I walked a 5-mile pilgrimage in Minneapolis last week. Zero-degree temps. Streets covered with snow.
I started at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue, where ICE agents shot Alex Pretti in the back and killed him. A crowd was there, milling. Cars slowed. And there were TV cameras — looking for the next ICE story.
Among the flowers and candles, a drawing of Pretti imagined him as a saint. His death was the final straw for Trump against the hair-gelled, neo-Nazi-looking Greg Bovino, Customs and Border Enforcement Capo. Trump “reassigned” Bovino and closed his social media account.
Did his costume remind Trump of the Jan. 6 Shaman?
Moments after his killing, Bovino and Kristi Noem tagged Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, as a domestic terrorist. Trump reposted that moniker to take early control of the narrative.
By Trump’s definition, I guess my silent peaceful pilgrimage opposing his immigration tactics makes me a domestic terrorist too.
I walked a couple miles south, over to 34th Street and Portland Avenue, where two weeks ago ICE shot and killed another Minneapolis citizen, Rene Good, mother of three, in her car.
A smaller crowd but lots of flowers and memorials there. I saw an older man wipe a tear as he stopped. Someone had a fire pit going against the cold. A small table had a large coffee pot and donuts.
Next, because I was in the neighborhood, I walked just a half-mile to another murder landmark, George Floyd Square, where a half-decade ago Floyd was strangled to death by police officer Derek Chauvin. Now there is a statue surrounded by a small square. And a coffeeshop nearby to warm up in.
One more stop, a symbol of hope, Twin Cities Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, a school that serves mostly Hispanic, Hmong and Black, some of them Somali, students.
I’ve been involved for many years with Cristo Rey high schools nationally and in Chicago (Catholic high schools where students work at companies to earn their private-school tuition).
The students here (many from immigrant families) have been tense. In the days before killing Pretti, ICE cruised the front of the building when school let out. All students at Cristo Rey work and have legal status to do so.
The school gave an option for remote learning this week for those afraid to travel. And yet, the students who were present walked the hallways between classes as if everything were normal. As if they could get on with learning, preparing for college and a work life beyond.
Despite the killings. Despite Bovino and Noem. Despite Trump and his hatred for “sh-thole” countries and the people who come from them.
Those Cristo Rey students persist. And we persist too.
Despite dark days for our country, we persist.
