Leftist Died Protecting Illegals Who Kill Innocent Americans

The left proclaimed outrage at the death of Renee Good, the anti-ICE agitator who was shot after she appeared to have struck a federal agent with the vehicle she was driving. The left did so again after the death of Alex Pretti.

The corporate press has followed the assigned narrative, painting Pretti, Good, and others trying to impede federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis as victims of a tyrannical Trump administration. They’ve been desperately looking for a martyr to prop up as a latter-day George Floyd and inspire even more radical action against federal agents. It remains to be seen whether Pretti’s death will provide the spark that the leftists are fervently hoping for to kick off a “Summer of Love” 2.0.

Radicals have launched unprecedented attacks on ICE agents over the past year. Their rhetoric has fueled ambushes, firebombings, and attempted murders against federal immigration authorities. Overall, violence against ICE personnel surged 1,150 percent from January to November 2025, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

And why do they assault ICE agents, destroy property, make a mockery of our rule of law, and ultimately put themselves in harm’s way? To protect criminal illegal aliens, many of whom have been convicted or accused of some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.

While regrettable, Good and Pretti’s deaths should be viewed in context. The left used them as tools to gin up outrage and protect its power, and they died while trying to disrupt federal law enforcement during the execution of their lawful duties.

But there’s one thing above all that average Americans need to remember when one of these incidents takes place: For every leftist radical who dies trying to keep criminal illegals in our country, there are scores of innocent people who died because those leftists protected criminal illegals hiding out in our country.

Fathers, sons, husbands, mothers, daughters, wives, friends, children — all killed because the left allowed millions of aliens to infiltrate our borders and then refused to root them out. Leftists treated the sovereignty and security of this country like a corrupt game where they and their supporters benefit both politically and financially at the expense of innocent American lives.

The nation was shocked by the murder of 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, brutally killed by Jose Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela. Ibarra had links to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, had several run-ins with the law, and had taken a free flight down to Georgia from New York courtesy of the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, the propaganda press actively tried to bury the fact that Ibarra was an illegal alien during its initial coverage of Riley’s murder. And while the American Nurses Association issued a lengthy statement on the death of Pretti, calling it “horrifying,” the organization said nothing about the truly horrific murder of nursing student Laken Riley at the hands of an illegal alien.

Two illegal aliens are accused of kidnapping 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray before assaulting her for hours, murdering her, and then dumping her body in a bayou in June 2024. Both had been stopped at the border earlier that year but were released into the U.S.

The mother of Alex Wise Jr., a 10-year-old who was fatally run over by an alleged illegal alien as he walked home from school, perhaps summed it up best: “His life was taken way too early by someone who wasn’t even supposed to be in the country.” Her son’s alleged killer had been deported five times.

The horror stories go on and on and on. The Federalist has maintained a non-exhaustive list of some of the more brutal crimes committed by illegals just under former President Joe Biden’s watch, but the true scope of damage done to Americans at the hands of illegal alien criminals because of Democrats’ lust for power is unfathomable.

And never once did the slavish, Democrat-controlled media ever concern themselves over the constitutionality or tone or excessive force of any of those murders. If the media didn’t ignore them entirely, they downplayed the murderer’s illegal status, as in the Laken Riley murder.

The protesters who are causing chaos in the streets of Minneapolis, as well as the Democrat politicians and media pundits who egg them on, claim to carry out their dangerous and disruptive work in the name of “justice” and “empathy.” Yet in their efforts to disrupt ICE and impede them from arresting illegal alien criminals, they show that they have no empathy for the Americans killed by illegals or their families. Their sense of “empathy” and “justice” only extends to those from whom they can politically profit.

While the media and leftists want the American people to mourn the activists who have died trying to hinder ICE, Americans should instead mourn those who were killed by the illegal alien criminals those agitators are trying to protect. Those holding up these radicals as martyrs deserve nothing but scorn, and the American people should remember exactly why ICE is in Minneapolis and other cities around the country.

They’re not there to pull people off the streets Gestapo-style — Democrats’ favorite comparison — or to harass peaceful people just trying to make their way in America. ICE is there to arrest violent criminals and prevent another Laken Riley, another Jocelyn Nungaray, another Alex Wise Jr., and the scores of other Americans whose lives were cruelly ripped away from them because of Democrats’ malevolent immigration policies.

When leftist radicals play their game of revolution against the supposed fascist regime of the Trump administration, the innocents suffer the most.

Hayden Daniel is a staff editor at The Federalist. He previously worked as an editor at The Daily Wire and as deputy editor/opinion editor at The Daily Caller. He received his B.A. in European History from Washington and Lee University with minors in Philosophy and Classics. Follow him on Twitter at @HaydenWDaniel