What’s going on in Minneapolis runs against the fundamental freedoms of who we are as Americans.”
DHS Leadership Failure
- “There needs to be accountability for this anti-American behavior.”
- “Secretary Noem should resign. If she doesn’t, the President should fire her. And if she doesn’t get fired, she should be impeached.
- “She sat in front of many of us for Senate confirmation and she has done nothing to defend the values she held her hand up to swear to protect.”
- “A year ago, I was one of those people who voted for Kristi Noem. I voted yes. I come from the state of Michigan, and we have some of the biggest border crossings in America… we needed her to pay attention when we had issues… But she has proven over and over again that she does not deserve the title of cabinet Secretary.”
Moving Forward
- “We need accountability. We need Steven Miller and Kristi Noem to resign.”
- “But for what this body needs to do this week… we need to separate out the budgets for everything else from the Department of Homeland Security. We cannot trust this Administration to handle the deployment of federal forces in our streets without making some fundamental reforms to the Department of Homeland Security.”
- “We need accountability for the people that are behind this. We also need fundamental reforms of ICE. We cannot leave the Administration to do it themselves.”
- “We are asking for federal agents who show up in these cities to not play by different rules than the police who live and work in our communities.”
- “We need prevention, we need reform, we need to separate the DHS budget and not shut down the government because the President won’t admit fault in Minneapolis. And we need to fundamentally remember who we are as Americans.”
- “Those people who are standing up right now and exercising those rights are doing the most patriotic thing they can do. Standing up and calling out authoritarianism when we see it is the most patriotic thing we can do as Americans.”
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