Speaker Rivas backs government shutdown over ICE as GOP lawmakers back Trump
Flanked by dozens of lawmakers from each chamber, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, called on both his national party’s leaders and on California Republicans to reign in the federal government after this weekend’s death in Minneapolis.
Rivas and other lawmakers also said Congressional Democrats should shut the government down for the second time in less than three months rather than further fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I’m calling on our national Democrat leaders to stand resolutely against this president,” Rivas said, “if that means shutting down the federal government, then so be it.”
Rivas made the comments at a news conference where Senate President Monique Limón, D-Goleta, and other state lawmakers also reacted to an immigration officer fatally shooting Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti over the weekend. The death drove thousands out into bitterly cold temperatures to protest in that city as well as Washington D.C. and New York City. President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have said federal agents opened fire to defend themselves after Pretti of approached them with a gun, though video evidence is at odd with their account. Footage of the killing recorded by other witnesses at the scene shows that Pretti was “clearly holding a phone, not a gun,” according to the New York Times, and that agents had wrestled him to the ground before the gunfire.
State lawmakers used Monday’s news conference to emphasize that elected officials in California, where cities such as Los Angeles have contended with surges of federal law enforcement officers and the protests that follow them, would support Minneapolis officials who have asked Trump to pull ICE out of the city. They also announced more bills attempting to regulate federal agents who operate in California.
Rivas, Limón and other lawmakers addressed reporters Monday from a lectern decorated with a graphic of California’s bear mascot with its head thrown back in a roar and the message “ICE out now,” as state leaders continued to escalate their war of words with the federal government.
In the California Assembly, around a dozen lawmakers had upside down American flags on their desk during Monday afternoon’s legislative session — a symbol of distress invoked by both political sides during times of intense dispute with the federal government.
The Democrat lawmakers joined other state leaders who have called for new measures against the federal government since Saturday’s shooting. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed Californians’ attention to a portal where they can report misconduct or brutality by federal agents to the state attorney general. In an interview with Politico, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins reiterated an earlier warning that she might seek to prosecute federal agents if they appear to commit crimes in that city.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Schumer, D-New York, on Monday expressed a willingness to lead Senate Democrats into a shutdown if Republicans in that chamber don’t pull a bill funding U.S. Department of Homeland Security from broader legislation to fund the government. California’s two senators also said Monday they would not vote to fund ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in the wake of the weekend’s shooting.
Still, Rivas reiterated the concerns of many Democrats frustrated with their congressional leadership’s seeming inability to slow Trump’s agenda in the Republican-dominated Congress.
Schumer “has to lead with strength,” Rivas said, “or if not, step aside for someone who will.”
So far, CA Republicans hewing to party line
Rivas also turned across the aisle, beseeching California Republicans to check a president who remains very popular within their party, even if Americans at large are increasingly turning sour about ICE’s tactics in cities and towns.
“We need your solidarity in standing up for America and American values,” Rivas said, addressing California Republicans. “This is not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s not left, it’s not right. This is about our fundamental rights and freedoms. Silence, those who are choosing to say nothing at all, that is a betrayal of our values.”
Some Republicans on the national stage have expressed alarm over Pretti’s death, including a handful of U.S. senators and representatives who called for more oversight on ICE and an independent investigation.
In Sacramento, however, those Republican lawmakers who addressed the issue blamed sanctuary city policies and Democrat rhetoric for Pretti’s death, echoing Trump and administration officials like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
In Rivas’s chamber, Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, former caucus leader and a current candidate for Congress, issued a statement supporting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and saying Minnesota Democrats and activists were responsible for the violence.
“Our ICE agents are doing the job they are sworn and charged to do under extremely difficult circumstances,” Gallagher wrote in a post on X. “Irresponsible Democrat politicians are charging people up with false narratives that these LEOs are Nazi secret police that must be stopped. This is false and dangerous. It is creating the crazed atmosphere in Minneapolis that has led to these deadly altercations.”
Gallagher did call for an investigation into the shooting, however. “The loss of life is a terrible tragedy and there should be a full and transparent investigation,” he said in the post, but he did not say whether that investigation should involve Minnesota authorities.
Officials in Minnesota have accused the federal government of blocking attempts to investigate the shooting of both Pretti and Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman killed by ICE agents earlier this month. In an interview, Gallagher told The Sacramento Bee he was not concerned on which government investigated the shooting, but that “the important thing is that it be impartial.”
He reiterated his belief that Democrats, including those in the Legislature, could spark more violence by referring to ICE agents as Nazis or outside the law.
“The idea that somehow these are bad actors and not really law enforcement,” he said, “that they’re thugs, is a ridiculous and dangerous statement. Just one that shouldn’t be made, and it’s contributing to the kind of chaotic environment that these guys find themselves in.”
State Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, told The Bee that sanctuary policies, in which local elected officials direct agencies under their jurisdictions not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, are responsible for the violence in Minneapolis.
“I don’t like what’s going on in the streets of Minnesota or across the country, just like everybody else,” Strickland said, “but we wouldn’t have this problem, if we didn’t have these sanctuary city and sanctuary state laws.”
Strickland did not call for a state or independent investigation of the shooting. “I’m not opposed to full transparency,” he said, “but part of that transparency also is people who are agitators that don’t let our federal authorities do their job.”
New bills to oversee feds in California
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, announced Monday he is putting forward two new proposals in response partially to the shootings in Minneapolis, including one that would require a state investigation into any shootings by ICE officers in California.
One bill would prevent federal agents from using state resources for their operations, including use of state properties as staging areas for federal actions. The bill was coauthored by Assemblymember Juan Carillo, D-Palmdale, who serves as vice chair of the California Legislative Latino Caucus.
“What we are seeing in Minnesota is a result of an administration that has normalized fear, intimidation, and use of force in our communities,” Carillo wrote in a statement. “Do not be mistaken, what is happening in Minnesota will happen here.”
The second bill would require the California Attorney General to conduct an investigation into any shooting by a federal immigration enforcement agent in the state. It would build on an existing 2020 law that requires a state prosecutor to investigate incidents of officer-involved shootings resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian.
The Bee Capitol Bureau’s Kate Wolffe contributed to this story.
This story was originally published January 26, 2026 at 3:37 PM.
