Minnesota voters left “I Voted” stickers at memorial sites for Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, the two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration agents earlier this year.
Pretti, 37, an intensive care unit nurse at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Good, a writer and mother of three, were killed during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area in January.
Donald Trump’s aggressive and violent mass deportation campaign has been a key issue for voters across the country this midterm cycle and played a significant role in the Minnesota election.
“I knew Alex Pretti,” said a retired doctor who worked with Pretti and who asked to use only his first name, Arne. “I just knew he was a competent nurse – a really well-liked guy. And he was murdered.”
Arne left his “I Voted” sticker at the memorial site and choked up talking about his vote, Pretti and when federal immigration agents killed him.
Another voter, Mike F, who withheld his last name for privacy reasons, left his sticker at Good’s memorial site: “I felt like my vote was a little more in touch with some of the things that happened earlier this year in the city,” he said. “So I thought it was exactly the right thing to do: to come and pay my respects and attach my vote to what happened here.”
In late 2025 and early this year, Minnesota became a central target of the Trump administration. Federal immigration agents descended on the area during “Operation Metro Surge.” Community groups organized rapid response teams across the city to prevent authorities from arresting immigrants, and the situation worsened after the deaths of Good and Pretti.
Many groups involved in immigration rapid response work have since turned their attention to the election. In Minnesota, voters choose a senator and a governor, as well as candidates for the House.
“The country has humiliated itself by putting in place a bad man, a very, very bad character,” Arne said of the president. “Today is America’s opportunity to say whether it supports this kind of thing.”
If they don’t object, “then fuck America,” he added.
In a predominantly Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis, the Rev. Shandon Klein, a progressive pastor at Park Avenue United Methodist Church, said she was “keeping a watchful eye on the voting location just to make sure that I am a non-anxious presence available here and that everyone has access to vote.”
“There’s a general sense of empowerment and excitement about getting out and voting,” Klein said.
So far, no federal law enforcement officials have been spotted, despite threats from the Trump administration to deploy them at polling sites.
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