Nurses lead nationwide demands to abolish ICE

OAKLAND, Calif.—The murder in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti, RN, a Veterans Administration intensive care nurse and union member with the Government Employees, by CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents has prompted the nation’s top union for registered nurses, National Nurses United (NNU), to demand abolition of the agency and dissolution of its vicious and violent forces.

In a debate involving top Illinois contenders for the U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton issued the strongest condemnation of ICE, declaring, “I want to abolish ICE because this agency cannot be reformed. ICE needs to be abolished, and we need to move this country forward and ensure our communities are safe.” But whether the Republican Donald Trump regime, which has unleashed almost 4,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and enforcers in the Twin Cities alone, will listen to that demand by National Nurses United, Stratton, or anyone else who opposes the Trump occupation of U.S. cities is unlikely. 

Trump, including people high up in his administration, wants ICE to evict millions of immigrants from the U.S.  He also targets non-immigrant U.S. citizens like Pretti and Minnesota poet and activist Rebecca Good for their own demise. Trump called Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists.” 

Videos showed Pretti never pulled out a gun. He was occupied with his phone, recording CBP agents spraying chemicals on peaceful civilian observers. He was using his medical training to try to help a female victim whom agents had knocked to the ground. Agents jumped him, wrestled him to the ground, disarmed him of his legally carried pistol—he had a permit for it—and then repeatedly shot him, including shots into his back.

His murder was the last straw for NNU, whose members have had to deal with treating ICE injury victims in both the first city ICE invaded, Los Angeles, and in the San Francisco Bay area. They demand Congress abolish ICE and are backing that up with a week of anti-ICE protests at hospitals around the U.S.

“ICE and all related immigration enforcement agencies have repeatedly shown through their violence, terror, and lawlessness that they pose a dire public health threat to the entire country and all our communities. ICE agents 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,” NNU said.

“Nurses are trained to respond to emergent situations, and this is why we are calling for urgent action to end the ICE violence in our communities. National Nurses United calls for a ‘no’ vote on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that is up for Senate approval and demands Congress abolish ICE entirely. We will be doing everything in our power to vote out any elected official who supports funding for this all-out assault on the health, safety, and civil rights of our people,” the union vowed.

And they’ll bring the point home with a candlelight vigil on January 28 in front of the VA Hospital at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, where Pretti worked, and where he was murdered. There will also be protests that evening at VA headquarters in D.C. and at the VA hospital in Chicago, among others.

NNU’s anti-ICE protests began on January 26 at two Kaiser hospitals in Oakland, plus Kaiser hospitals in San Jose, San Leandro, Vallejo, the UCSF Hospital in San Francisco, and in Santa Clara, Calif. They continued on January 27 at the Kaiser San Francisco Hospital on Geary Boulevard and elsewhere in California, on the 28th in Tucson, Sacramento, the Kaiser Hospital in Orange, the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, and at UCLA. 

Besides those protests, the union plans memorial protests in Pretti’s name at hospitals in Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, at the VA hospital on New York City’s Lower East Side, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. Details of hours and sites are on NNU’s website.

NNU’s protest of Pretti’s murder wasn’t the only one from unions with RNs. Others included:

• After an ICE agent murdered Ms. Good, Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten wrote in a column, “The role of government when a tragedy like this happens is to thoroughly and transparently investigate the circumstances. One would hope officials would also express empathy. But the president, the vice president, and others in their administration quickly moved to control the investigation, exonerate the officer, and smear Good, baselessly calling her a ‘deranged leftist,’ a ‘paid agitator,’ and ‘disrespectful,’ as if that is punishable by death. 

“Lies, smears, and attempts to manipulate public perception are tactics used by authoritarian regimes, not democracies,” said Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher whose union also represents school nurses, notably in New Jersey and Texas. She also spoke to more than 15,000 people—a capacity crowd—in Minneapolis’s Target Center after immediate protests in the city drew an estimated 100,000-plus in subzero weather. 

• “I am heartbroken and angry about the murder of our union sibling and fellow nurse Alex Pretti, who was ruthlessly executed by ICE in Minneapolis on Saturday morning,” said Martha Baker, Rn, chair of the Service Employees’ nurses’ sector and president of Local 1991 in Miami. “An ICU nurse at a VA hospital, Alex, posed no threat. He was trying to shield a woman who had been pushed to the ground and pepper-sprayed.

“That instinct to step in and protect others is why tens of thousands of working people—nurses, physicians, airport workers, baristas—were in the streets just days ago after the killing of Renee Good, demanding ICE out of our communities. When a nurse is killed for trying to help others, none of us are safe, and ICE must be removed from our communities now.

“We will not stop organizing and speaking out. We must ensure this tragedy is a turning point, and not allow it to break our momentum. Alex was there to help. ICE was there to hurt. We won’t forget him.”

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