Nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin led a peaceful vigil in front of the hospital Wednesday night in honor of Alex Pretti, the Minnesota ICU nurse who was shot and killed by U.S. immigration officers over the weekend. Hundreds of people attended, lighting candles and laying flowers in a memorial to Pretti.
Members of National Nurses United, the nurses’ union, organized the Austin event amid a “week of action” by union chapters across the country. Nurses including Kristine Kittelson, who works in Ascension Seton’s mother-baby unit, spoke out against Pretti’s killing and called for the abolition of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Alex devoted his life to caring for others … As nurses, we are called to heal, to protect life and to show compassion in moments of suffering. Care is the foundation of everything that we do,” Kittelson said. “Agencies like ICE have become symbols of cruelty rather than care, and now that violence has taken the life of one of our own nurses.”
Pretti’s death has escalated public outcries against ICE operations following the killing of another Minnesota resident, Renee Good, earlier in the month. Both Pretti and Good were U.S. citizens. Customs and Border Protection officers initially said that Pretti resisted arrest, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described him as “brandishing” a weapon — the gun he legally carried. However, per reporting by NPR, bystander videos show Pretti holding only a phone when he was tackled by officers.
Asanti Mackey, an ICU nurse at St. David’s Medical Center, said Pretti’s death galvanized him to protest actions by immigration enforcement.
“As a nurse, it's our duty to stand up and fight for people who are sick and ill, but not only that, just people who need help,” he said. “And as a citizen, it's our duty to fight for those who are being degraded, who are being treated as sub-human.”
Mackey said the vigil likely wouldn’t be a one-time event for him.
“This is unique to me,” he said. “I don't protest as much as I should, but after this, I'm definitely going to try to be in the streets more. One hundred percent.”
Also in attendance was state Rep. Donna Howard, a Democrat and former nurse: "Once a nurse, always a nurse," she said.
Howard called recent actions by ICE "egregious."
"This is not the America that we stand for and that we want and that we love, and we have got to change it," she said.
In addition to the hospital vigil, several protests related to ICE’s actions in Minnesota were held in the Austin area this week, including an event held by the newly formed Austin Immigrant Rights Action Committee at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Stacy Prentice, an attendee at the Capitol protest, said she felt compelled to get involved after watching events unfold in Minneapolis.
“As a person who loved history growing up, I always thought, ‘Would there ever be a time when we would need to put your feet and your mouth and your heart and your money and your livelihood at risk to stop oppression?’ And this is our time,” Prentice said.
