On Sunday afternoon, thousands of protestors gathered at the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building in downtown Salt Lake City to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — following the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year old nurse in Minneapolis, by ICE agents on Saturday morning.
The demonstration was organized in response to Pretti’s death, which has sparked protests in Minnesota and other cities. Protest organizers said the Salt Lake City rally was intended to show solidarity with Minneapolis and call for ICE to be removed from local communities.
Protesters marched from the Bennett Federal Building on State Street to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Field Office at 660 S. 200 East before returning to the federal building, where organizers formally ended the protest. The demonstration lasted more than two hours.
Call to action
The rally was organized by the Salt Lake City branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Other groups involved included the Salt Lake City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Utah Progressive Caucus and Mecha de U of U.
Kenneth Shratte is the Second Vice Chair of the Utah Progressive Caucus and helped organize the event. “ICE has continued to brutalize us in the streets in these last couple of weeks with Renee Good, and now with Alex Pretti who were peacefully observing what ICE was doing, and they were executed in the streets,” Shratte said. “We’re not going to stand by for it anymore. That’s why we’re showing up today.”
Christopher Lorea-Peña, a student organizer with MECHA and Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), explained the purpose of the rally. “We are here to stand in solidarity with Minneapolis. We’ve seen the effects that Donald Trump’s racist terror campaign has had on that community and the way that Minneapolis responded with a general strike,” Lorea-Peña said Workers from all different backgrounds, all different industries, shut down the city so ICE will leave their city.”
Lorea-Peña said the rally was intended to show solidarity with Minnesota and to call for changes to immigration enforcement. “The working class overwhelmingly rejects this racist billionaire agenda by Trump. So we are here as students, workers, community members, to stand with Minnesota,” Lorea-Peña said. “To demand ICE out of our communities, and to demand an expansion of the general strike.”
Demanding change
An unnamed protestor said they attended out of frustration with what they described as ongoing government violence and inaction. “We are angry and tired of people not standing up and saying something and being quiet,” they said. “We are all really upset, and we just want change.”
A rally organizer by the name of Dodge said the protest was meant to bring a similar sentiment to Utah as Minnesota. “We are here because ICE killed another civilian in Minnesota. Alex Pretti, a nurse, a legal observer, was murdered in cold blood,” Dodge said. “Minnesota shut down the whole state for a day, so we want to expand that general strike to here, and demonstrate that ICE has no place in our state.”
Suzann | Jan 27, 2026 at 9:15 am
I wish I would have known about this protest march. I don’t get notified anymore 🤷♀️ and I don’t know why.