For Immediate Release
January 25, 2026
Contact
Lilly Gonzalez, media@nipnlg.org
Minneapolis, MN — National Immigration Project Executive Director Sirine Shebaya issued the following statement on the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minnesota:
Over the weekend in Minneapolis, federal immigration enforcement officers publicly executed a peaceful observer. We mourn the senseless killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who worked at a Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital, gunned down by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. This marks the second fatal federal shooting in Minneapolis in less than three weeks.
When federal officers repeatedly kill people on our streets, it is not a failure of policy; it is the policy. This is a system that has abandoned human life, constitutional limits, and basic accountability. With a $170 billion military-style budget, Congress has enabled a massive federal enforcement operation that uses taxpayer dollars to inflict brutality on the American people and treats constitutional rights as a nuisance, not protections.
The National Immigration Project calls for:
- ICE operations to end everywhere;
- Full legal accountability for any use of force by federal immigration officers;
- No funding for ICE or other Department of Homeland Security agencies;
- An end to warrantless arrests and arrests based on racial profiling;
- A transparent, independent investigation into ICE and Border Patrol for human rights and Constitutional violations.
Our thoughts are with Alex Jeffrey Pretti’s family and loved ones. We stand in unwavering solidarity with the residents of Minnesota who—even in subzero temperatures—have risen with powerful resilience to demand justice and an end to state-sanctioned violence in their community.