Before a bullet turned Alex Pretti into a symbol, he was a human being and a nurse. He had spent years working in the intensive-care unit of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he was responsible for the sickest and most badly injured veterans in the hospital. Within hours of the killing by Border Patrol agents, Mac Randolph, a local man, shared a video of Pretti on the job. In it, Randolph’s father has just died, and his body is draped in a shroud. Pretti stands at the head of his bed and begins to speak. “Today we remember that freedom is not free,” he says. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it.” Randolph said he’d never planned to share that private moment, but his father’s final words to him were “to fight the good fight.” Pretti had done that, in his own way.

In the wake of Pretti’s killing, Trump officials called him a “domestic terrorist” because he was armed and had opposed them. Now, presidential adviser Stephen Miller says Border Patrol “may not” have followed protocol when agents shot Pretti in the back, but the crackdown in Minneapolis continues and the administration’s allies still pretend the VA nurse deserved his fate. They hope we will forget the footage of his killing. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said he had “brandished” his gun at agents, though videos contradict her. On X, Miller called Pretti an “assassin” bent on mass murder, and J.D. Vance reposted the lie. Pretti died because of “engineered chaos,” the vice-president added, “the direct consequence of far-left agitators working with local authorities.” To them, Pretti is a........

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