Alex Pretti, the young nurse from a veterans hospital who was murdered by immigration agents in Minnesota

This Saturday, ICE once again claimed a life of 37 years: Alex Jeffrey Pretti. The young man was an intensive care nurse in a veterans hospital from Minnesota, a lover of nature and his recently deceased dog, Catahoula Leopard.

He was born in Illinois and grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he practiced American football, baseball and track and field at Preble High School, according to his family members. The Associated Press.

During his adolescence in Wisconsin he was boy scout and sang in the choir Green Bay Boy. She attended the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, society and environment. After this, he began working as a research scientist before returning to university to train as a registered nurse.

Pretti worked for him United States Department of Veterans Affairs and had participated in protests after the murder of Reneé Good on January 7 at the hands of a Trump immigration agent.

“He cared deeply about people and was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and across the United States with ICE, as were millions of people. He thought it was terrible to kidnap children, to just take people off the street. He cared about those people and knew it was wrong, so he participated in the protests,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s fathera The Associated Press.

Not only his family, everyone who knew him remembers him with beautiful words. “He was kind, friendly and a joker.”said Pretti’s colleague, Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, in statements to the The Minnesota Star Tribune.

“He is a wonderful person. He has a big heart“, he indicated to The Associated Press a neighbor who lives in the same urbanization.

As reported by the The city’s police chief, Brian O’Hara, Pretti apparently had a weapons permit and had had no notable incidents with security forces.

“The only interaction we know of that he has had with law enforcement has been through traffic fines and we believe he was a legal gun owner with a permit to carry them,” O’Hara explained at a press conference.

Shot to death

In a first video you can see the victim, Alex Pretti, facing agents in the middle of the street during an operation while recording with his phone, although the man retreats when pushed by one of the officers.

In another, he is seen – always recording with the phone in his right hand – indicating to a driver to move, while two other citizens confront immigration agents and blow the whistle, something that has become common in the city to alert neighbors about the raids against migrants on a large scale ordered by the Government of President Donald Trump.

At one point, an officer pushes one of those two citizens, who falls to the ground, and Pretti tries to get in the way to protect this person. Then the agent gasses Pretti and the other two civilians and the nurse try to shield the person fallen on the ground.

It is then that several agents surround Pretti and struggle with him before shoot him on more than one occasion when it is on the ground.

Trump officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” —the same grade that Renée Good received after being murdered—.

Pretti “arrived with weapons and ammunition to stop a police operation by federal agents,” Noem said.

However, none of the videos published so far on the Internet show Pretti in any of the various shots with no weapon.

In a statement issued by Pretti’s family, he called the administration’s description of the shooting “disgusting lies” and “reprehensible and repugnant.” The family claimed Pretti was trying to protect a woman who had been shoved by immigration agents.

“Alex was clearly not carrying a weapon when he was attacked by the murderous and cowardly ICE Trump thugs,” the statement said. “Please spread the truth about our son. He was a good man”.

After this, ICE agents have responded to the crowd that has begun to gather at the site with tear gas in an atmosphere of tension.

LProtesters have confronted the officers, shouting phrases such as “Nazis!” while raising their hands to emphasize the peaceful nature of the protest. At some points the protesters have begun to barricade.

Blocking of funds

He Democratic minority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, announced this Saturday that his party will block the allocation of federal funds in that chamber additional for the Department of Homeland Securityin charge of border security and immigration, following the death, today, of a man during a raid against a migrant in the city of Minneapolis.

The Democratic leader’s statement opens the possibility that the country will once again face a new federal closure starting next January 31, after having experienced the longest one in its history between October and November of last year.

After 43 days of federal administrative suspension, Democrats and Republicans approved in November interim financing packages so that the Government could function until next Friday, the date before which the pending budgets for the rest of the fiscal year (which ends on September 30) must be approved to avoid another closure.

“Democratic senators will not provide the votes necessary to pass the appropriations bill if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill is included,” Schumer wrote in his X profile.