By Andrew Christie
“Trump’s war on immigrants is turning into a war against the decency of the American people. And it would be stupid as well as immoral to refuse to choose sides.” – Paul Krugman
On January 27, three days after Alex Pretti was shot dead in Minneapolis, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, as mandated by California’s Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, met to review the cooperation of the county sheriff’s office with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The TRUTH Act, passed in 2018, requires “the local governing body of any county, city, or city and county in which a local law enforcement agency has provided ICE access to an individual during the last year, to hold at least one public community forum during the following year…to provide information to the public about ICE’s access to individuals and to receive and consider public comment.” The overwhelming majority of speakers in the standing-room-only audience urged the county board and the sheriff’s office to end voluntary collaboration with ICE.
New Times covered the story in its January 29 issue, which also featured an installment of its “Down to Earth” column by Santa Lucia Chapter Coordinator Gianna Patchen and her roommate, Cate Armstrong. Entitled “Community action is our antidote” per Joan Baez (“Action is the antidote to despair”), it described how, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, the two young women, along with several other roommates and friends, found that “mutual despair pushed us out of stagnation and into brainstorming ways to join the marathon of resistance.” They decided to hold a morning “Activism Hour” on a biweekly basis.
Since then, the friends have encouraged each other “to take real-world actions, during and outside of Activism Hour, like attending local events and protests together, exploring volunteer opportunities and training, calling our elected officials, and encouraging each other to go to city council meetings and community action spaces.”
In the comment section below the article, a well-known local right-wing gentleman posted this response: “Is activism really a good thing when it draws emotional, excitable people with poor impulse control into the street to fight with the police, and get people killed? Or, are they just expendable collateral damage in the service of your cause?”
This comment elicited several trenchant replies, but none was more on point than an observation in the online column of historian Heather Cox Richardson two days later: “MAGA Republicans are reversing victim and offender, blaming the people under assault for the violence. Trump officials insist that community watch groups and protesters are engaging in ‘domestic terrorism.’”
Meanwhile, ICE has been caught routinely making up stories about being assaulted by protestors in order to arrest and jail them, and is having difficulty concealing the white supremacy dog whistles in its public statements and recruiting efforts.
On the same day that Gianna and Cate’s article appeared in New Times, Sierra Club members received this e-mail message from Sierra Club Executive Director Loren Blackford:
“For nearly 250 years, Americans and civil society have relied upon the basic rights bestowed upon us by the Constitution. The Trump administration’s threats to the basic tenets of our democracy endanger the fundamental principles we depend on to safeguard our communities, protect our clean air and water, and ensure a livable future for us all.
“The killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good are not isolated. The videos of the recent violence evoke a visceral feeling in us all, as do the accounts of those killed across the country as a result of this administration's attacks against our communities. We condemn this administration’s escalating campaign terrorizing our communities and threatening our fundamental rights.
“But this is not enough; we demand leadership alongside it. We call on Congress to leverage their powers over funding for the Department of Homeland Security to hold Kristi Noem and the Trump administration accountable for their unconstitutional and deadly actions.
“We believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. These foundational rights, including freedom of speech and assembly without fear of retribution, underlie our work and our mission.”
Three days later, SLO Mayor Erica Stewart put it succinctly:
“In San Luis Obispo, people are afraid to send their children to school, go to work, or be involved in public events, and I am outraged that our neighbors and friends in the city I am proud to serve cannot feel safe to live their lives. This feeling of exclusion and of a lack of safety are antithetical to my values as Mayor and as a human being. While I cannot stop ICE from coming into the city, I can confirm that the SLO Police Department works for the city of SLO and does not collaborate with ICE.”
I confess I didn’t know until a few years ago that the people on the opposite side of me on virtually every issue consider “activist” to be an epithet (unless the activist is Charlie Kirk or Rush Limbaugh; then praise and presidential medals follow). The Trump administration is now hurling it at the hundreds of judges who have ruled against them, and at the people who have been turning out by the hundreds of thousands in the streets of American cities and towns since November 2024 due to the realization that if ever there was a time to stand up for what we believe in, it’s now.
Alex Pretti was killed while trying to help a woman who had been teargassed. Renee Good’s last words, spoken to her killer, were “I’m not mad at you.” Their deaths galvanized people in Minneapolis and across the country.
“What's right and good doesn't come naturally,” said Bill Moyers, “you have to stand up and fight for it as if the cause depends on you, because it does.”
And the people, united, will never be defeated.