Alex Pretti is being honored at a Whittier Park march and rally Feb. 21, nearly one month after he was killed by federal agents in the neighborhood.
In the weeks before Pretti, a nurse, was fatally shot, there were two shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis. Renee Good was shot and killed on Portland Avenue Jan. 7, and Julio Sosa-Celis was shot and injured in north Minneapolis on Jan. 14.
The event’s organizers — the People’s Action Coalition Against Trump — note that Victor Manuel Diaz, a Nicaraguan immigrant living in Minneapolis, died while being held in a federal detention center in Texas on Jan. 14. The rally honoring Pretti began at 11 a.m.
Temperatures are in the teens and the sun is shining as protest organizers use megaphones and hand out signs to the several hundred who have gathered.
Among signs carried were messages to abolish ICE and to remember Renee Good and Pretti, who were shot by federal immigration agents during the federal immigration surge in Minnesota.
“It’s about freedom,” said Jon Kise as he joined the rally and was critical of the Trump administration’s operation in Minnesota that has lead to regular protests throughout the state. “It is time for everybody to show some support.”
Though border czar Tom Homan said on Feb. 12 that Operation Metro Surge would soon end, the anti-Trump group says they still have a list of demands,, including the immediate withdrawal of all ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, the full and unconditional legalization of all immigrants in the U.S. and no local police cooperation with ICE. They also want Congress to halt all future ICE funding.
They especially worry about expanded agreements that allow some local and state law enforcement officers to act as ICE agents.
