Hours after ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed its second protester this month, hundreds of New Yorkers took to the streets of Lower Manhattan amid arctic temperatures on Saturday to demand an end to the federal agency’s escalating operations.
Photo by Dean Moses
Hours after ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed its second protester this month, hundreds of New Yorkers took to the streets of Lower Manhattan amid arctic temperatures on Saturday to demand an end to the federal agency’s escalating operations.
The impromptu march that the organization Hands Off and the New York Immigration Coalition called on Jan. 24 was sparked by several gruesome viral videos that showed multiple masked federal agents in Minneapolis shooting protester Alex Pretti multiple times. Pretti, an ICU nurse, had come to the aid of a woman whom agents knocked down before ICE members turned their attention to him — wrestling him to the ground and pummeling him with their fists.
One of the agents then grabbed what appeared to be a holster with a gun from Pretti’s waist; multiple reports indicated that he had a license to carry the weapon in Minnesota. After the gun was taken, multiple ICE agents fired shots at Pretti, killing him.
The videos contradicted multiple narratives from the Department of Homeland Security, its secretary, Kristi Noem, and others who claimed that Pretti had confronted them first with a gun and threatened the agents’ lives.
However, the released videos do not appear to show Pretti holding a firearm; instead, the weapon appears to be concealed in his waistband. Local police say Pretti has no criminal history aside from traffic violations and did have a permit for the weapon, as required by state law.
Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, elected officials denounced the slaying. Mayor Zohran Mamdani wasted little time in again calling for the dismantling of the immigration enforcement agency.
“As tens of thousands across America protest the violence that ICE sows with impunity, federal agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis today. ICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE,” Mamdani wrote on X.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also took to social media to demand fellow elected officials vote to cut funding to ICE.
“We have a responsibility to protect Americans from tyranny.DHS just shot a man in broad daylight two weeks after they shot a mother in the face without consequence. They need our votes to continue. We cannot give it to them. Every Senator should vote NO,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Immigration rights advocates, like the Immigration Coalition and Hands Off NYC, called an emergency protest in Union Square on Saturday to stand in solidarity with Minneapolis and to demand that ICE be withdrawn from the state and that operations in New York cease.
“This is not normal — no one should be killed for protecting their neighbors. No one should be killed for standing up to masked agents who are abducting people off the streets. ICE’s killing of another Minneapolis observer makes it clear: when masked, armed agents are unleashed on communities with no accountability, people die,” a statement released by Hands Off NYC read.
Protesters gathered in Union Square with signs and whistles, marched up 5th Avenue, and culminated the demonstration in Madison Square Park.
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