As UK health workers, we offer our grief and solidarity to the loved ones of murdered ICU nurse Alex Pretti and all our fellow health workers resisting ICE in the so-called United States.
We honour the courage, tenacity, and profound love for humanity that drove our fellow nurse to stand up to the public health threat of fascism in his community.
As UK health workers, we are no strangers to the fascist violence that moved Alex to take to the streets and act. Every day, we see the impact of this violence on our communities – our patients, our colleagues, our own families and neighbours.
We see it in the profound trauma of patients terrorised by the UK government’s own ICE, Immigration Compliance and Enforcement teams who hunt down and raid our neighbours, with arrests spiking over 80% in the last 18 months. We see it in the surge of violent racism against nurses and other healthcare staff, emboldened equally by white supremacist mobs targeting Black, Muslim, and brown people in our streets and our political leaders’ racist, anti-migrant rhetoric. And we see it in the public health emergency that is the rollout of Palantir surveillance tech – the same software used by ICE and the IDF – across our NHS. With Palantir co-opting our health records, all our safety is at risk – especially those of us who are migrants or racialised.
This violence is not confined to the past. Only in the first two months of 2026, ICE’s ongoing racial profiling and brutality have killed at least six migrants. These deaths are just a snapshot of the deadly practices that disproportionately target Black and Brown communities. In 2025 alone, the alarming number of reported deaths reveals that ICE continues to operate with impunity, making it all too clear that the lives of migrants, especially those of colour, are seen as expendable by those in power.
To our fellow health workers, and all those showing us the real meaning of community care in the USA: we stand with you because we know our struggles are the same. We refuse attempts to paint racist violence, police brutality, or families torn apart by incarceration and deportation as uniquely American, when we experience daily the public health consequences of racist policy and rising fascism.. We take strength and inspiration from your protection of patients from federal agents and police, your building power with local communities in your hospitals and streets, and your demands to abolish ICE.
Remembering Alex Pretti’s last words to his fellow protestor as he put his body between her and the federal agents who murdered him – Are you okay? – we’re reminded of the meaning of public health. We’re reminded of it too, watching ordinary people in so-called Minnesota brave violence and freezing temperatures to protect, feed, and care for their neighbours. We’re reminded that public health is collective, loving action – much of it happening beyond the walls of a hospital, led by the most marginalised among us – that transcends borders and citizenship.
Solidarity is collective action, too. In offering our grief and solidarity, we re-commit ourselves to standing with all our fellow health workers resisting fascism, from Minneapolis to Gaza.
We call on all UK health workers to:
- Join your local Anti-Raids Network to protect your community from immigration raids (or set up your own).
- Join your local Copwatch to protect your neighbours from police violence (and attend a Know Your Rights training so you can advocate for yourself and others).
- Join a group supporting people in local detention centres or prisons, and offer your skills as a health worker.
- Learn your migrants’ patients rights and how to support them accessing healthcare, or how to fight back via the Patients Not Passports campaign if they’re being charged for care. Teach 3 colleagues what you know (or organise migrant health justice training for your workplace). If you work in primary care, get colleagues together to make your practice a Safe Surgery for migrant people.
- Check the status of Palantir’s rollout in your Trust or ICB, and organise against Palantir in your workplace.
- Learn about US health workers’ organising against ICE and share what you know with 3 colleagues. Could you take similar steps in your Trust or ICB?
