Nurses Union calls ICE agents a “public health threat” after Alex Pretti killing

The nation’s largest union of registered nurses fervently renewed their demand to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and cease current deportation operations in American cities after a federal immigration agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old registered nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday. 

“The nation’s nurses,” National Nurses United, which has more than 225,000 members nationwide, began in a statement, “who make it their mission to care for and save human lives, are horrified and outraged that immigration agents have once again committed cold-blooded murder of a public observer who posed no threat to them.”

“This time,” they continued, “they have executed one of our fellow nurses.”

The border patrol agent who killed Pretti fired more than 10 shots in five seconds toward the nurse, according to the New York Times. Pretti, a US citizen and Minneapolis local, worked in the intensive-care unit at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Videos detail the last moments leading up to his death: he was directing traffic on the street while filming immigration agents, attempted to assist another observer who was pushed to the ground by immigration enforcement, pepper-sprayed by the agent who ends up shooting him, and tackled by several agents onto the street. 

At some point in this interaction, according to the Times analysis, federal agents appear to pull a firearm from near Pretti’s right hip and carry it away. According to officials, Pretti held a firearms permit, required by state law in Minnesota to carry a handgun. Department of Homeland Security officials have posted a photo of a gun they claim belongs to Pretti. The Border Patrol Union claimed that Pretti “brandishes” a weapon—though videos show him holding a phone, not a gun, in his hand to record the agents. A witness on the scene has testified that she saw no sign of Pretti holding a gun at any point.

Within seconds, a border patrol agent—whose identity has yet to be confirmed—shoots and kills Pretti, who lies motionless as other observers record and cry out. 

Pretti is the third person shot and second person killed by immigration agents in the Minneapolis area in less than a month. On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Nicole Good, also 37, while in her car. One week later, a federal agent shot a man in the leg. That man, who DHS claimed was a Venezuelan national who was a target in an immigration operation, was taken to the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

The nurse’s union wrote on Saturday that ICE and all related immigration enforcement agencies “have been kidnapping hard-working people—mothers, fathers, and children —and now murdered a registered nurse, one of the most trusted professions in the country.”

In the hours after his killing, colleagues of Pretti’s remembered him as a kind, dedicated nurse. 

A colleague of Pretti, Ruth Anway, told the New York Times that he “wanted to be helpful, to help humanity and have a career that was a force of good in the world.” Anway, a nurse, said that Pretti was interested in social justice issues, adding, “I’m not surprised he was out there protesting and observing.”

This isn’t the first time that National Nurses United has spoken out against President Donald Trump and his administration’s violent immigration enforcement campaign across the nation. Consistently, over several months, the union has posted statements in support of immigrants’ rights and against immigration agents’ tactics. After Good was killed, they wrote, “Armed federal agents on our streets and in our communities, not immigrant workers, are the biggest threat to our collective safety.”

Just one day before Pretti was killed, the union called for Congress to abolish ICE and to reject the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, which would give more money to Trump’s anti-immigration force. The spending package passed the House this week with several Democrats voting in support and is now headed for the Senate—where key Democrats, following Pretti’s killing, are threatening to block the bill.

“Make no mistake,” the nurses’ union wrote on Friday, “the terror we are experiencing is being subsidized by our own government.” “Nurses,” they continued, “know that our vision for a healthy society is possible and we will not stop fighting until it is a reality.”