Contributor – Kaija Freborg, DNP, RN, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC

Helpless. This is how a Minneapolis nurse described feeling in response to the militarized occupation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota, an operation that is being used to disappear immigrants, racialized people, and others who stand in the way. With despair, the nurse recounted having to bear witness as Somali immigrants were violently kidnapped by unidentified agents near their health center, noting that there was nothing they could do. When other nurses and their organization voiced condemnation of ICE, hate-filled rhetoric and frequent bomb threats followed, while ICE presence increased. In response, nurses were silenced by their workplace from speaking about the brutality of ICE in order to protect the communities of color they serve. These accounts from Minneapolis nurses, shared with me under the condition of anonymity, demonstrate a new era of navigating nursing practice.

In this dystopia-made-real, social media has served as a codified counter-narrative (Chinn et al., 2026) that enables the public to track events occurring in real time. The viewer bears witness, video after video, as masked ICE agents reveal a pattern of violence enacted on racialized communities. In case you are not aware yet, ICE officers are stopping people on the streets, specifically targeting Black and Brown people, asking for their papers, and disappearing them. Healthcare organizations are now telling their workers to carry their passports and medications. Yet carrying paperwork or identifying as an American citizen has not always kept people safe. Authoritative mechanisms of control are demonstrated as ICE agents go door-to-door asking people to inform on their neighbors of color and break into people’s homes, detaining individuals without a judicial warrant.

Fear of ICE raids has resulted in people going into hiding, staying home rather than taking the risk to go to work, buy food, or obtain healthcare. Food insecurity has significantly heightened in Minneapolis, people are rationing their medications (e.g., insulin), and patients are skipping their healthcare appointments. One patient left against medical advice despite their serious medical condition for fear of detainment with the ever-present ICE officers at the hospital. Pregnant people are afraid to go to the hospital when in labor, while one woman of color actively giving birth was hidden in the attic by staff in response to ICE agents circling the clinic. Children have also been targeted by immigration officers at schools, including preschools, kidnapped and used as bait to lure families from their homes or take them from school bus stops.

Institutional Racialized Oppression

Regardless of the overwhelming accounts of harm being shared about and by racialized communities, there had been little conversation from nurses on the occupation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the U.S.– that is, until the murder of Renee Good and later Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse. One cannot ignore how racism and xenophobia play a role in media headlines and discussions around the kitchen table. As a white nurse from Minnesota, I hear and acknowledge the visceral truth made legible from my nursing colleagues of color: this persecution of Black and Brown bodies is not new. Alexander (2010) describes that although the U.S. government’s plan of institutionalized racialized oppression (in the form of slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration of people of color) has changed over time, the agenda has always been the same. From slave patrols to now ICE patrols, the detainment of immigrants of color in inhumane detention centers and deportations without cause or due process is the new plan of systematic oppression. Expulsion of racialized people from the country maintains the U.S agenda of white supremacy.

We see this white centering when the 2 white people who died at the hands of ICE make headlines, while people of color do not– why are we not talking about their lives? As of one month into 2026, there have already been 7 deaths related to ICE, all involving racialized individuals. In  2025, 32 people,  many of whom were immigrants, died while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody (Harb,2026).

So, how has this resistance to state-sanctioned violence differed from previous social movements in our history? White allies (Good and Pretti) have been struck down, and as a result, white Americans are being pressured to align with our Whiteness. The government is asking us to ignore what we perceive with our eyes and ears and continue with the social covenant that has gifted us privilege in exchange for compliance.

Without said covenant, without compliance, the rules that once protected white people no longer apply. Cue the increased media coverage on this “new problem” of ICE that white communities are now confronted with. For years, communities of color have reported the dangerous harm that some police have inflicted on racialized people, but without phone recordings, many have not been believed. This year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that Heber Sanchaz Domíngues, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died by self-hanging while in custody. However, the autopsy report showed the cause of death to be a homicide, and witnesses recount how guards choked Mr. Sanchaz Domíngues to death (Harb, 2026). This practice of institutional gaslighting by the U.S. Administration is slowly failing, as the public cannot unsee the truth revealed by witnesses’ accounts and video recordings.

Resisting hegemony by disrupting colonized ideologies and narratives that privilege the U.S. Administration’s viewpoint is a nursing act (Chinn et al., 2026). Feigning political neutrality is in stark contrast with our nursing Code of Ethics– yet where are our nursing organizations condemning the actions of brutality towards racialized people and allies willing to stand up for them? Of the statements put out by a few of the major national nursing organizations, they made little to no reference to the underlying political machine at work or the root cause of the murder of Pretti: a white nurse standing with racialized communities against White supremacy. Rather than focus on political determinants of health, statements mostly centered on healthcare workers and workplace violence with a call for Pretti’s death to be investigated (American Association of Critical Care Nurses, 2026; American Nurses Association [ANA], 2026).

Political Neutrality

There are many reasons why nursing organizations may have shied away from directly denouncing the actions of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. Anti-DEI legislation has slowly chipped away at organizations’ initiatives; although values in equity often remain unchanged, action is careful and strategic in order to avoid backlash. Fear of alienating nurse members and losing membership has likely led institutions to tread carefully. In addition to the loss of funding from membership fees, there is pressure to avoid losing sponsorship funding. I attended a nursing organization’s annual conference this year that struggled to find sponsorship due to its unapologetic stance on discriminatory practices in healthcare. Or perhaps a racial empathy gap prevents nurses and nursing organizations from heeding the call to act alongside racialized communities?

