“Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work for it, nurture it, protect it and even sacrifice for it.”
Those are the words that Alex Pretti once spoke over a deceased patient at the Minneapolis Veteran Affairs hospital, and they have never rang more true than in the current state of America. That same freedom Pretti believed so genuinely in was taken away from him on Jan. 25 when he was shot in cold blood on a Minneapolis street by an US immigration and customs enforcement agent. Before his life was taken, Pretti defended an innocent bystander who had been pushed violently onto the icy, dirty street. The last actions of his life emphasize what he lived for: helping others. Pretti dedicated his life to showing compassion and aid to others through community outreach and as an ICU nurse. He loved mountain-biking and being outdoors, but he valued the importance of other’s lives even more deeply. That bona fide tenderness was taken from this world at the hands of a ruthless agent on a power trip. Pretti’s devotion to care was transformed into a spark of outrage in America. Our country should never reach the point of such disillusionment from democracy that the death of a citizen becomes the fuse for objection.
“i want back my rocking chairs,
solipsist sunsets,
& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.”
Renee Macklin Good wrote the stanzas above that begin “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” a 2020 Academy of American Poets prize winning poem. Good, a 37-year-old mother of three known for her compassion, love and forgiveness was the first death in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE agents. Good peacefully observed and attempted to leave the scene of immigration agents before she was shot to death through the windows of her car by an agent cosplaying as protection. Minutes before her murder on Jan. 7, Good had dropped off her youngest child at elementary school in the bitter Minnesota cold. That six-year-old boy will never be able to hear the strums of his mother’s guitar or listen to her read aloud her poetry. Her wife will never be able to feel the warmth of her embrace. Instead, Good will be remembered as a martyr for a slowly dissipating democracy, which is a place in history no one deserves to sit. Good’s life and memory deserves to be encapsulated by her writings and passions, not her death. While it tore apart her close-knit community, it also tore a chasm into a country already outraged at the overarching, terrifying presence of ICE.
There are ever present patterns between the murders of Pretti and Good at the hands of ICE. Both victims resided in Minneapolis, were peaceful observers and believed in fighting against the corruption and inequality continuing to be rooted in the current-day American zeitgeist. The most thought provoking shared quality between the two was their American citizenship. Pretti was born and raised in Wisconsin, while Good was raised in Colorado. They were two American citizens shot to death, murdered on city streets by federal agents who hold their places of power under the guise of protecting the nation from “dangerous” immigrants. The words immigrant and citizen at times contradict one another in the context of the government’s propaganda. How are the actions of federal agents justified when they murder American citizens instead of performing the actions they are assigned to? It’s simple, the reality has zero justification.
One of the main points of the Trump administration’s policy agenda on the campaign trail was their planned response to immigration. The administration promised the largest deportation in American history. For the past months, the presence of ICE has exponentially increased on American streets, seeding distrust, anger and widespread national response in the form of protest. That same distrust has transpired into a public outcry in opposition to the actions at the hands of the administration. Public outcry against ICE is nothing new, but in the past, it’s been a slow trickle of disapproval in comparison to the current wildfire of objection. It’s clearly upsetting, seeing the basic civil rights you receive as an American citizen being entirely disregarded at the hands of ICE agents, but to me, the truly upsetting side of the issue is how the true anger of American citizens has only been sparked after murder at the hands of ICE agents. National protests and bipartisan outcry have exponentially increased after the deaths of Good and Pretti.
Violence under the current administration began far before American citizens were ever affected. There are so many layers to the nation and immigrant communities that weave together the critical uniqueness of this country have been harmed for years upon years by ICE.
The communities of immigrants who have lived in fear for their own livelihoods for years continue to be pushed aside by those in power and treated as if they aren’t critical to the equilibrium of the nation. They have felt the fist of inequality, but when a white, American citizen is murdered, true outrage begins. The deaths of Pretti and Good shouldn’t be the spark. The spark should be the widespread violence put onto a large part of American society. There have been 13 nonfatal shootings in relation to ICE action since enforcement increased in September. That is 13 too many. Two white citizens have been murdered, but what isn’t in the spotlight of American media is the death of Keith Porter Jr. by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve.
Keith Porter Jr., a black American from Los Angeles was a loving father whose two daughters will never be able to feel his embrace again. On New Year’s Eve, Porter was celebrating the beginning of 2026, ringing in the new year at his apartment complex. As part of his celebration, Porter shot multiple rounds into the dark night sky, resulting in no injuries. An off-duty immigration officer was close to the scene when this occurred, and instead of issuing Porter an understandable citation or arrest for his actions, he provided him with a death sentence. The actions of Brian Palacios, the off-duty ICE agent, emphasize the unprecedented amount of uncontrolled power that is being given to immigration agents. They expect that their actions will garner no consequences because under President Trump, they won’t.
Under the Trump administration, it is clearly obvious that the true, traditional democracy of America is deteriorating. Democracy is an ever changing theory, but the current iteration is disgusting. An American democracy should consist of citizens being able to utilize their rights to bear arms, use free speech and observe peacefully. Pretti should be standing in the ICU today, caring for his patients, but instead, immigration officers disregarded his First Amendment right. Good should be at home, continuing her passion of writing poetry, but immigration agents acted as if her constitutional rights didn’t apply to her actions. Porter Jr. should be here, spending time with his family who he loved so deeply, but instead, an off-duty officer believed his actions of expressing his Second Amendment rights constituted his death. Anger at the deterioration of our democracy shouldn’t come from real death, it should come from the infringements of our basic human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no liberty in injuring and murdering American citizens in cold blood while they utilize their constitutional rights to peacefully protest and observe.
Democracy should bring us as a nation together. It should push us to lock arms with our neighbors and react when any of them are disregarded as anything less than someone with basic civil liberties. In the current democratic society we find ourselves in, it seems as if division is becoming further seeded everyday. Bipartisan anger began to emerge as those who are automatically placed higher in society due to the color of their skin were killed, and that anger continues to show how our democracy is failing us. Timing of our objection is critical to the place the nation is in. Public opposition should begin when the first signs of corruption occur. It is critical that we express our distrust in the current administration and the actions of ICE, but it is also time to restructure the way that we approach how we as Americans react to violence. Violence and infringements upon our basic rights are so commonplace that we are desensitized to them. Reform needs to begin now.
What if our nation was angrier earlier? Would the government have taken into account our objection? Would the lives of Americans still be with us? Americans should not be the martyrs for a democracy that is sifting through our hands like sand. Attention had been growing but it was not until lives were extinguished that true outrage began. Reform and anger should occur before death does. It’s as simple as that.
Good wrote of solipsism, the quality of being self-centered, in her award-winning poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.” Now is not the time to allow the solipsism of our current government to infiltrate our view of democracy and true freedom. Never forget the disregard to democracy that our country is experiencing and the infractions our fellow Americans have experienced. Remember their names, their love and everything that’s been taken from them and our country.
Renee Macklin Good. Alex Pretti. Keith Porter Jr. Silverio Villegas González. Marimar Martinez. Carlitos Ricardo Parias. Jose Garcia-Sorto. Carlos Jimenez. Isaias Sanchez Barboza. Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins. Luis David Nino Moncada. Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras. Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Patrick Gary Schlegel.
Their stories push us to demand accountability and rewrite the fractured democracy we find ourselves in.
