Jamie Green
In a press release 26th January, National Nurses United (NNU), U.S. trade union with a membership of 225,000, pledged to hold a week of action to honour Alex Pretti, the 37 y.o. U.S. citizen and intensive care unit nurse, and all others killed by ICE, in a demand that Congress should vote to abolish ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) (NNU,2026). Pretti, a legal and licensed gun owner who provided care to veterans at the Minneapolis VA healthcare system for 11 years, was shot and killed by ICE agents on 24th January (Bekiempis, 2026). Footage circulating online shows Pretti directing traffic, interacting with others and recording before disturbingly, his last moments being wrestled to the ground by several ICE agents and being shot (upwards of 10 times). In their statement, the NNU called on the senate to block funding for ICE, as part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), planned to come to a vote this week. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was quick to accuse Pretti “domestic terrorism” and said he was “brandishing” a gun. The Pretti family responded in a statement:
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the family statement continued. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper-sprayed. “Please get the truth out about our son,” Pretti’s parents urged. “He was a good man.” –
– Michael and Susan Pretti
The federal agents involved have been placed on administrative leave (Trew, 2026). This comes shortly after the murder of legal observer Renee Nicole Good, who was shot 3 times point blank range, on 7th January, attempting to leave a separate ICE surge elsewhere in Minneapolis. Described by the Trump Administration White House and the Department of Homeland security as a “domestic terrorist”, accused of steering her vehicle to harm an ICE agent, footage circulating online and gunshot evidence show Good was in the process of steering and driving away from the agent, with two shots fired on the side of the vehicle. First and second amendment rights of both casualties have been called into question and ignored by the Trump administration. Keep in mind, President Trump supported Kyle Rittenhouse who shot three men, two fatally, in Kenosha,WI during protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake – he also supported the armed capital rioters of 6th January 2021, and armed couple outside their St. Louis home in 2020 (Schulte, 2026; Reuters, 2025). This is the same president who recently threatened to annex Greenland over a Nobel Peace prize snub and has been named, multiple times over, in the stalled released Epstein files (Moench, 2026). It is no surprise the response from Milan mayor Beppe Salla at Trump’s insistence that ICE attend and be part of security for the Winter Olympics – “This is a militia that kills… of course they’re not welcome in Milan” (Kirby, 2026).
The city has been besieged by ICE, described by some as the “masked face of US fascism” , since the announcement of “Operation Metro Surge” in early December 2025, expanded early January 2026 (Oxley, 2026). People have since taken to the streets – acting as an alarm system for ICE in areas, guarding schools and buses, patrolling street corners to counter the surge. Many will have already seen the photo of 5-year old Liam Conejo Ramos, a child of an Ecuadorian family with a pending asylum claim, and his father targeted by ICE earlier in January. Detained in a Texas facility, a federal judge has now temporarily blocked their removal from the country (Associated Press, 2026). Physicians, recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, spoke to the horror caused by ICE, preventing citizens and non-citizens alike from seeking the medical care they need – and the end result of ICE’ reign of terror: unnecessary and preventable deaths (Trappey, 2026).
Protester against ICE in Minneapolis – ICE are Murderers” by Fibonacci Blue
Savannah Thissen, a healthcare worker, spoke out against ICE, speaking to reporter Matt Lavietes, stating she “had to be there”.
“In my industry of love and service, 90% of my co-workers and friends and family are immigrants, many of whom are nurses,” she said. “And today they have proven that they’re willing to execute health care workers, immigrants and innocent citizens all…”“I have to be here,” she added. “I don’t know how I could be at home.” Thissen said that while a “sense of despair is creeping in” the city following its third shooting by federal law enforcement this month, “it’s important that we don’t feed that doom.” “They’re going to kill some of us. But if we don’t risk our safety now and here, they will just keep killing us,” she said. “If we don’t stand here now, despite the back-to-back murders and more, they will keep taking.”
In response, on 23rd January a broad coalition of workers, community organisers and activists, trade unions and faith leaders called and participated in a statewide day of general strike, “Day of Truth and Freedom”. On the one-day general strike, Minnesotans were encouraged to refrain from work, education and shopping. The action of over 50,000 people was supported by St. Paul Federation of Educators, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Communications Workers of America (CWA) and further local branches of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Service Employers International Union (SEIU), UNITE HERE, Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), as well as Minneapolis and St Paul American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Businesses that closed for the economic blackout supported the day of action, providing free food and other provisions on the day (Brown, 2026). A secondary day of action, “ICE OUT”, took place on the 30th January (Kaplan, 2026). “Minnesota and its neighborhoods are under attack from our own federal government.” – Support can be provided through the Minnesota Regional Labor Federation website, here. It is clear that the rank and file workers are the ones leading the way – which draws further attention and stark questions around the response of the largest union leaderships in comparison – at a time when militant, organised, mass action is essential.
