An agency working with a $6 billion budget ten years ago suddenly beefed to $85 billion thanks to President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill, which installs armed, quick-triggered, and panic-prone men in masks on the streets who - in the time of Trump - are amassing a record of terror and murder in Minneapolis, faces urgent scrutiny in New Jersey in the aftermath of the ICE-killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti.

The prime mover of S-3112, state Senator Benjie Wimberly (D-35) wants to require law enforcement officers to reveal their facial identities "during certain public interactions and to present sufficient identification prior to arresting or detaining person [s]."

"Next week hopefully it moves fast," Wimberly told InsiderNJ in reference to his bill. "The obvious reason for expediting is the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids in New Jersey where people - law enforcement - are not identified. Unfortunately, too, we see what's going on in Minneapolis and throughout the United States. We see the killing of Mr. Pretti. Unfortunately, we see ICE - men in masks - scaring and attacking a lot of brown folks. It's no secret that the KKK came from law enforcement where they covered themselves.

"Enough is enough," Wimberly added.

Lawmakers and other critics of this Trump version of ICE and its trending murderous record (an agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in January) identify the disturbing context of a presidential pardon issued to 1,600 U.S. Capitol-desecrating Jan. 6th rioters, which killed a policeman from New Jersey, ICE's actions, and the lack of accountability by officers involved in videoed killings, and politicized defamations of the victims expressed publicly by the Trump Administration.

"Now we're finding guys - Proud Boys - who were in the Jan. 6th riot, because of the lack of credentials, hiding behind masks," said Wimberly.

When accountability is precisely the toot of the problem, masks hardly help.

From InsiderNJ Legal Analyst Joe Hayden: "The homicides involving Alex Pretti and Renee Good are a tragedy but the way the government failed to accept responsibility and then defamed the victims by calling them domestic terrorists is an obscenity. In this state, in New Jersey, any police killing is going to be investigated by state or county law enforcement agencies and I have not seen anyone of those cases that did not go to a grand jury even if the grand jury cleared them."

ICE's secretive activities in New Jersey, particularly in the maintenance of immigration detention facility Delaney Hall, resulted in federal charges filed against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10), after the congresswoman last year attempted to gain information about ICE's practices at the Newark facility and refused to be intimidated by masked and heavily armed agents.

State Senator Joe Cryan (D-20) subsequently called for the eradication of ICE from New Jersey and initially dropped the bill to curtail - at the very least - their use of masks.

"I had the honor of being Union County sheriff," Cryan said in October 2025. "When I watch people in masks, so afraid to do their job, I think to myself, 'How could this be in the United States of America?'"

Someone in the crowd outside the Federal Courthouse where Cryan spoke yelled, "ICE out of New Jersey!" Cryan said, "ICE out of New Jersey is absolutely right. When I watch that I'm absolutely horrified. This is your time. We've got our inspiration. Her name is LaMonica McIver."

Yesterday, state Senator Jon Bramnick (R-21), told InsiderNJ: "Of course law and order is different than what ICE is doing with respect to immigration. Law and order is for people who committed serious crimes, who should be caught, prosecuted, and punished. There are no parallels between ICE and my position on law and order. They're completely different universes. If Trump was targeting the worst of the worst, everybody would be on board. Obviously, that's not what's happening."

Guy Citron, 2025 Democratic candidate for the Assembly in LD-23, said in the immediate aftermath of Nicole Good's killing, "I'm terrified, because if the shooter [ICE agent Jonathan Ross] faces no consequences for murdering a civilian, an American citizen in the street, that sends a signal to the tens of thousands of other ICE agents that they are allowed to do it too. This is why due process and proper law enforcement, which is what real police officers are trained to do, are so important. ...What we are watching is domestic terrorism."

That was before ICE killed Mr. Pretti on Saturday.

Wimberly today added, "If you see what's going on, you should be concerned. This is terrorizing people We read reports last year of attendance in schools going down because people were in fear - children - of being grabbed and taken away. It's a terrifying situation.

"Everything leads to poor leadership," added the senator, a lifelong football and baseball coach by trade in his home city of Paterson, in reference to the deportment and policy deployment of Trump and his administration.

Mr. Pretti died after getting pumped full of lead at point blank range by masked federal agents. Following Department of Homeland Security Commissioner Kristi Noem's subsequent claim that Mr. Pretti "attacked" officers while brandishing a gun, which is not true, Trump said she's "doing a very good job."

Mr. Pretti's family, in response to Noem issued a statement that read in part: "The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man."

Of Mr. Pretti, Wimberly observed, "He really was a hero."

As he seeks to advance his own bill at the state level, the state senator said he supports federal efforts to curtail ICE funding until the government implements reforms of the agency. Wimberly said one of those reforms should include the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Senate Democrats, including Amy Klobuchar, Adam Schiff, and Chris Murphy, say they will not support DHS funding without reforms.  "They have to reform it," Wimberly said. "She obviously has to go."

On Saturday, U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) released the following statement announcing that he will vote “no” on proposed funding for the Department of Homeland Security - which houses ICE - that is set to be voted on this week in the Senate:

“I’m not voting to fund this lawless violence. Trump’s abuse of power is tearing us apart. We have three years left of this presidency, and either we stand up and protect our democracy now, or we risk going down a path that is unthinkable, will hurt countless people and do irreversible damage to our country.”

Last week, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) visited the site of a proposed ICE detention facility in Roxbury

and met with community leaders in Morristown following an ICE raid outside of a local laundromat earlier this month in which multiple Morristown residents and a high school student were detained. Like his colleague Kim, he expressed his strong objection to any new ICE detention centers in New Jersey.

He likewise made clear he will not approve more federal funding for “an agency right now that is out of control.”

“Delaney Hall, and every detention center like it, are a moral stain on our country. The conditions are an abdication of the federal government’s responsibility to care for those in its custody. GEO Group was awarded a 15-year, one billion dollar contract by the Department of Homeland Security to warehouse our immigrant neighbors. As taxpayers, we’re footing the bill for a system that is brutalizing those detained within it. Enough is enough,” said Booker. “With the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, we can move away from this system of neglect and cruelty. We can strike a blow against the corrupt for-profit prison model of incarceration. We can guarantee due process for our immigrant neighbors and ban mandatory detentions. Doing this will safeguard our communities and it will bring us steps closer to achieving an immigration system built on dignity and justice that we know is possible.”