The two Border Patrol agents who shot Pretti …
… have Hispanic names and are probably Hispanic. This is not surprising; I’ve noticed before that many border agents are Hispanic. It makes sense, not only because the Hispanic population is large in the areas involved, but because, as the article notes:
Thus, the influx of illegal aliens from Latin American countries has put enormous pressure on the legal communities of Latin Americans. Not only are there more people fighting for the same resources (housing, jobs, and goods), but there are also more criminals, and statistical data shows that most criminals stay local. When the illegal immigrant drug dealers, pedophiles, and murderers come to town, they prey on their own.
But no doubt the left considers the two “white Hispanics,” which is what they called George Zimmerman.
Nor is “Hispanic” a race or even a single ethnicity, although it’s been regarded in the US as one for years.
neo, you are on a roll today!
Believe me, those Tejano communities who have been in Texas and the Southwest for as long as, (and sometimes longer) than the US has been in existence are really, really, really pissed at having their communities swamped by illegal immigrants from south of ye-olde-border, especially by the criminal gangs who — as you pointed out — prey on their own Hispanic communities. Also, even if not criminally active – they swamp schools, hospitals, and the rental markets (especially in the less-affluent part of town) and undercut wages.
I am savagely amused by the progressives lamenting how Hispanic ICE and Border Patrol agents are not standing in solidarity with their own so-called community.
As if the descendants of proud Tejano patriots have anything in common with a gangster and sex-offender from El Salvador…
The Left will get in trouble about this.
I’ve been seeing the allegation that Pretti is Jewish, which for whatever reason some people find significant. I’ve never seen that surname before but it looks Italian to me.
The sound you never hear in the media is a narative exploding.
Nevermind.
Michael Joseph Pretti married Susan Marie Skocir on 30 August 1986. Susan Skocir is the daughter of Stephen M. Skocir (b. 1940) and Marilyn Houston (1942-2022). Marilyn Houston was married 3x. Stephen Skocir was her first husband, to whom she was married from Sept. 1960 to Dec. 1963. Stephen Skocir’s paternal grandparents were German born and spoke German as their 1st language; his maternal grandparents were also German born. His family has lived in and around Milwaukee since the late 19th century at least. Marilyn Houston’s maternal side relatives have also lived in Wisconsin for generations and came from Germany and France. Her paternal side relatives have lived in Wisconsin for generations and were originally from…Germany. Michael Pretti (b. 1962) grew up in Michigan. He is the son of Henry Pretti and Margaret Chiapusio. His entire pedigree is Italian.
I believe that another reason is that speaking Spanish is a pro on getting hired on Border Patrol.
I lived in the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico many decades ago. Many of the Anglos in the region (think Taos/Santa Fe) were leftist twits even then – hating this country and those who didn’t agree, but the Hispanics (for lack of a better term) were proud to be American; thought the right side won the Mexican War, and strongly disliked wetbacks (their term).
The agents’ ethnicity is irrelevant.
Pretti’s alleged Jewishness is also irrelevant. Not to dispute Art’s comment, but I think a person can be both Italian and Jewish.
I asked DuckDuckGo’s AI “alex pretti jewish?” and it said “There is no information confirming that Alex Pretti was Jewish. ” It then launched into an unsolicited description of him as a sort of male Florence Nightingale, if not Mother Theresa, which doesn’t square with the cursing, spitting, kicking, and apparently insane man shown in the first video.
I would classify him as an “enemy, both foreign and domestic” of the Constitution and the Republic.
The havoc wrought by illegal aliens.*
* See some very revealing statistics here at https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/02/the-havoc-wrought-by-illegal-aliens.php
Was in a small town in CO a couple of years ago and had some business with a couple of locals. Got to chatting. Each–independely–said their family had come to Colorado before Mexico was a country. So they were Spanish, not Mexican or hispanic.
Seemed to be important to them. Given the odds, probably more folks like that in the Southwest.
Not to dispute Art’s comment, but I think a person can be both Italian and Jewish.
==
You’re a man who fancies a long shot.
==
Italy had a five-digit Jewish population prior to the war, (IIRC, the number was about 12,000 in 1940).
==
There was a much larger Jewish population in Germany (though less than 2% of the total population), but none of the surnames in Susan Pretti’s family resemble those you’d expect in a German Jewish family (Stein, Klein, Schwartz, Rosenberg, Koch, &c) and one of the documents you pull up on her ancestors is a baptismal / confirmation record in a Lutheran congregation.