The city has witnessed previous police violence – most notably – Philando Castile (BBC, 2016), George Floyd (OPC, 2020), Daunte Wright (BBC, 2021), Amir Locke (BBC, 2022) and Ricky Cobb II (Moser, 2023). Former Ohio state senate member and politician, Nina Turner, commenting on the events, stating
“No, armed agents stopping people in the streets and killing civilians on camera while getting away with it is not new to America. They aren’t Nazis, this isn’t Germany. This is America and the terror Black Americans have been living under is now creeping into other communities”.
Hundreds of current video footage of ICE show agents terrorising innocent people, citizens and non-citizens alike, actively racially profiling residents, following anyone suspected of buying and delivering groceries for sheltering families in Minneapolis, its twin city Saint Paul, and elsewhere – Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia – to name a few (Huff, 2026).
Approximately 4.6 million immigrants work within U.S. health services, representing about 17% of the total health workforce (Achkar, et al., 2023). Health workers, who already face barriers and problems in the workplace such as racism and xenophobia, underutilisation and trouble transferring credentials and training, and a pervasive hostile atmosphere, must also now contend with the presence of ICE , trying to protect patients and themselves while providing care as forces enter hospitals (Snipe, 2024; Achkar, 2023; Tadesse, 2025; Ruiz, 2026).
Similarly in the UK, 21% of the NHS workforce are non-British, approximately 325,000 workers provide essential services and care, while in the health and care sector in England that figure is approximately 776,000 workers, representing almost a quarter of the total three million plus workforce (UK Parliament, 2025; BMA, 2025). Trade unions in October last year came out in support of its international workforce, of which the NHS and health and care sector have been reliant upon for generations, demanding an end to the hostile environment and “sustained campaign of anti-migrant rhetoric” (BMA, 2025).
Reform leader Nigel Farage has been all too happy to support, and try to emulate the authoritarian US leader, and Trump’s allies/counterparts (Morrison, 2026). Reform councils were keen to reproduce Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ style budgets to UK councils that tied up constituents with promises to “cut waste and cut council tax”. Those same leaders are now accused of misleading voters as the Observer revealed:
- Nine councils controlled by Reform have total borrowings of more than £4bn, with debts continuing to rise in some areas
- Reform is trying to balance the books in its council areas with hikes in charges of up to 55%;
- Despite claims that a national Doge unit would uncover huge savings, the team has failed to gain access to key councils, with town hall bosses putting a ban on any internal financial data examined by the unit being used for political purposes.
Recent expert analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned that the largest benefactors of Reform’s planned £2bn Scottish tax cuts will overwhelmingly be the richest in Scotland (Elliards, 2026) The IFS also warned that the c£4bn needed to fund Reform’s proposed Scottish income tax cuts would be “all-but impossible to find without cutting back public services”. Outside of collecting defectors and reproducing a failed Tory lineup in Reform, the party leader has spent most of his time speaking of these tax promises and building a culture war (against a specific group of workers and the working class) – an emotional enemy – with talk of mass targeting and deportations (Gooch and Haygarth, 2026). Reform’s “Operation Restoring Justice” making claims of “huge net savings” over the next decade (promising over £7 billion in five years” and £42 billion in a decade) have been found to be another farce and would cost taxpayers and the economy “about £70-90bn over the next ten years alone” (Ahmed, 2025). Despite the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) already demonstrating cuts to immigration would be a net negative for the economy, other reports on the harm to the NHS, even Thatcherite think-tank, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) withdrawing figures of Reform’s report as “erroneous”, Farage has doubled down on this rhetoric and imaginary savings (Simms, 2025). This is to be expected – the Reform leader is not the first, and unfortunately nor will he be the last politician willing to tank the economy and the NHS for their own political and economic gain (The National, 2026).
Only now, 26th January, has Farage in a press conference spoken up about the violence of ICE. Farage stated ICE has “gone beyond its limit”, while still describing the role of ICE in US immigration and subsequent deportation figures as “really interesting” but “need reevaluation” (Earle, 2026) ICE has already taken the lives of 8 people since the start of 2026, disappearing children and others, but 2025 was the most deadly year of ICE activity in the last two decades, and not a critical word given (Hellmann, 2026; Signh, et al., 2026). It seems coincidental timing then as reports come forward of a near collapse in Trump’s approval rating and on immigration – evaluated here by professor and tax campaigner Richard Murphy. What can be reasonably deduced is that the end seems to justify the means – brandishing a cultural war as a tool of distraction and ragebait for the success of an election and lining of pockets (Bromley, 2025). Likewise, accepting and embracing the violence and profit-seeking of a hostile immigration system, often benefiting the richest, is acceptable so long as it doesn’t overstep, aka negatively impact those charts too far in the wrong direction (Hopkins, 2025; Welsh et al., 2025). Cases like that of Joy Gardner come to mind and should not be forgotten (Hughes, 2020).
