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ayanna pressley
GOP Votes Down Pressley's Motion to Investigate Minneapolis ICE Shooting
"Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe," said the congresswoman.
Jan 08, 2026
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley told her fellow members of the US House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that a motion she was introducing during a hearing was "pretty straightforward": The committee, she said, should conduct oversight regarding a federal agent's fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a woman in Minneapolis who was killed in her car earlier in the day.
But the motion failed, with every Republican on the panel voting against it.
Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced the motion during a hearing regarding a fraud scandal in the state, hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Good, who was in the driver's seat of her car as multiple officers approached her. Good was acting as a legal observer, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), monitoring ICE actions following the Trump administration's surge of federal agents into Minnesota, in part to target members of the Somali community.
Footage of the shooting shows an officer trying to open the car door and the driver turning the wheel before starting to drive forward. An agent who had approached the driver-side bumper draws his gun and shoots the driver multiple times.
Despite what is shown in the widely available video, President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Vice President JD Vance were quick to place blame on Good. Trump said she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the ICE agent, while Noem said Good had committed an "act of domestic terrorism."
Pressley called on the congressional committee to investigate the case.
"Since this committee is responsible for oversight of federal law enforcement, we must investigate," she said. "This subpoena will get to the truth, and it should have bipartisan support."
Pressley condemned her GOP colleagues for blocking the effort to get to the bottom of what happened in Minneapolis, which has also been described by multiple eyewitnesses who dispute the Trump administration's narrative.
“DHS’ claim that an agent shot in self-defense is a bold-faced lie and the video footage is damning," said Pressley. "But after I moved to subpoena all records and footage related to this killing, Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe.
“What happened today is a despicable consequence of Donald Trump’s campaign of terror, fear, and demonization of vulnerable communities and we cannot allow it to be normalized in America," said Pressley. "I demand a thorough and independent investigation into this tragedy so the victim, her loved ones, and the public get the accountability and transparency they deserve. It’s time for the Trump administration to end its cruel, unlawful mass deportation agenda once and for all.”
The ACLU on Wednesday noted that Good was killed as Congress negotiates the Department of Homeland Security's budget for the coming year, months after lawmakers voted to add "an unprecedented $170 billion to the Trump administration’s already massive budget for immigration enforcement."
“For months, the Trump administration has been deploying reckless, heavily armed agents into our communities and encouraging them to commit horrifying abuses with impunity, and, today, we are seeing the devastating and predictable consequences,” said Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs at ACLU. “Congress must rein ICE in before what happened in Minneapolis today happens somewhere else tomorrow. That means, at a minimum, opposing a Homeland Security budget that supports the growing lawlessness of this agency.”
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Millions of US Families Could Soon Go Hungry Thanks to Trump-GOP Government Shutdown
"Trump and congressional Republicans have driven America headfirst into a government shutdown," said one campaigner. "It is poor women and children who will feel the impacts first and worst."
Oct 09, 2025
A federal food program serving vulnerable women and children could run out of money next week due to the Republican government shutdown, a prospect that on Thursday spurred calls for Congress to pass a bipartisan funding bill that protects nutritional assistance for needy Americans.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides free staples including fresh produce, milk, and formula vouchers for nearly 7 million pregnant and breastfeeding parents and children under the age of 5. The program currently benefits more than 1 in 4 young US children.
“We will have babies being born to low-income women who will not have any breastfeeding support, and they will have no way to get infant formula if they’re not breastfeeding,” Nicole Flateboe, executive director of Nutrition First, Washington state’s WIC association, recently told the Washington State Standard, calling the specter of defunding a "disaster."
The Trump shutdown is threatening to force kids to go hungry. We need, at the very least, a bipartisan spending bill that protects access to food and clean water.
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— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 7:58 AM
In Puerto Rico, 76% of children under age 5 rely upon WIC. In California, that figure is 38%, followed by 35% in New York and 34% in Delaware and North Carolina.
"WIC is a lifeline that helps new parents keep their babies fed. But thanks to Republicans' government shutdown, WIC funds could run out in a matter of weeks," Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said Thursday on social media. "Republicans must reopen the government NOW and stop playing with people's lives."
