Voters leave 'I Voted' stickers on memorials for people killed by ICE agents

Stickers on the memorials

Residents of Minneapolis have placed "I Voted" stickers on the memorial to Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs medical center in the city. The memorial had been covered in flowers and signs for months, and the stickers appeared after people cast ballots in the midterm elections on Tuesday, 3 November. Pretti was killed by federal immigration agents in January, during a large-scale enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area. Renee Good, a 37-year-old writer and mother, was shot dead by an ICE agent on 7 January, and her memorial has also received stickers.

According to witness accounts and video cited by Il Fatto Quotidiano, Pretti was thrown to the ground and struck while he tried to help a woman. Agents said he was armed and invoked self-defence, a version that footage and witness accounts contest. NRC reports that shots were fired after he had already been brought down and disarmed.

A memorial in Houston

Voters in Houston have covered a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a construction worker and father who was fatally shot by ICE agents in July, with stickers and handwritten notes. Some of the messages read "I voted for you" and "Por usted", Spanish for "for you". During the first week of early voting, Ronaldo Salgado, the eldest son, added his own sticker, and the Houston Chronicle reports that hundreds of people did the same. Ronaldo told the Washington Post that the response had caught him by surprise.

“I didn't realize it would grow this big.”

Deaths this summer and the wider campaign

NRC reports that ICE agents fatally shot two more people this summer, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Federal immigration officials moved into the Minneapolis area in a large-scale operation at the end of 2025 and early this year. The killings of Good and Pretti set off large, peaceful protests against ICE in several US cities early this year. The federal immigration service is under orders from the Trump administration to find as many undocumented migrants as possible, so that mass deportations can go ahead. In Minneapolis, community groups set up rapid response teams to keep officials from arresting immigrants, and many of those groups have since turned their attention to the elections.

Latino voters and the midterms

Polls before Election Day suggested that Latino voters were moving back toward Democrats, with immigration still a central point of disagreement with the administration. A survey by NBC News and Telemundo in October recorded 67% of Latino voters saying Trump's enforcement had gone too far. The same survey found 31% saying they, or someone close to them, now carry identification because of concerns about ICE, while 27% know someone who has been detained or deported.

Enforcement has gone too far67%

Carry ID because of ICE concerns31%

Know someone detained or deported27%

Enforcement has gone too far

67 %

Carry ID because of ICE concerns

31 %

Know someone detained or deported

27 %

Data from the article text

A retired physician who worked with Pretti, identified only by his first name, Arne, left a sticker at the memorial and became emotional when he spoke about his vote and Pretti's death. In Minnesota, voters were choosing a Senate candidate, a governor and House candidates on the same day.