Registered nurse Silvia Lu was working the day shift at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland when she read about the shooting death of fellow ICU nurse Alex Pretti who was protesting the ICE immigration crackdown on the streets of Minneapolis.
On a routine day shift in the emergency department Saturday, where Lu often cares for children recovering from heart surgeries and car crashes, “I held my tears back the whole day.”
Retired nurse Gina Shepherd attends a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. Healthcare professionals and others are demanding justice and the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ) in the wake of the killing of Veteran’s Administration nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)lShe carried that pent-up emotion outside the hospital Monday evening, where she joined about 200 others, mostly nurses, in a candlelight vigil to remember the 37-year-old Minnesota nurse whose death has become the latest flashpoint in the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement surge. Just weeks earlier, videos showed an ICE officer shooting and killing Renee Good, another Minnesota protester and mother of three, as she pulled away in her vehicle.
“I just felt I needed to do something. I needed to stand up for this and to just make myself present to the horrendous things that are going on in this country,” said Mary Dhont, a nurse in the hospital’s outpatient infusion clinic who joined the vigil organized by the California Nurses Association. “This is just the latest in a string. But it was horrible. The fact that he was a nurse just brought it closer to home.”
The nurses’ vigil comes after a weekend of scattered protests in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland over Pretti’s death.
Registered nurse Hannah Pelletier, center, friend Tim McNamara, left, and others attend a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. Healthcare professionals and others are demanding justice and the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ) in the wake of the killing of Veteran’s Administration nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)lSo far, the Bay Area has been spared the kind of sweeping federal operation underway in Minneapolis, where videos and news reports have shown ICE agents dragging people from their vehicles, detaining a 5-year-old boy and shooting Pretti and Good. In October, after President Donald Trump sent 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, he threatened to send them to San Francisco as well to clean up the city’s “mess.” But the president backed off after appeals from San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and tech executives, including Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO, and the Oakland hospital’s namesake. Benioff initially suggested Trump deploy the troops there during his Dreamforce convention, but had a change of heart and apologized.
On Monday, in a petition circulating online, a group of tech workers asked Silicon Valley CEOs to flex their political muscle again and “cancel all company contracts with ICE.”
“This cannot continue, and we know the tech industry can make a difference,” they wrote. “Today, we’re calling on our CEOs to pick up the phone again.”
At the Monday vigil, many of those attending expressed concern that the Bay Area, home to nearly 500,000 undocumented immigrants, could be the next ICE target. Nurses said they were especially worried about the families of their young patients.
“We take care of a lot of families, immigrant families, patients that may not have the ability to afford care otherwise,” said nurse Michelle Trautman. “And I’m concerned that they’re going to try and take advantage of that vulnerability to grab some of our patients and send them away when they obviously need care.”
In the hours after Pretti’s death, Trump administration officials called the shooting justified, that because Pretti carried a handgun in his waistband, which was legally registered, he was a threat to officers and was intent on a “massacre.” Trump official Stephen Miller called Pretti an “assassin.” Those characterizations outraged his family and Democratic politicians, who pointed to videos taken by bystanders showing Pretti helping a woman who had been pushed by an ICE agent and displaying only his camera. He was pinned to the ground by numerous ICE agents, videos show, and his gun had already pulled out of his waistband by an ICE agent when he was shot numerous times.
The Bay Area’s Democratic congressional delegation has taken action, voting against the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that would provide additional funding for ICE.
“I cannot and will not continue to fund lawlessness or federal agencies that terrorize families in their own neighborhoods and criminalize people for seeking opportunity and refuge,” U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon, D-Oakland, said in a statement. “What we’re witnessing is cruel, immoral, and completely at odds with the promise of the American dream.”
U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, San Jose’s former mayor, also voted against further funding for ICE. “ICE has abandoned its mission of removing violent criminals in favor of detaining children, shooting Americans, and terrorizing our communities,” he said in a statement.
At the busy intersection of 52nd Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way on Monday evening, streams of cars honked and waved as they drove past the nurses and other supporters who gathered with signs saying “Melt ICE” and “Justice for Alex Pretti.”
Aaron Cortez, of Oakland, attends a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. Healthcare professionals and others are demanding justice and the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ) in the wake of the killing of Veteran’s Administration nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)lAaron Cortez, 28, of Alameda, said that in some ways, fear drove him to attend the vigil. His family goes back several generations in California, with his relatives serving in the U.S. military, but he still fears a potential ICE raid.
“They just see me by the color of my skin, and that worries me,” said Cortez, who cares for ailing relatives at home. “And so I decided to come out because I had to, I needed to show that we’re all here together, that no matter what happens, we will all protect each other.”
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