EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Nurses, advocates and El Pasoans honored Alex Pretti — the ICU nurse who was shot and killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis — and remembered all who have been killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, calling for action on Thursday, Jan. 29.
The vigil, organized by National Nurses United and held at 1801 N. Oregon St., is part of a nationwide effort demanding that ICE be abolished.
Dozens of demonstrators arrived at the vigil with candles and flowers, honoring Pretti with a moment of silence. Signs of “nurses care for all people” and “Nurses care. No Exceptions.” were seen throughout the crowd. After the last speaker, demonstrators began chanting, remembering Pretti’s name, “But Alex was there.”
“But we’re honoring him here today, and whatever happens, we’ll continue coming up and protesting this, this barbarism,” said Diana Duron, a participant in the vigil.
After honoring Pretti, demonstrators then called to action against ICE, saying, “Stand up and fight back.”
“This is what the United States is all about. We’re supposed to be able to accept our different opinions and try to work through them peacefully, and nobody should be getting killed for that. That’s what makes United States great,” Belen Torres, an El Pasoan and registered nurse, said.
On Wednesday, a small group of nurses gathered outside UCLA West Valley Medical Center in Los Angeles to honor Pretti and to protest ICE, and in Washington, D.C, a larger crowd gathered outside the veterans’ headquarters with the same goal. More memorials and protests are scheduled across the nation in the next few days, including the one in El Paso.
“El Paso nurses are appalled by the murder of fellow nurse Alex Pretti for protesting ICE’s cruel, illegal, inhumane deportation machine, and will come together to stand in sorrow and solidarity. It is outrageous that nurses are now targeted and killed for rendering care like Alex did. This has gone too far. We echo the call of NNU for Congress to halt further funding of ICE,” Juan Anchondo, chief nurse representative at Las Palmas, said.
According to the organization, registered nurses have been “outraged” by the presence of ICE in the communities and the escalating violence that has led to the deaths of Pretti and Renee Nicole Good — the 37-year-old woman who was also shot and killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis — as well as the 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025 and the families torn apart by the Trump administration.
“The escalation in intimidation, violence, and general lawlessness by ICE comes as the Republican Party and Trump cut nearly a trillion dollars in health care funding for Medicaid and Medicare to help finance the deportation machine,” read the news release by National Nurses United, the organizers of the vigil.
The organization said it will also call on Congress to stop any further funding to the Department of Homeland Security for ICE and reverse $85 million in current ICE funding, according to the news release.
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