{"id":119030,"date":"2026-02-01T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/119030\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:29:07","slug":"a-vigil-in-new-york-for-alex-pretti-and-victims-of-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/119030\/","title":{"rendered":"A Vigil in New York for Alex Pretti and Victims of ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe night before 25,000 New Yorkers marched the streets of Lower Manhattan crying for the abolition of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE<\/a>), a smaller, quieter gathering took place about 20 blocks north, to commemorate those slain in Donald Trump\u2019s war on migrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNew York City, that night \u2014 Thursday, Jan. 29, 19 degrees \u2014 was off its usual rhythm. A snowstorm had just made the city its home for the weekend, and things had not yet resumed their usual pace. A heaviness prevailed. Taxi cabs covered in ice residue vied to merge onto FDR Drive, pedestrians waited single file between snowbanks for the walk sign to flash. There was a sense that things were not as they should be.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn 1st Avenue and East 23rd street, outside a Veterans Affairs hospital, people began to gather at roughly 5 p.m. The sun had just begun the final leg of its descent, and soft pinks and oranges blanketed the sky. \u201cVigil right this way,\u201d announced a woman standing at the end of the street in a long black puffer coat and neon yellow vest, waving her arms to direct newcomers to an area cordoned off by police barriers. \u201cStraight down. Vigil right this way.\u201d She smiled as people filed in. No documentation needed to mourn.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the crowd gathered, one could easily infer the event had something to do with nurses and nursing. A medley of labor and community organizations had put together the vigil, National Nurses United (NNU), New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), and Doctors Council prominently among them. A union for federal employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), too; the United Federation of Teachers, Veterans for Peace, NYC Central Labor Council, and Hands Off NYC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the size of the crowd, which eventually numbered around 2,000, according to the New York Daily News<\/a>, the event felt homegrown. Amidst the sea of NNU and NYSNA crimson \u2014 beanie hats, gloves, scarves; NYC nurses were on their third week of striking\u00a0 \u2014 came people from every walk of life. Young and old, men and women, students and teachers, every race and color.<\/p>\n

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\n\tAn older man towards the back of the crowd walked slowly, step by step, holding up a thin cardboard sign: ABOLISH ICE. His cane clicked and clacked on the ice. Thirty feet ahead of him, a group of women congregated in a circle to light their candles, fumbling with their sole pocket lighter in the wind. Naomi, an older woman wearing colorful knit gloves and clear-frame glasses, appeared producing plastic, battery-powered candles: \u201cHere, take these. They\u2019ll keep us warm.\u201d Snaps as the candles were lit, then: laughter, smiles, and, as it were, a certain warmth. It seemed the cardboard sign ahead was right: Love melts ICE.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe people of Minneapolis are so unbelievably brave,\u201d Naomi, a former journalist and a pre-school teacher, told me, speaking slowly but firmly. \u201cI started to really feel the terror. And I needed to do something. I just needed to show up.\u201d Naomi\u2019s father, like Alex Pretti<\/a>, worked for the Department of Veteran Affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe crowd shuffled forward until it reached the hospital, then huddled together in the street. Boots scuffled through the slush. Arms linked. Someone began to play Bruce Springsteen\u2019s new song, \u201cStreets of Minneapolis.\u201d There were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood \u2026 We\u2019ll take our stand for this land \u2026. Our city\u2019s heart and soul persist.<\/p>\n

\n\tA tall man with a kind face buried beneath glasses and a hunter green coat lit his candle in mine. His name, he told me, was Jorge. (Actually, when I asked: \u201cI\u2019m not a citizen, so I have to be careful \u2026 my name is Jorge.\u201d) \u201cI\u2019m here because I\u2019m outraged at what happened to Alex Pretti, and Renee Good, and all the other people who\u2019ve been subjected to ICE\u2019s violence,\u201d he told me, his voice breaking. \u201cI can\u2019t believe the level of impunity that there is in this country. This is a democracy, and it\u2019s not OK, and we have to put our bodies in the streets, our voices, we have to do whatever we can to stop this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tA man\u2019s voice rang out across the crowd. It was time for the speakers. Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, began. \u201cWe have witnessed over 30-plus immigrants who have died or were murdered in ICE custody. Alex Pretti was standing up for his neighbor who he probably didn\u2019t even know. And he was executed for it. Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were executed. They were executed. Shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShame, the crowd echoed. A lone voice: \u201cHow many more have to die?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlex Pretti was the ninth person to be killed by ICE and Border Patrol in 2026 alone,\u201d the next speaker, an American Federation of Government Employees union officer, declared, counting those who\u2019ve died in ICE custody. \u201cRepeat after me and say their names.\u201d So the crowd did.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGeraldo Lunas Campos.\u201d Geraldo Lunas Campos.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLuis Gustavo Nunez Caceres.\u201d Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cParady La.\u201d Parady La.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cVictor Manuel Diaz.\u201d Victor Manuel Diaz.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHeber Sanchez Dom\u00ednguez.\u201d Heber Sanchez Dom\u00ednguez.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKeith Porter.\u201d Keith Porter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRenee Nicole Good.\u201d Renee Nicole Good.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlex Pretti.\u201d Alex Pretti.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlex Pretti.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlex Pretti.<\/p>\n

\n\tA moment of silence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe moment stretched into minutes, the quiet deafening. Such a quiet is rare in the city that never sleeps. To my left, a man and a woman clasped hands, their heads bowed. To my right, a small boy looked up at his father; his father looked back with glassy eyes. There was a sense of oneness, a sense that those standing next to you might take a bullet for you. One felt that the crowd might go to the ends of the Earth to protect one another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne voice at a time, the crowd resumed chanting. Though the right has caricatured protesters as violent and destructive, every word out of their mouths seemed to be with love. Immigrants are welcome here. No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here. The people united will never be defeated.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a New Yorker and an American and a public school teacher, I love my neighbors, and I love my city,\u201d a woman, Esther Gottesman, bundled in a bright pink scarf told me. \u201cAnd I believe that loving a place means that you fight for what\u2019s right, and that you stand up for each other and take care of each other.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s happening is unacceptable, and that\u2019s not who I want to be as an American. It\u2019s our responsibility to stand up against it over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll Americans, all immigrants, anybody who calls this great land home,\u201d said Oliver, a recent mechanical engineering graduate, \u201cmust show up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAs the crowd dispersed \u2014 peacefully, and without incident \u2014 people made their way to the low wall bordering the VA hospital and began to make a memorial. Each person set down their candle, carefully, gently, and bowed their head. A conglomeration of individual moments of silence. There were flowers, framed photographs of ICE\u2019s victims. A shared recognition that, were it not for fate\u2019s unknowable ways, each of us could be a photograph on the mantel. A sign: May we all be granted your courage.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I walked away from the vigil, hands sapped of feeling, trailing the few who had stayed behind to mourn longer, I stopped. To my left, a cardstock poster stuck in a snowbank, a lone plastic candle in front of it. Justice for Pretti, it read. Alex Pretti. Hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The night before 25,000 New Yorkers marched the streets of Lower Manhattan crying for the abolition of United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[50229,2035,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-119030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-alex-pretti","tag-ice","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}