The Life We Were Building
Yesterday marked a year since my wife and I took just a few of our belongings, our pets, our fears, our grief, packed them all into our RAV4, and left Texas in search of a better and safer life. That was 12 months ago, but just a few weeks prior to that we were working hard to save money and improve our credit to afford our first home together in Texas. It was supposed to be our forever home.
We were very excited about the house. We designed it ourselves and we made sure that it was both in a safe neighborhood and had everything we wanted for our future family. A home meant to grow with us. Space for work, family and the life we imagined ahead.
We drove by it often, seeing the different stages of construction. I loved walking through the site to imagine the floor plan realized in front of me. With each step I saw visions of how our lives would look there, how our family would take shape inside that lot, I could look around and see the neighborhood we would soon get to call ours… and then the election happened.
Election Night
I remember election night vividly. I remember the disappointment I felt, the sadness, anger, and frustration fusing together in my mind, but most of all I remember the fear and dread of what was to come. The fear moved throughout my body, painfully tensing and contracting muscles in its path, but never finding the right place to settle. It was as clear to me then as it is now that this was not going to be like the last term and that things were going to get ugly and violent very fast.
Life has never felt the same since Trump’s first term. Having grown up in Puerto Rico, I was not very knowledgeable about American politics until I moved to the mainland United States. But I definitely noticed the shift once he took office. People I thought I knew were now fully supporting a man who loved to embolden the worst parts of our society and promote division and violence. Four years later, Trump campaigned again and this time with openly authoritarian language. It was plain as day.
Instantly our forever home no longer felt safe. The visions of the future I had seen? They were just daydreams and now I had to wake up and face the music. Did I feel comfortable and safe raising a family in a state that predominantly voted for Trump? That night didn’t just announce who the next president of the United States would be. It also erased the future I could almost touch—one vote count at a time.
The “Sudden Move”
People must have thought that we were crazy for leaving everything we were building and all of our friends and family behind. From the outside, it must have looked like an over-dramatic decision made on a whim. In reality, my wife and I were falling apart with all the research, spreadsheets, heartache and fear from a decision we would never be considering otherwise.
I had moved throughout the country many times and had lived in many different states, but Texas is where I found my partner, the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Texas felt like home for us. We had family nearby, friends, community. We didn’t want to leave.
It’s not official yet. This is all research just in case we decide to leave, we said to each other as we were getting flight tickets to see apartments in Minnesota. The decision had already been made, but we weren’t ready to admit it to ourselves. We couldn’t face the fact that our future was going to look very different from what we had imagined.
Why Minnesota?
We had flirted with the idea of maybe leaving Texas some time in the far and distant future, and Minnesota was one of those options. We knew very little about the state, but liked what we knew. A state known for good healthcare, access to nature, and mostly left-leaning? That felt like a great start.
We quickly zeroed in on Minneapolis as a possible destination and began researching. We saw that the city was definitely not perfect. It had its fair share of issues, but it was definitely trying to be better. That was a breath of fresh air. Texas felt set in its ways, with not much change on the horizon. Trying to be better is exactly what I was looking for. A commitment to improving instead of maintaining the status quo. I could not pretend that everything was fine, but trying to be better, that I could get behind.
We flew to Minneapolis to look at a few apartments in person, and quickly fell in love with the city. The air felt fresher, lighter, less politically oppressive. We felt like the city aligned better with our values. It felt like a safe place to camp and wait out the political storm, and if we dared to think that far ahead, maybe even stay long-term.
Building a New Life from Scratch
The past year has been hard. We moved in the middle of winter and were not used to the harsh cold weather that’s commonplace up north. Everything was new. Some of the stores and restaurants we were used to were not here. This wasn’t much of a hurdle though. The worst part was the loneliness. It’s been hard to make friends in a new place, especially because we didn’t want to leave our old friends in the first place. We missed our families, our friends, our routines. The resentment of feeling forced out of our own lives stuck with us and made it difficult to really want to settle for a while.
The safety we were looking for came at a cost, but at least it gave us room to breathe.
And little by little, we started shaping our routine. Things we liked to do, places we liked to go, it all started falling into place over time. We were no longer strangers in a new land, but neighbors in this new community. Making friends hasn’t gotten any easier, but we don’t feel as lonely anymore.
The most important thing for us was that we felt safe here. The people around us shared our values and our worries, and I knew that if push came to shove, they would have our backs.
One Year Later: The Present
What’s happening here
Enter the Trump regime deploying thousands of federal immigration officers into my city, my home. There are currently over 3,000 federal immigration officers in the state of Minnesota causing immediate destabilization across the state in one of the largest immigration operations in the history of the country.
The administration claims that they’re here to protect the country from the worst of the worst undocumented violent criminals, but in just one year, ICE detention numbers have nearly quadrupled, with those detained with no criminal record rising from 6.4% to 43%. This publicly available data, data released by ICE itself, does not align with those claims.
Add to this that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) have been racially profiling individuals, harassing peaceful protesters, actions that resulted in the deaths of civilians. Citizen or not, this is not how things should be handled. We all deserve dignity and the right to live.
