GLU-UE Executive Board Emergency Statement on a Second Fatal Shooting by ICE Agent in Minneapolis 

This morning, ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a member of our Minneapolis community. This comes just 3 weeks after Renee Good was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross and one day after tens of thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets to shut down the city of Minneapolis in peaceful protest to demand ICE out of our city. This is yet another escalation in “Operation Metro Surge,” the federal government’s ongoing war on the Twin Cities, and its immigrant and POC communities. 

The members of our union want to be able to go to work, teach their classes, grade their students’ work, conduct their experiments, and graduate with the degree they earned. Instead, they fear for their lives and safety. Operation Metro Surge’s increasing brutality and targeted cruelty continues to threaten the workers of this University. Vulnerable workers are terrified to leave their labs and homes, some electing to sleep in their offices rather than go back to their home. This is not just a UMN problem. All across the Twin Cities Metro area, people are scared to go to work, school, necessary medical appointments, and scared to participate in their community. 

Our community, our University, our city, needs action. The GLU-UE Executive Board reiterates the demands of yesterday’s action and calls on Jacob Frey, Tim Walz and other government officials to use all levers of power at their disposal to: 

  1. Remove ICE from Minnesota
  2. Hold the officers who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed today, legally accountable.
  3. Ensure no additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming Congressional budget and investigate ICE for human and Constitutional violations of Americans and our neighbors.
  4. Empower Minnesota and National Companies to become 4th Amendment businesses, cease economic relations with ICE and refuse ICE entry or using their property for staging grounds.

  ICE continues to teargas protesters, assault legal observers, and indiscriminately arrest community members who are unfortunate enough to cross their paths with them. We demand our elected officials take concrete actions to protect our workers and ensure all Minnesotans can walk through their lives free from the crushing weight of this brutal occupation. Thus far, we have only received empty words and extensions of condolences, but we call on elected officials to actually wield the power they have to take tangible, immediate actions to protect their constituents. 

Signed

The Executive Board of GLU-UE 1105