To the Good People of Minneapolis:
To Our Native Cousins and Working-Class Raza of Minnesota and the Midwest:
Unión del Barrio vehemently expresses our outrage over the ongoing terror campaign unleashed against anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The public executions of Renee Nicole Good on January 7th and Alex Jeffrey Pretti on January 24, 2026, represent the intensification of ICE and Border Patrol operations across the US. Our heartfelt condolences go out to the families and friends of Renee and Alex. We also recognize the fighting spirit of Twin City communities, who have been so fierce in their opposition to ICE mass terror, and we mourn the martyrdom of two of your activist-residents.
These foreseeable tragedies confirm that the Trump regime, along with its federal shock troops, will not respect their own laws when it comes to la Raza, but also intend to violently attack all solidarity-minded people whose only alleged crime is to document ICE shock and awe tactics. Once again, we call on all our gente and all solidarity-minded peoples to stand up and join us in the trenches of this generational struggle. We must be organized to resist; organization is everything! We trust that with your unwavering dedication and sacrifice, not only can we resist in the present, but we can build a better tomorrow. Unión del Barrio will remain on track to build our Partido and to defend our gente.
The time to organize and fight is now!
¡Luchemos y hagamos historia! ¡La Unión Hace la Fuerza!
Alex Jeffrey Pretti – ¡PRESENTE!
Renee Nicole Good – ¡PRESENTE!
To All Working-Class Raza Within the Political Borders of this North American Empire:
To Our Compas of Unión del Barrio:
To Movimiento People, Activists, Educators, Scholars, & Political “Influencers”:
To All Solidarity-Minded People from All Communities:
In the wake of a second murder of an anti-ICE/migra activist in Minneapolis, we are forced to critically assess the consequences for our Moviminento and plan for what is most likely coming next. During January, we know of at least 6 deaths of people in ICE/CBP detention and at least three shootings in Minnesota, and there are many more unreported or underreported acts of violence throughout the country. 2025 was defined by the most intense repression against our gente in living memory, as well as various direct attacks against our organization. Now, a majority of people throughout the United States and around the world are being forced to acknowledge what has been called “MAGA fascism.” It’s important that we understand what this label means to la Raza and our Movimiento.
The actions and policies of the U.S. federal government are broadly denounced as “authoritarian,” dictatorial, and corrosive of “U.S. liberal democratic norms and traditions.” For the majority of people living in the United States, these labels are true in as much as we focus on the federal government’s daily attacks against First Amendment rights to document and protest ICE; censorship of main-stream journalism and corporate media; cuts to social services and public health; interventions against higher education and undermining public education in general; broad political violence targeting critics of the government and against the loyal “opposition” party (Democrats); undermining legal norms and institutions with threats against judges and lawyers, and a total disregard of unfavorable court orders; election rigging by shameless public gerrymandering, and demanding total subservience of a significant majority of elected officials to a trumpian “cult of personality.” Clearly, “MAGA fascism” is indeed undermining “U.S. liberal democratic norms and traditions.” This is especially true for the people of Minneapolis, where two white US citizens have been shot and killed while monitoring and protesting ICE operations.
Anyone paying attention will also see how this mass-terror campaign is primarily directed and deployed against working-class Raza across the United States. Our gente not only carry the burden of all of the previously listed assaults, but since the first days of 2025 (and long before that), thousands of violent and unconstitutional operations have centered primarily on attacking working-class Raza communities. In 2025, there were at least 12 ICE/migra shootings, including the murder of Silverio Villegas González and the attempted murder of Marimar Martinez in Chicago, the wounding Carlitos Ricardo Parias in front of a Los Angeles high school, and the shots fired at Francisco Longoria and his family as they drove away from ICE agents in San Bernardino. The “siege of Los Angeles” is now in its 232nd day, and there are ongoing operations in Chicago, New Orleans, Portland, San Diego, and other cities where the federal government has decided to direct its campaign of state terror.
Our gente are the primary targets of thousands of violent daily operations by heavily armed masked agents in unmarked vehicles that snatch people off our streets. These hooded goons enjoy federal immunity while they arrest, beat, detain, shoot, and murder working-class Raza. Our cities, barrios, and workplaces have suffered mobilizations of armoured vehicles, helicopters, National Guard troops, and active-duty Marines; disappearing tens of thousands of our people to intern them in both for-profit domestic and international concentration camps; intentionally cruel and violent family separations at court buildings; sweeping federal cancellations of previously “legal” immigration status for hundreds of thousands; increasingly common deadly force directed against “anti-ICE activists;” and, the unilateral suspension of “fundamental” constitutional guarantees for all working-class Raza regardless of citizenship or legal status, particularly the 1st Amendment: freedom of speech and assembly, 4th Amendment: unreasonable searches and seizures, 5th Amendment: due process, and the 14th Amendment: due process, equal protection under the law, habeas corpus, and birthright citizenship.