Food & Water Watch warned Thursday that over 5 million US children stand to lose food assistance, with many likely to go hungry, if the government shutdown is not resolved.
“Trump and congressional Republicans have driven America headfirst into a government shutdown," Food & Water Watch managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones said in a statement Thursday. "It is poor women and children who will feel the impacts first and worst."
Democrats in Congress have introduced a short-term appropriations bill that would fully fund WIC, a proposal that stands in stark contrast with Republican legislation that would maintain current funding levels for the program. The GOP proposal is the equivalent of a $600 million cut, due to inflation and price pressures, according to Food & Water Watch.
Making matters worse, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed by President Donald Trump in July stripped Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from more than 2 million people. The legislation contains the deepest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history while slashing billions from other essential social programs to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations.
The OBBBA ends health coverage and food assistance for millions of people at a time when more than 47 million Americans—including 1 in 5 US children—are living in food insecure households.
The Trump administration's staffing and funding cuts at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers SNAP, have also hamstrung the government's ability to provide assistance to those in need.
“It’s a big mess,” Flateboe said. “We don’t have a lot of trust that the USDA is going to handle this real seamlessly.”
While Trump said this week that he would use tariff revenues to temporarily fund WIC, it is unclear how he could do so absent an act of Congress.
"Congressional Republicans need to put food back on the table for struggling families by passing a bipartisan spending bill that protects food access," Jones said.
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) said on social media: "Families shouldn’t pay the price for GOP dysfunction. We must protect WIC and the people who rely on it."
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After Cutting Food Aid for Millions, Trump Admin Kills Key Hunger Report
"First they slashed food aid, and now they are canceling the USDA’s decades-old food insecurity survey so no one can measure the harm," said one critic.
Sep 22, 2025
Two months after President Donald Trump enacted the biggest-ever cut to federal food assistance, his administration ended a key yearly report on food insecurity, drawing widespread condemnation Monday from critics who accused the president of once again trying to hide the harms of his policies.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Saturday that it will stop publishing its annual Household Food Security reports, claiming that the surveys—which are the federal government's primary means of gauging hunger—"failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder."
"These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fear-monger," USDA added.
Experts warned that the USDA's move will make it more difficult to track the harmful effects. Critics say that's exactly the point.
"Step 1: Increase hunger with massive SNAP cuts, increase food prices with tariffs," Congresswoman Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) said Monday on social media, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps. "Step 2: Abruptly end USDA hunger report."
"The Trump administration doesn’t solve problems, it hides them," Brown added.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also posted about the matter Monday, calling the USDA move "shameful and cowardly."
"Trump wants the USDA to stop collecting data on food insecurity because he knows hunger will spike after his Big, Ugly Bill kicks millions of families off food assistance," she wrote, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act the president signed on July 4.
The legislation approved the deepest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history while slashing billions from other essential social programs to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. The law ends health coverage and food assistance for millions of Americans at a time when more than 47 million Americans—including 1 in 5 US children—are living in food insecure households.
"As grocery prices rise and Republicans’ cuts to food assistance drive more families into food insecurity, President Trump wants to disguise these devastating effects from the public," Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Monday on social media. "This report is critical to our fight against hunger in America, and Trump has abandoned it just as he’s abandoned working families."
As Common Dreams has reported, food banks and other lifelines—many of them severely underresourced—are bracing for a surge in hunger resulting from the Republican cuts.
The USDA's move follows Trump's August 1 firing of former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, baselessly accusing her of manipulating economic data to harm him politically after the agency published a report showing only 73,000 jobs added to the economy the previous month.
On Friday, the BLS announced that it is postponing publication of an annual report on consumer spending by more than one month.
"Trump promised transparency and life-changing prosperity for families, but instead of keeping his promise, his administration is burying economic data," the liberal super political action committee American Bridge 21st Century said on social media on Monday. "When housing, food, and utility costs are rising faster than paychecks, hiding economic reports is an act of deception."
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