==
Each–independely–said their family had come to Colorado before Mexico was a country.
==
Prior to 1822? I think they were pulling your leg.
California is rapidly swirling around the toilet bowl of history.
It’s hemorrhaging people, companies, jobs, and wealth–their tax base–while, at the same, time spending insane amounts of money on all sorts of projects.
To take just one glaring and prominent example, their high speed rail project, which was supposed to link all of California’s major cities.
Started in 2012, ground breaking in 2015, and at an estimated cost of $33 Billion with a ten year completion date for the first 494 mile section, this first section now projected to be completed somewhere around 2030 or later, to be followed by the second 776 mile section.
However, it’s not clear if even one station along this first phase had been completed and is operational, while the cost so far has skyrocketed, to an astronomical $128 billion dollars, and President Trump has said that there will be no more Federal funding towards this project.
But, wait, there’s more!
Here is what appears to be even more insane government spending in California, on a gigantic, very expensive home health care system employing hundreds of thousands of people–usually relatives–to perform their relatives care.*
* See https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_875f12ea-0e73-4b96-9b3b-da4f14f4ec20.html
“Nor is “Hispanic” a race or even a single ethnicity, although it’s been regarded in the US as one for years.”
At least in NYC (where I grew up) anybody that spoke Spanish was identified as “Spanish,” regardless if they were from Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Spain, etc.
This sort of identification ( I don’t think) does not apply to non-Spanish speaking folks.
Don’t know how or why this sort of identification applies only to Spanish speakers.(at least in NYC).
I did learn (from my Cuban and Argentinian acquaintances) that they found it really insulting if they were identified as Puerto Ricans.
Newsom is waiting for the Democrats to return to power in the White House and Congress so that California can once again “benefit” from the tremendous amounts of money from the impressive, imaginative and UBIQUITOUS Democratic-Party grifts that helped that state and its privileged groups “make” a lot of money.
Four lean years,
fourUNLIMITED fat ones…(This would be true for every blue state, not just California…)
E.g.,
https://instapundit.com/773643/
There is a pecking order for Hispanic countries.
Art
You might be right. But it was important to them, which is an interesting issue.
Could be they meant the family came from Spain and got into CO without putting down roots in Mexico, kind of a technicality if it took a couple of generations,
It is also a matter of pride in New Mexico to be decended from the early Spanish.
In New Mexico there are the Native Americans, the old Spanish Americans, the Anglos, the Mexican Americans, and of course the illegal Hispanics. But the Texans, they really got disrespected!
At least that’s my recollection from the late ’90s working in ABQ, which I really liked.
Huxley would be an authority on the curiosities of New Mexico?
om:
New Mexico is a complicated place. Despite being born here and my heritage I’ve never really fit in.
My grandfather was an Irish orphan, likely illegitimate, who as a baby was sent to a NYC orphanage with just his name. He served in WW I, roamed America until he settled down in Santa Fe, became a postman and married a woman from Chihuahua.
I found a newspaper account of their wedding in the Santa Fe Cathedral. The interracial aspect was something of a big deal and was covered in the papers.
So my father was a half-breed, a coyote. He had a tough enough time that he chose not to teach me Spanish, his first language. I’ve never made things work with my NM relatives.
NM is not a happy melting pot story. It’s a poor state with too many drugs, too many tensions.
But yeah, they really don’t like Texans!
New Mexico guy here. Concur with om and Huxley about our state.
Minor comments. Among regular people, the term is “Indian”, not “Native American”: Asiatic Indians are called “East Indian”.
The “Spanish” v. “Mexican” divide is real: we know of marriage failing because the in-laws couldn’t accept the other.
By far the hottest invective I’ve heard against “los mojados” (“the wet ones” i.e., “wetbacks” was from a gent of Mexican(-American) ancestry.
One thing that is strange to outsiders is that a lot of New Mexicans of Mexican ancestry often have kin south of the border, and visiting back-and-forth was common. The response to Biden’s open border assininity has made this more difficult.
Well, the question I have is: will Justice Department follow through in investigating and prosecuting the leaker/leakers? Or is it going to be as always – no punishment for breaking the law whatsoever?
I am sure, the ProPublica owners, being an accessory after the fact, can be easily compelled to reveal the sources under the threat of some jail time, right?