People of good will are reeling and righteously furious following Alex Pretti’s death at the hands of federal immigration agents. As we search for stable ground and a path forward, it is critical we avoid the traps that separate us and the “solutions” that don’t hold water.

Dear friends,

I’m going to ask you to put on your 9th grade English hat for a moment and do a close read of the following lede from the New York Times’ coverage of Alex Pretti’s murder:

I’ve underlined the words that made me queasy. Their implication being, presumably, that had he been one of the nearly 30 million noncitizens living in this country or one of the more than 70 million Americans living with a criminal record, this might have made more sense. 

If it was just one poorly edited lede that would be one thing, but it’s reflective of an undercurrent carrying some of the most harmful ideas in this recent aftermath. Right now, many of the best-intentioned people working to expose and resist the worst of what is happening are accepting the same premises that delivered us to this terrible American moment. This simply won’t lead us out of the grim and consequential moment we’re in.

Criminalization is how they divide us

Nearly 1 in 3 of us have a criminal record. 1 in 3 Black men have a felony conviction. We should not cast people outside the circle of our care and concern based on having a criminal conviction. It’s long been exceedingly easy to have a criminal record in this country of ours and it’s about to become even more so, driven in large part by fear-mongering, outright lies about crime, and an administration alarmingly eager to find new ways to label people “criminal” and prosecute them.

In Minnesota, last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ charged 16 protesters in Minneapolis. She called them “rioters” and published their photos online absent any trial or any conviction, endangering their safety and earning a rebuke from a federal judge. Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey is facing 17 years in prison for allegations she assaulted ICE officers during an official oversight visit to a detention center in Newark. Across the country, states are considering extreme new laws to criminalize and prosecute people in need of healthcare. One woman in Texas was jailed for nearly five months after a miscarriage. 

It was no accident, last week, when Border Czar Tom Homan conditioned the so-called “de-escalation” in Minnesota on full law enforcement cooperation and access to local jails, and it would be naive to believe this reflects a sincere desire to scale back the administration’s enforcement tactics. People enter US jails and prisons more than eight million times every year, the vast majority of them for very minor charges and nonviolent offenses. Millions more come into contact with law enforcement every day. For many, whether you get jailed to begin with depends on your ability to afford money bail. Your likelihood of being arrested and jailed as well as the likelihood of any of that happening absent legal justification or probable cause increases dramatically as your level of wealth decreases and your skin darkens. Tucking ICE enforcement politely behind jail walls only sounds reasonable if you stake real legitimacy in the vast American criminal justice system, ignoring its over-reach, well-documented misconduct and abuses, and racially and economically disparate punishment dosing.

Not every “win” is a win

We are all searching for solutions and sturdy ground, for a path forward and a way to make the violence stop. 

But be weary of “wins” that actually cause harm. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has announced an effort to deploy body cameras to every officer in the field in Minneapolis and expand the program nationwide as funding allows. We have no shortage of cameras already aimed at ICE and it hasn’t stopped unspeakable violence. And there’s strong evidence to believe that giving ICE more money for body cameras will in fact be used to increase surveillance, and, ultimately the prosecution of protesters. If you think that sounds conspiratorial, check out this week’s reporting on ICE surveillance of protesters in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Then there are voices calling to cut ICE’s funding and instead use the funding for local police. Police are already likely to receive a hefty portion of DHS’s new massive slush fund through pass-throughs, as long as they cooperate and participate in the administration's immigration enforcement agenda. And while I’ve been heartened to hear anyone, including police in Minneapolis, speaking out against what they are experiencing and seeing, I don’t see how replacing ICE agents with a federally-funded and beholden police force in this political moment is a net positive. Any money that can be taken back from ICE should go to help struggling families and communities, and back towards the proven safety investments this administration gutted.

There are meaningful things to do now. Following Alex Pretti’s death, Democrats have come together to say they will not pass a DHS spending bill “until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled legislatively,” in the words of Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. That’s a start. More encouraging? Sen. Bernie Sanders’ amendment to claw back the $75 billion that was already allocated towards ICE in the July reconciliation bill and redirect those funds to restore cuts to Medicaid, a policy with proven public safety returns. Far from fringe, every Democrat and two Republicans voted in support. In the years ahead this new DHS funding increases spending on the core components of interior immigration enforcement by 300% to 500% annually. As many have noted, this is more than the military budget of most countries in the world. At this scale of funding, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine Minneapolis, everywhere, in the most terrifying sense. 

Many a beltway pundit has opined that grand legislative gesturing of this kind doesn’t mean much when Democrats don’t have the votes to deliver in the nearterm. I don’t know about that. We should be clear about the size of the problem–Americans are outraged–and be honest with the solutions. I think Americans are on the lookout for a moral north star in all this madness. In fact, pollsters have found that one of the most powerful messages elected Democrats can use at this moment is that ICE's enforcement tactics are funded at the expense of Medicaid.

Congress should also build towards an immigration system that actually works: one that is humane and more invested in granting pathways to status and citizenship than in brutalizing and punishing the millions of immigrants who never had a real chance to “do things the right way.” 

Beyond these congressional demands, there are a number of other meaningful actions state and local policymakers can take to prepare and protect their residents, beginning with bearing witness and volunteering to help families and communities facing this onslaught. Exercise oversight: visit detention centers, camps, prisons, and jails, and share what you see with the world. 

Minneapolis, everywhere–but in the best sense

Remember why Minnesotans are still out in the freezing streets. It’s to keep each other safe, without exception.

That’s what is giving me heart right now: people reaching out not to broken ideas that break us apart but to each other. Restaurant patrons volunteering to keep the doors open and staff paid. Grandmas standing for hours in the freezing cold. Churches and neighbors feeding students and families who are hungry and too afraid to leave their homes.

Because we cannot allow this. Not for Alex Pretti. Not for anyone.

Zoë Towns

Executive Director, FWD.us