January 26, 2025
We are horrified, outraged, and so deeply saddened over the murder of Alex Pretti — a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse — by U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis this weekend. What began as a politically-motivated federal operation devolved into a public execution captured on multiple videos, showing a compassionate caregiver pinned, beaten, and shot by agents whose first move in the aftermath was to spread disinformation and defend the indefensible. This contempt for truth and human life from the Trump administration should terrify every American.
At Fair Share America, we study how government power and federal funding shape our lives and communities — and so we recognize what this really is: a direct consequence of a militarized immigration enforcement apparatus fueled by congressional appropriations. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) dramatically expanded funding for immigration enforcement — money now being used to recruit and deploy agents who are unlawfully detaining U.S. citizens and immigrants, terrorizing families, and killing people in our neighborhoods. (This while stripping people of life-supporting resources like Medicaid and food assistance).
Now the Senate is poised to vote on the FY26 funding minibus, which would pour billions more into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE operations at the very moment federal agents are executing U.S. citizens in broad daylight. The escalation tactics by DHS have proven even the modest and long-overdue guardrails that Democratic appropriators built into this package — like deescalation training and body cameras — are nowhere near sufficient to rein in a dangerously unaccountable militarized force.
On Sunday I joined in with over 20,000 people in Chicago who came together to support one another and take a stand against the actions of DHS. It was clear that the public is calling on Congress to reject the current DHS budget and enact real policy measures that hold DHS officials and agents accountable while ensuring Congress has constant oversight of all aspects of DHS’s enforcement activities.
In our community and in communities across America, people from all backgrounds are demanding that Senators stand on the side of the Constitution and their residents and reject any additional funding that further expands or supports ICE. Senate Democrats’ rejection of the DHS funding bill is not just a procedural stance — it is a moral imperative. And their Republican colleagues should search their conscience and join them. We need Republicans to speak loudly and clearly that they will not give a blank check to a federal militarized force to continue to execute American citizens with complete disregard for the rights guaranteed to all of us. Legislative deadlines are far less important than utilizing every available legislative option to protect the lives and safety of our communities.
Lastly, members of Congress and the general public should call out and put pressure on corporations like Amazon, Palantir, Microsoft, AT&T, and Home Depot to stop providing DHS and ICE with the technology and infrastructure necessary for these horrific actions. Learn more about ICE’s corporate enablers here and here.
Americans, those of different political backgrounds and those who don’t care for politics at all, are recoiling in horror at what they are seeing from ICE. Republican and Democratic Senators need to understand this moment with absolute moral clarity.
What happened to Alex Pretti isn’t an isolated incident; it is the predictable result of unchecked federal force backed by congressional funding and political indifference. We cannot relent until federal forces have been withdrawn from our cities and states, and the agents and officials encouraging this violence have been held accountable.
In Solidarity,
Kristen Crowell, Fair Share America Executive Director
WAYS TO SUPPORT MINNEAPOLIS AND OTHER LOCAL COMMUNITIES:
LEGISLATIVE AND COMMUNICATIONS RESOURCES:
