The night before, 25,000 New Yorkers marched through the streets of Lower Manhattan calling for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a smaller, quieter gathering was held about 20 blocks north, to commemorate those killed in Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
That night, Thursday, January 29, 19 degrees, New York City was out of its usual rhythm. A snowstorm had just made the city its headquarters for the weekend and things were still not back to their usual pace. A heaviness prevailed. Taxis covered in ice debris raced to merge onto FDR Drive, pedestrians waiting in single file between snowbanks until the walk sign flashed. There was a feeling that things were not as they should be.
At 1st Avenue and East 23rd Street, outside a Veterans Affairs hospital, people began gathering at approximately 5 p.m. The sun had just begun the final leg of its descent and soft pinks and oranges covered the sky. “Vigil over here,” announced a woman standing at the end of the street in a long black coat and neon yellow vest, waving her arms to direct newcomers to an area cordoned off by police barriers. “Straight down. Watch over here.” She smiled as people filed in. No documentation was needed to cry.
As the crowd gathered, one could easily infer that the event had something to do with nurses and nursing. A mix of labor and community organizations had organized the vigil, including National Nurses United (NNU), the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), and the Physicians Council. Also a union of federal employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the United Federation of Teachers, Veterans for Peace, the New York City Central Labor Council and Hands Off NYC.
Despite the size of the crowd, which numbered around 2,000 people, according to the New York Daily Newsthe event felt like its own. Amid the sea of crimson from NNU and NYSNA: hats, gloves, scarves; New York City nurses were in their third week of strike – people from all walks of life showed up. Young and old, men and women, students and teachers, of all races and colors.
An older man at the back of the crowd walked slowly, step by step, holding a thin cardboard sign: ABOLISH ICE. His staff clicked and clattered on the ice. Ten meters in front of him, a group of women gathered in a circle to light their candles, fiddling with their single pocket lighter in the wind. Naomi, an older woman wearing colorful knit gloves and clear-rimmed glasses, appeared, pulling out plastic battery-operated candles: “Here, take these. They’ll keep us warm.” Then, clicking sounds as the candles were lit: laughter, smiles and, so to speak, a certain warmth. It seemed that the cardboard sign in front of us was right: Love melts ICE.
“The people of Minneapolis are incredibly brave,” Naomi, a former journalist and preschool teacher, told me, speaking slowly but firmly. “I started to really feel the terror. And I needed to do something. I just needed to show up.” Naomi’s father, like Alex PrettiHe worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The crowd shuffled until they reached the hospital and then crowded into the street. The boots dragged through the mud. United arms. Someone started playing Bruce Springsteen’s new song, “Streets of Minneapolis.” There were traces of blood where mercy should have been… We will defend ourselves from this land… The heart and soul of our city persists.
A tall man with a kind face hidden under glasses and a hunter-green coat lit his candle next to mine. His name, he told me, was Jorge. (Actually, when I asked, “I’m not a citizen, so I have to be careful… my name is Jorge.”) “I’m here because I’m outraged by what happened to Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and all the other people who have been subjected to ICE violence,” he told me, his voice breaking. “I can’t believe the level of impunity that exists in this country. This is a democracy and it is not right, and we have to put our bodies in the streets, our voices, we have to do everything we can to stop this.”
A man’s voice echoed through the crowd. The time for the speakers has arrived. Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, began. “We have witnessed over 30 immigrants who have died or been murdered in ICE custody. Alex Pretti was defending his neighbor that he probably didn’t even know. And he was executed for it. Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were executed. They were executed. It’s a shame.”
Pitythe crowd repeated. A lone voice: “How many more have to die?”
“Alex Pretti was the ninth person killed by ICE and the Border Patrol in 2026 alone,” declared the next speaker, a union leader with the American Federation of Government Employees, counting those who died in ICE custody. “Repeat after me and say their names.” So did the crowd.
“Geraldo Lunas Campos.” Geraldo Lunas Campos.
“Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres”. Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres.
“Paradise La.” Parady La.
“Victor Manuel Díaz.” Victor Manuel Diaz..
“Heber Sánchez Domínguez”. Heber Sánchez Dominguez.
“Keith Porter.” Keith Porter.
“Renee Nicole Good.” Renée Nicole Bueno.
“Alex Pretti.” Alex Pretti.
Alex Pretti.
Alex Pretti.
A moment of silence.
The moment dragged on for minutes, the silence deafening. Such tranquility is rare in the city that never sleeps. To my left, a man and woman held hands and had their heads bowed. To my right, a little boy looked at his father; his father looked back with glassy eyes. There was a sense of unity, a sense that those next to you could take a bullet for you. One felt that the crowd could go to the ends of the Earth to protect each other.
One voice at a time, the crowd sang again. Although the right has caricatured the protesters as violent and destructive, every word that came out of their mouths seemed to be with love. Immigrants are welcome here. Without hate, without fear, immigrants are welcome here. The united people will never be defeated.
“As a New Yorker, an American, and a public school teacher, I love my neighbors and I love my city,” one woman, Esther Gottesman, told me, wrapped in a bright pink scarf. “And I think loving a place means fighting for what’s right, standing up for each other, and taking care of each other.
“What is happening is unacceptable and that is not who I want to be as an American. It is our responsibility to confront it again and again.”
“Every American, every immigrant, anyone who calls this great country home,” said Oliver, a recent mechanical engineering graduate, “must show up.”
As the crowd dispersed, peacefully and without incident, people headed to the low wall bordering the VA hospital and began making a memorial. Each person put down their candle, carefully and gently, and bowed their head. A conglomerate of individual moments of silence. There were flowers and framed photographs of ICE victims. A shared recognition that, if not for the unknowable ways of fate, each of us could be a photograph on the mantelpiece. A sign: May we all be granted your courage..
As I walked away from the vigil, my hands exhausted with feeling, following the few who had stayed to cry longer, I stopped. To my left, a cardboard sign taped to a snowbank and a solitary plastic candle in front. Justice for Prettihe said. Alex Pretti. Hero.