The UK now has 156 billionaires (2025), wealth accumulation surging three times faster in 2024; while the U.S. has over 900 billionaires, wealth soaring by 18% (Equality Trust, 2025; Kollewe, 2025; Oxfam, 2025; Lichtenberg, 2025). Trump himself, even though pledging to serve the American people – “America First” and all – has used the office of the presidency to gain at least $1.4B – with a further estimate of several hundred million dollars in additional profits hidden from public view (NYT, 2026). Meanwhile, farmers, in the midst of trade wars and inflation, suffer an escalating mental health crisis (Ruiz, 2025). Ordinary American families struggle to cope, put food on the table and keep the lights on (Kaye, 2026). Sounds familiar. Multibillion profit companies, often owned by the wealthiest, continue to profit in increasing measure at the cost of our communities – and some, beyond and at the expense of others, want to be at the top of that club, or at least if they can, at minimum, be a part of it (Bowie, 2025; Unite the Union, 2025).
Image shows a bar chart rate of billionaire fortune growth rate
Credit: Oxfam, 2026.
These struggles are reflected further in comments like, “an island of strangers”, regardless of intention, echoes of Enoch Powell – and even as a retracted statement, the damage is still done (Hilton, 2025). It is reflected in the “clampdowns” on illegal working – targeting dignity and survival in a system that doesn’t allow refuge seekers to apply for work until after 12 months, a denial of the right to work that subsequently pushes them into underpaid, informal, and often dangerous jobs that is then targeted (Right to Remain, 2025). This behaviour and these barriers still affirm and utilise the distractionary culture war in a time of furthered austerity, cost of living crisis, private contracts hollowing out the NHS, service and welfare cuts (Smith, 2026; Crerar, 2025; Pring, 2025). Likewise, those in power wasting time implying Reform would be a fascist government if they gain power, does nothing to change the fact of who currently is in power and has the power to embrace and implement radical, socialist policies that will support and materially improve the lives of the working class, dissuading them the attraction of Reform as a protest vote and expose them simultaneously (Vesty, 2026).
“The Home Secretary’s rhetoric frames refugees as a burden while conveniently ignoring the fact that many refugees and asylum seekers have been, are, or will become essential NHS workers. Our health service has long depended on the skills, dedication, and compassion of doctors, nurses, care workers, and other health professionals who came to the UK seeking safety.
From doctors fleeing persecution to care workers rebuilding their lives, refugee communities have filled critical workforce gaps and provided culturally sensitive care to diverse patient populations. To treat people seeking asylum as unwelcome whilst simultaneously relying on migrant workers to sustain our health system is hypocritical and short-sighted.” – Dr Rathi Guhadasan previously wrote for SHA. Those who are still members are encouraged to utilise this template motion on asylum in their local CLP.
On the 28th of January, against international law barring emergencies, ICE agents unsuccessfully attempted to enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis but were turned away by consulate staff – prompting the South American nation to file a formal diplomatic protest (Gowen and Paul, 2026). Most recently, US embassies have seen organised protests in Edinburgh and London (Voyles, 2026).
Vigil was held for Pretti on Saturday, 31st of January – and all other victims of the U.S. ICE violence at the U.S. Embassy.
What continues to be made abundantly clear is that what is happening in the U.S. is not altogether exceptional: Trump should not be reduced to just a cause but rather understood as a symptom of an economic system and a political landscape that has prioritised and chosen neoliberal policies spanning the last 40 years, over economic stability, equitable change and the working class, that has ultimately decimated our communities, galvanised and facilitated the greediest into roles of power. This speaks to the crisis(es) of capitalism – ushered in by neoliberalism – and will not be saved by neoliberalism. The UK is clearly not immune and if anything, must hearken to the events taking place. These times also continue to illuminate the power of workers and communities who come together – the rank and file workers who are showing the way – and the undeniable need for socialist policies to defend against this political vacuum, ransacking and indoctrinating some in our communities. People must not wait for heroes. Socialist policies, particularly within the NHS – and health and social care are paramount: reject PFI 2.0, end private profiteering within health and restore the NHS, implement a not-for-profit social care system similar to that of the NHS: publicly owned, publicly operated and free at the point of use (Guhadasan, 2025; Giles, 2025; Dalley, 2019).
As we mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January, and honour the 6 million Jewish people, Romani and Sinti People, disabled people, LGBT+ people, trade unionists, communists and socialists – and all other opponents killed under Nazi Germany’s fascist violence, we should be reminded of Romani, Auschwitz survivor Karl Stojka’s words, “It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race.”
“First They Came” – Martin Niemoller, a former Nazi supporter who turned into a vocal opponent, wrote his poem in 1946 after his time in a concentration camp for dissension. New England Holocaust Memorial, Boston MA.
We should not only draw and expose parallels between these countries, across space and time, but also take heart – and participate – in the many stories of hope, community and resistance we are seeing play out in the real time now.
Solidarity to those out in Minneapolis – across the US – and to all those who struggle!