One could argue that these politically neutral, performative actions are understandable, that we just need to bide our time until the midterms. However, racialized communities are being persecuted and harmed by the state now. According to Provision 9.2 Commitment to Society of the Nursing Code of Ethics, “economic priorities and pressures… and emphasis on the performative nature of professionalism or technique threaten to undermine nursing’s social covenant…” (ANA, 2025, Provision 9.2). The public relies on nurses to challenge structural barriers that impede the health and wellness of people, no matter their identity, specifically naming discrimination, gun violence, food insecurity, and propaganda (ANA, 2025, Provision 9.3). To align with our Code of Ethics, nurses need to engage in emancipatory praxis, an approach that employs 1) critical reflection to learn and critically think about root structural drivers of health and non-health, such as unjust, harmful policies and practices, and 2) action to disrupt and dismantle socio-political systems that lead to health inequities (Chinn et al., 2026).

Emancipatory Nursing & Resistance

Emancipatory praxis calls on nurses to strategically respond to ICE operations in cities across the U.S. Nurses would be well-served to follow the lead of grassroot organizations, like Mama’s of Cedar, mothers from the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis, comprised of immigrant communities, who patrol the streets, offer education on civil rights, address food insecurity, and offer rides to healthcare appointments (Kentah, 2026). Other Minnesotans have devised rapid-response networks of people to watch over their neighborhoods, schools, and bus stops, alerting their community when ICE appears. Nurses should back community- initiated organization, where those most affected by structural violence, experts of their own experience, know how to best resist.

Resistance in nursing could also include providing education, building coalitions, and imploring policy change to ensure the safety of communities that are due liberation. For example, as a result of nurse educators taking up space during a faculty meeting at a university in California to discuss the atrocities happening in Minneapolis, a nurse convened with the University’s health center staff to then develop and implement a safety policy that restricts public access in the clinic to protect students and staff from ICE officers.

Finally, acts of subversion through everyday forms of resistance by nurses can also support and protect the community. For instance, a Minneapolis nurse shared that a man who fell off a ladder and “broke his back” while being detained by ICE agents was hospitalized. During this hospitalization, the man was guarded by an ICE officer who would not allow the patient to call his family. In response, the patient’s nurse claimed that the patient was incontinent, so the officer had to leave the room while the nurse changed the patient’s gown and bedding. This small act of rebellion allowed the patient to call his family.

Despite Border Czar Tom Hollman’s recent announcement that Operation Metro Surge is ending, Minnesotans have not witnessed changes in ICE agent activity. Acting like a secret police, agents are now going underground, wearing plain clothing and using fake license plates to blend in. When a Minneapolis nurse was asked what they would like to share with nurses across the nation about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s operation, they responded with questions: “Does anyone have any idea what’s happening here? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”  This heart-wrenching plea for help reveals how neutrality and complicity have harmful repercussions. Nurses and nursing organizations must be accountable for and engage in emancipatory praxis to ensure the safety and wellness of all communities. And so we must challenge perilous practices used by ICE, because if we do not, we betray our ethical commitments to our communities, our profession, and ourselves. 

A special thank you to the nurses in Minneapolis interviewed for this commentary, who shared anonymous accounts of what is happening on the streets and in healthcare facilities across the city to make legible the tyranny of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

References

American Association of Critical Care Nurses. (2026, January 24). AACN Responds to the Death of Nurse Alex Pretti.
https://www.aacn.org/newsroom/aacn-responds-to-the-death-of-nurse-alex-pretti

American Nurses Association. (2026, January 24). Statement from the American Nurses Association regarding the death of registered nurse Alex Pretti. https://www.nursingworld.org/news/news-releases/2025/statement-from-the-american-nurses-association-regarding-the-death-of-registered-nurse-alex-pretti/

American Nurses Association. (2025). Code of ethics for nurses.
https://codeofethics.ana.org/provisions.

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.

Chinn, P., Canty, L., & Mkandawire-Valhmu, L. (2026). Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and Process (12th ed.). Elsevier.

Harb, A. (2026, January 27). US witnessed many ICE-related deaths in 2026. Here are their stories. Aljazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/27/us-witnessed-many-ice-related-deaths-in-2026-here-are-their-stories

Kentah, B. (2026, January 16). In Minneapolis’ Cedar Riverside, a group of mothers protect neighbors from ICE. Sahan Journal.
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/minneapolis-ice-observers-mothers-cedar-riverside-protection-alliance/

About Kaija Freborg, DNP, RN, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC

Kaija Freborg is a nurse educator, scholar, and activist. A professor at Sonoma State University, she serves as the School of Nursing’s Chair of the Anti-Racism, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. Her scholarship centers on integrating health equity in nursing through health and wellness coaching, professional development, and innovative curriculum and program design. Dr. Freborg’s goals include educating nurses in positionality-informed consciousness to build relational accountability to engage nurses in emancipatory praxis. Born and raised in Minnesota, as well as having spent most of her nursing career there, she now makes good trouble in California.