A rosary adorns a framed photo Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive-care unit nurse who was gunned down by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 25, 2026. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images)
The Christian right will never turn down an opportunity to make false accusations of religious persecution. These days, they’re especially eager to play the victim. Doing so allows them to distract from the ugly reality that they, in voting for Donald Trump, have helped to unleash in Minnesota: A woman killed in front of her wife, children ripped from their parents, a baby nearly killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents firing tear gas at a family driving home from a basketball game. On Saturday, there was another unjustifiable shooting. Video appears to show 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive-care unit nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, helping a woman to her feet when Border Patrol agents swarm and pepper-spray him — and then shoot him in the head.
All this, though, apparently pales in comparison to a more serious form of oppression: right-wing Christians being told it’s immoral to support a brutal, racist assault on their neighbors…