The methods these immigration agents are using have gone so far that the city of Minneapolis is not charging people whose vehicles have been abandoned due to ICE detention. ICE and CBP have been taking people into custody without first verifying identity, according to legal observers and civil rights organizations.
These federal immigration agents are not making our country safer. Their operations have actually made communities less safe. There have been hundreds of reported allegations of sexual abuse in ICE detention facilities, with some cases resulting in criminal charges against officers. There have also been years of documented reports of violence at the hands of ICE agents with little accountability.
Attorney general Pam Bondi recently sent a letter to Minnesota governor Tim Walz. The letter is basically a list of demands. Give over Minnesota’s records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs, repeal sanctuary policies, and hand over access to Minnesota’s voter rolls to the Department of Justice. These seem less like steps towards lowering violence from illegal immigrants and more like a way to extend and consolidate power.
Who we lost
Renee Good
On January 7th, 2026, Renee Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer as she was trying to follow the commands of other officers to leave the area. On her Instagram account she described herself as a poet, writer, wife, mom and shitty guitar strummer. She was just a regular person.
Federal officials claim that she was trying to use her vehicle as a weapon to run over an immigration officer, but many videos of the event show something completely different. They show two immigration agents attempting to open her car door without a warrant as she tries to drive away, her wheels facing away from all the agents.
Alex Pretti
On January 24th, 2026, just two and a half weeks after the death of Renee Good, Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a group of federal immigration agents who have not been identified yet. He was an intensive care nurse at the VA and a lover of the outdoors. He liked helping people and mountain biking and the people who knew him said he had a great sense of humor. He was just a regular person.
The claim from federal officials is that he was armed and was planning to attack the immigration officers in the area. In multiple videos of the event we see that he was not armed with a gun, but with a phone, recording the events. According to the video, we can see he was helping two women who had been pushed by the agents before being pepper sprayed, thrown to the ground, beaten and shot. He was carrying a firearm, but he never used it and the video shows that another agent had taken it from his holster prior to any of the shots being fired.
What it did
The city has been mourning ever since. Two people were killed without justification. The statements from the federal government don’t align with the evidence. The city is hurt and angry. We have lost two neighbors, and countless others have been taken and displaced. We don’t know who we will lose next.
As a Puerto Rican, I’ve had US citizenship since birth. I’m also a disabled veteran, having raised my hand and sworn to protect my country in the line of duty. I am still not safe, not because I’m not a citizen, but because I’m brown. Based on the evidence I’ve seen, how should I feel safe in the knowledge that I’m a citizen if that hasn’t seemed to stop immigration officers from killing citizens during their enforcement operations?
Today I am looking at the fear I had a year ago materialized in front of me. As absurd and irrational as it may seem, it feels personal. We fled Texas to escape the reach of fascism, and fascism followed us here. As I write this, I hear sirens all around me. Has there been another murder? Is this one even more obvious than the last? What lies will they use to excuse what’s right in front of our eyes this time? Sometimes it gets hard to keep hope.
The Response to the Violence
And yet, even with everything happening, I feel safer here. Not because we are safe. We are far from being safe. I feel safer here because of the response I keep seeing to this violence. This city is unlike anywhere else I’ve lived. Yes, it’s been hard to make friends, but I have conversations with neighbors and strangers all the time, enough to remind me I’m not alone. Yes, it’s been hard to adapt to this new environment, but it’s been easier to feel at home here than anywhere else I’ve been (Puerto Rico excluded 🇵🇷).
Everywhere I go, I see people with “ICE OUT” signs and unflinching faces. Strangers coming together to fight for the rights and lives of other strangers they will never meet. The level of organization, planning, and hard work I keep seeing continues to blow me away. Regular people serving as community observers to make sure there is someone present to document what’s happening. Mutual aid networks around the cities to help those in need. People showing up to protests for those that can’t join for fear of being abducted.
I’m proud to be here. I’m proud to go out and look after my neighbors. I’m proud to join in protests alongside strangers who, for a brief moment, become my brothers and sisters.
The unity, love and passion in this city are infectious. Family has asked me if I have considered leaving the state for a while, but I’ve never had a doubt that this is where I want to be. I want to live in anger against the oppression we are experiencing alongside all of my neighbors in Minnesota.
Where Do I Go from Here?
Sometimes knowing that something is going to happen doesn’t take away any of the shock of it actually happening. We all know we’re going to die, but seeing a loved one or ourselves at that stage will never be easy. I feel that for this country right now. Is it dying? Will we get past this one day? I don’t know.
What I do know is that I reject everything that is happening and I reject being part of its normalization. I’ve known this day would come since before Trump’s first day in office the first time, and I don’t plan on stopping or slowing down now. I will continue to speak out against the violence and oppression we are experiencing, and I will continue to stand unwavering in my commitment to the community surrounding me and beyond. I have the best example to follow in all of the brave Minnesotans fighting for a better future right now.
We left Texas in search of a better home, and what we found was not safety in the way I expected. We found responsibility and commitment. We found neighbors who refuse to look away. We found a place that does not pretend violence is normal or acceptable, and that alone has made all the difference.
I don’t know what the future holds, what will happen to this country or to us, but I do know that wherever we are, we will stand with the people who fight for dignity, justice and community. I can already see visions of a better future here.