Reform Councillor slammed after tweeting 'I stand with ICE' after fatal shooting of nurse Alex Pretti
A Reform councillor has sparked fury after showing support for ICE following the brutal shooting of nurse Alex Pretti.
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Joseph Boam, 22, tweeted a graphic of the US Department of Homeland Security with the words 'I Stand With Ice' on Sunday afternoon.
The show of support came after the agency fatally shot the 37-year-old in a Minneapolis street on Saturday.
Graphic footage taken by an onlooker showed the moment the ICU nurse was gunned down by federal agents in front of terrified protesters.
So far, even Donald Trump appeared reluctant to totally defend the unnamed agent over the shooting, which saw him hit 10 times in five seconds.
The death marks the second killing of an anti-ICE protester in the city in the space of a month.
Following backlash from his initial tweet, Mr Boam doubled down on his approval for the agency saying: "For the people that don’t support ICE - Are you suggesting that the UK should not enforce its immigration law?
"When I said I support ICE’s work, I mean that I support the enforcement of immigration law, which is the task of Immigration Control and Enforcement aka ICE. That is what I stand by."
The 22-year-old was one of 25 Reform councillors elected to Leicestershire County Council in local elections last May.
He was later removed from the position as cabinet member for adult social care.
At the time, the Leicestershire Conservative group - the main opposition on the authority - branded Reform UK's local leadership a "shambles".
Their leader Deborah Taylor said it was "no surprise" to her Boam "has been shown the door after just three months".
She added: "He was wholly unqualified for such a critical role and lacked the experience or judgement to bring anything of value to the position.
Last year, Hope Not Hate exposed some worrying social media posts shared by Mr Boam, as well as other figures in Reform UK.
His now deleted X account, which used the name Lord Joseph Boam, he regularly tweeted and retweeted Andrew Tate, the self-proclaimed misogynist charged with rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.
According to the charity, he also retweeted messages like “Resist the Slave Mind” and tweeted, “Hello Mr Tate” with an emoji of a goat (meaning “Greatest Of All Time”)
After Tate was removed from numerous social media platforms, Boam retweeted another account saying: “Andrew Tate has been banned from Instagram and Facebook. Free speech is dead. The world is dead.”
LBC has approached Reform UK and Mr Boam for comment.
Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since January 7, when 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good was fatally shot.
Ms Good who was killed by ICE agents as she was seen to attempt to drive away during a protest.
Trump's Department of Homeland Security deployed more than 2,000 ICE agents to Minneapolis as part of the largest operation since he nearly doubled the agency's budget with his 'Big Beautiful Bill' in 2025.
'Sickening'
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has described the shooting as featuring "six masked agents pummelling one of our constituents and shooting him to death.
"He also asked how many more residents and "how many more Americans need to get badly hurt or die before the operation ends."
Minnesota governor Tim Walz described it as "sickening" - and said Donald Trump must "pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers" out of the city.
He said: “I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning.
“This is sickening. The president must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”