As a Movimiento, we have to recognize how the ongoing ICE/migra raids in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Miami, Phoenix, and San Diego are rooted in an all-out war against la Raza that extends to Caracas, Bogotá, Guatemala City, La Habana, Mexico City, San Juan, San Salvador, and Tegucigalpa. For over a year now, threats of violence and extrajudicial attacks/detentions/killings have been the norm for many of our barrios, but also for the peoples of Nuestra América. Renee Good’s murder came just days after US mercenaries invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores, thereby providing a clear link between imperialist violence and MAGA’s domestic reactionary violence. We have seen and will see more murderous acts and piracy in the Caribbean, direct military actions against Venezuela, and the continued rise of right-wing operations throughout Nuestra América. Trump’s deranged imperial attacks against Venezuela and threats of invading and conquering Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico are evidence of an unhinged US imperialism desperately lashing out as it loses its political-economic grip on the world. This directed, and intentional violence against our gente is an unmasked manifestation of anti-Raza and anti-working-class colonial-fascism intended to terrorize our barrios, destroy our families, and overwhelm our capacity for independent political thought or action within the US and throughout Nuestra América.
The MAGArrano regime has already gone too far to take back the language, tactics, and deadly violence they used against us in 2025, demonstrating how they are “all in” for advancing their total war against la Raza. We are now witnessing the second wave of colonial anti-Raza attacks – the deployment of 10,000 new agents and the consequences of a massive new budget on the scale of domestic counter-insurgency. We see intensified operations against schools, churches, and hospitals, as well as direct repression against any people and organizations who dare challenge their campaign of mass-terror. Despite having deployed tens of thousands of military and paramilitary forces against communities across the US, the Trump regime and its cronies are losing their propaganda offensive. This points to MAGA possibly losing the midterm elections in November 2026 and opening up a path for Trump’s probable impeachment. The MAGArranos will do everything they can to avoid this, and are determined to take their war all the way to a “final solution.” Soon, perhaps within weeks, we should expect the federal government to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act in order to quash opposition to its mass-terror campaigns in Minnesota and other states.
While MAGArranos continue to intensify their efforts to advance their agenda, the feckless loyal opposition Democrats will continue to pretend to resist. They will make speeches and ask for donations. Elected Democrats and their affiliated institutions will not save us. Instead, they will continue to sit on their hands (some will even express support for ICE/migra operations) hoping they will be swept back into the majority after the November 2026 midterm elections. Of course, there is a high probability that the MAGA regime will intervene in or altogether cancel the midterm elections. Even if Democrats somehow manage to become a majority in the House and the Senate after the November 2026 elections, our Movimiento must never allow things to return to the way they were before. We must be organized to resist; organization is everything!
While conditions will inevitably worsen in what remains of 2026, we can also expect greater clarity and conviction to help guide our people’s resistance. Over one year ago, Unión del Barrio put out a call for people to defend their communities, and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to patrol and defend their residents. Without fear of exaggeration, we can say that our organizational work has served as the foundation for what is now a viable national movement against ICE terror and repression that has brought cities across the US to a tipping point. For this and other reasons, we have been targeted by the MAGArranos, who have made various threats intended to scare us into submission. Our response has not only been a deepening of our convictions, but we have intensified and multiplied our work and our capacity to resist on multiple fronts.
2026 will require us to analyze our Barrio Self Defense strategies. We must align and coordinate our Community Patrols and Barrio Self-Defense work throughout Southern California and beyond. We must also evaluate the potential for national work, up to and including national calls to build our organization and seriously consider the need to convene a national action. We must prepare an organizational strategy to address military interventions in Nuestra América. MAGArranos have all the resources and more to suppress an unorganized, defenseless population. Only if we organize can we defend our communities and give our people the dignity we all deserve. Once again, we call on all our gente and all solidarity-minded peoples to join an organization because we need each of you in the trenches of this generational struggle. We trust that with your unwavering dedication and sacrifice, Unión del Barrio will remain on track to build our Partido and to defend our gente.
¡El momento de organizarnos y luchar es ahora!
¡La Unión Hace la Fuerza! ¡Liberación Exige Organización!
Unión del Barrio
January 24, 2026