One could see the candlelights from up and down Clairmont Rd. on Thursday night. People were holding candles and signs in solidarity with a fallen colleague.
While Democrats in Washington, D.C. are calling for “common sense” changes to how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appear and work in the community, Georgia nurses gathered outside of a local Veterans Affairs hospital in remembrance of one of their own.
Members and supporters of the National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United gathered outside the Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center to honor the life of Alex Pretti. A former VA intensive care nurse, Pretti, was killed by ICE and border patrol agents in Minneapolis last month. Chants of “Abolish ICE” and “All of us or none of us” could be heard coming from the crowd as passersby honked horns in solidarity with what has been a common sight across the country over the past couple of months.
Pretti was one of the nurses in the country working to help veterans, and he was doing what nurses do when he was shot and killed,” said National Nurses United, Atlanta Chapter Director Dr. Florence Uzuegbunam.
“He gave his life, so we believe he gave his life on duty,” she said. “There is no border when you’re a nurse. When a nurse is down, that’s a problem. We are the first when you come into the hospital, and the last when you leave.”
“When Alex saw that woman being attacked, he saw a patient,” Uzuegbunam said.
United States Navy veteran, VA-registered nurse, and National Nurses United member Tashara Felder held a sign and a candle, like the other supporters. She was there to pay her respects to Pretti and to take a stand.
Asked what she hopes her fellow nurses and their supporters took away from this vigil, Felder said unity.
“We hope that we find more people who get fired up and get behind this cause,” she said. “We want to see ICE abolished.”
Felder said not only were immigration rights and journalism under attack, but so were voting rights.
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