Two Minneapolis Murders: Comparing the International Responses to George Floyd and Alex Pretti
The murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good share striking similarities to the killing of George Floyd– all of them innocent victims, murdered through the abuses of power and force of the American law enforcement system. All are also highly connected to contentious and systemic issues that have the power to rally a movement, whether that be against racism and police brutality, or against the cruelty of current immigration enforcement practices. Yet, at least so far, the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good seem set to be swallowed by the unrelenting march of the international news cycle.
That is not to say that the recent I.C.E. killings have not been met with people flooding the streets in protest, or increased discourse on police brutality. Some say these killings might push for increased accountability of immigration enforcement, with the two agents involved in Pretti’s death being placed on administrative leave as an investigation has been opened in response to widespread public backlash. Others also speculate that these killings might lead to a more general ‘cooling’ of Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda as officials realise that the current situation could become a 'powder keg' for future protests about ever wider grievances.
However, the demographic that has responded to these cases differ strikingly. Where the murder of George Floyd catalysed an international movement with unprecedented reach, any overt displays of protest and indignation towards the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, or against I.C.E. more generally, have seemingly remained within the bounds of US soil.
So what factors could be contributing to such differing international responses to these killings? One could argue that George Floyd’s murder was connected to an issue that existing activist institutions and networks were willing to pick up, and that it was these existing institutions that acted as catalysts, giving the issue enough global visibility as to spark protests on an international scale. One of the most well known of these was the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM had already been established as an online movement back in 2013, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black man. The first of its many protests occurred in 2014 with the murder of Mike Brown, another unarmed black man, by Ferguson police. Over the years, BLM coordinated many protests against police brutality and other extant forms of racism. By the time George Floyd was murdered in 2020, BLM was a well-known organisation that already knew how to garner national attention and support for its cause. In terms of the issue of violence against immigrants, while there are, of course, myriad American organisations dedicated to helping immigrants, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Rescue Committee, and the American Immigration Council, all of these organizations have a decidedly legal focus: providing legal (and humanitarian) assistance to the immigrants and asylum-seekers themselves, or conducting advocacy through prosecution and litigation. None of these institutions has an explicit focus on, or scaffolding for, large-scale public protests in the ways that BLM did.
Crucially, however, more than the pre-existing institutions, it is the context in which the issues that these killings represent have occurred that has determined whether or not the outrage became globalised. The Black Lives Matter movement succeeded in gaining widespread international support by drawing attention to the connection between the murder of George Floyd and a more systemic and widespread issue prevalent in black communities around the world: that of police brutality and state-sanctioned violence against them.[1] Indeed, the Black Lives Matter movement’s home page notes that 'it was understood that Ferguson was not an aberration, but in fact a clear point of reference for what was happening to Black communities everywhere.' This was an issue that BLM could frame as not being an isolated incident, and not even being isolated to the national, but as applying to an identity group existent 'everywhere' around the world. The movement therefore was able to galvanize an issue that was already being faced, and becoming salient, all across the globe, especially when it was connected to broader issues like colonialism and state oppression, which allowed more and more communities to relate to, and take up, this cause.
While abuses by immigration officers undoubtedly exist on an international scale as well, these abuses do not yet have nearly as much global visibility. This is perhaps because these violent instances exist within an international context of surging populism and nationalism against immigration, as is increasingly being seen across Europe. Immigration has become one of the more volatile political concerns raised by politicians, heavily linked to their ideological agendas. As the long term impacts of globalisation have progressed, more countries have increasingly polarised views on immigration and have consequently begun implementing more hardline policies to address it. The insecurity many conservative leaders associate with immigration has served as a rationale for more hardline policies, like the ones currently granting ICE the status of judge, jury, and executioner.
These killings also have a direct link to Trump and his actions and orders, which have meant that international media have, whether rightfully or not, framed these killings as a microcosm of Trump’s more controversial actions. In other words, while the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good point to systemic issues just like George Floyd’s murder did, they are often lumped under systemic actions taken specifically by Trump. This is, to an extent, true; it is Trump who has imposed absurd quotas and it is Trump who has given immigration agencies unprecedented powers in targeting immigrants.
The US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) as an institution has, in fact, become synonymous with Trump and his aggressive actions. For instance, a BBC article describes I.C.E. as being 'the US law enforcement agency leading the Trump administration's mass deportation initiative, which was a central promise of President Donald Trump's election campaign.' It is understandable then, that the blame for these killings has been relegated almost exclusively to Trump’s administration, while the blame for George Floyd’s killing was attributed somewhat more abstractly (and in a more broadly applicable manner) to the 'state' as an apparatus. This has meant that media organizations have been able to avoid upsetting any of their domestic populations by advocating (or not advocating) for the topic these recent killings represent. International media outlets did not have to confront their own country’s relationship with immigration and immigration enforcement (as perhaps they would have needed to if aligning with the BLM movement); they could merely mention these killings as part of a long list of things that are specific to Trump and his combative agendas.
The murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good were destined to have a vastly different international reception than the killing of George Floyd. This was not only due to the existence of pre-established institutions, but also due to the context in which the issue these killings represent is nested: rallying united in favor of better treatment of immigrants would involve near-insurmountable cognitive dissonance with the ways the public thinks nowadays about immigrants in many other domestic contexts. Most importantly of all, because these killings have a direct link to Trump, they have unfortunately become a bullet point in international news’ descriptions of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, rather than martyrized for the good of a common, international(ised) cause.
Image courtesy of U.S. Department of Homeland Security via Rawpixel, ©2022. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
