Anti-ICE groups on Long Island swell, as fear, anger rises after Minneapolis killings

The number of anti-ICE citizen patrol volunteers on Long Island is surging in the wake of the fatal shootings of two people in Minneapolis as organizers said they fear the deaths mean the federal deportation campaign has moved into a more volatile and violent phase.

The groups said they will continue their monitoring of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although they acknowledge that puts them in greater danger as the encounters between agents and civilians get more violent in Minneapolis and other cities. Some advocates say they fear Long Island will be the next place where federal agents arrive in a Minnesota-style wave due to roughly 100,000 undocumented immigrants that experts estimate live here. 

One rapid response group's number went up by 50% in the weeks after protester Renee Good’s killing in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Its membership jumped to about 300 people, up from about 200 before agents shot Good in the head as she was maneuvering her car away from them.

Then on Saturday, federal immigration agents shot and killed a 37-year-old nurse, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, setting off national outrage and mounting political pressure in Washington. 

Pretti was reportedly helping a woman ICE agents knocked over when she was filming their activity. He then was wrestled to the ground and shot multiple times by the agents, according to media reports and numerous witness videos of the encounter spreading across social media. 

"We now know that someone involved in something as simple as rapid response could be killed, could be murdered in plain sight," said Minerva Perez, executive director of the nonprofit OLA of Eastern Long Island. "We already know how dangerous this is, but this brought it to a different level."

"We have to now address the fact that when ICE comes to town, there is a high probability of fear, of chaos, of injury, and death," she added. "Even with phones trained on these people, these public executions have happened." 

OLA helps lead a rapid response group on the East End called Operation Stand and Protect. Perez said she expects numbers to go up further after Pretti’s killing.

Group members show up at the scene of ICE activity as quickly as they can and film the agents with their cellphones to document the interaction and potentially any abuse. They try to tell detained migrants about their rights, including their right to remain silent. Sometimes the volunteers blow whistles to alert people to ICE’s presence and in hopes the agents will leave.

Both Pretti and Good were at the scene of ICE activity in Minneapolis. Pretti was filming them while Good was in her vehicle when an ICE agent shot her three times.

Trump administration officials claim Good was aiming her car at an ICE agent, and that Pretti was threatening agents with a gun — though witness video contradict the assertions.

If not for the videos, "We would not have the truth," Perez said. "We would be told lies and we might be forced to believe those lies if we had no evidence."

A 74-year-old retired health care administrator in Greenport said she decided to join Operation Stand and Protect one night while attending a vigil for Good, whose death outraged her.

"It’s really frightening to see what's going on in our country and it's not getting stopped," Christina Larkin said.

Still, she said she is especially nervous about joining the group after Saturday’s killing in Minneapolis. She was tear-gased at an anti-Vietnam War protest in Washington, D.C., in 1969, she said. "I never want to smell that stuff again."

The growth in rapid response groups comes as dozens of demonstrators have held prayer vigils and protests on Long Island in recent weeks decrying ICE's escalating crackdown.

Weeks into its "surge" in Minnesota, ICE launched its newest operation on Jan. 20, "Operation Catch of the Day" in Maine. Its proximity to New York has some civil rights and immigration advocates worried this region might be next.

The shootings in Minneapolis have provoked demonstrations around the country while triggering calls for the impeachment or removal of top Trump administration officials, the end of ICE’s crackdown in Minnesota, and threats by Senate Democrats to withhold Department of Homeland Security funding.

Some immigration experts said they expect ICE activity on Long Island to increase and potentially become more violent.

"Whatever restraints they might have had a year ago or two years ago have been lifted from them," said Patrick Young, an immigration law professor at Hofstra Law School and the former longtime head of legal services at the Central American Refugee Center in Hempstead.

ICE has increased its number of agents over the past year from 10,000 to 22,000, according to the federal Homeland Security Department, and expects to hire more in 2026.

Young said the region could be a target for a major ICE initiative due to its large number of undocumented immigrants. The exact number of ICE arrests on Long Island in 2025 is not clear, but 2,251 immigrants were detained from January 2025 through Oct. 15, 2025, in Nassau County Correctional Center ICE cells, some of whom also were sent to cells in Central Islip.

"I think it's going be more," Young said, referring to ICE activity here, "but I think you're also going to see it as much more violent."

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and has signed an agreement for Nassau police to collaborate with ICE. Asked for comment Monday on the Minneapolis killings, Blakeman said in a statement Monday, "The lawlessness in Minnesota is the product of the incitement against the rule of law by Democratic elected officials including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul."

Hochul said Sunday that Pretti’s killing was "a continuation of a deadly pattern, a pattern of violence. ... When federal agents use lethal force against civilians and then prevent state authorities from fully investigating, it violates the basic principles of a democracy."

On Long Island, a rapid response group called United Community Action Network (UCAN) in northern Brookhaven Town said its numbers have jumped from 10 steady members to 25 since Good’s killing.

"People want to help in any way they can," said group leader Linda Obernauer. "They say they cannot stand it anymore. They feel like they are just sitting around and they are just watching people get abused, people get hurt."

Perez said she cannot guarantee her volunteers’ safety, though the group emphasizes they should remain nonviolent and observe the law.

"We've seen people de-escalate, try to walk away and get murdered in plain sight," she said. "The reality is that you could do everything right, and at this moment in our country's history, you could still get executed."

Newsday's Bahar Ostadan contributed to this story.