01/26/2026
We were running some final errands before the ice storm when I saw the headline on my phone.
Breaking News – Federal Agents Shoot and Kill a Man in Minneapolis During Immigration Enforcement Operation.
I wish I could tell you that my first reaction was outrage. That it made me all fired up to look for local protests, call my state representatives, and get my butt in gear to help make change. Those are the tools the everyday citizen has. It’s all we can do.
But instead, I just thought, It’s happened again. I feel hopeless and defeated. More importantly, I am afraid.
Now, we are a horse magazine. We cover training, news, and opinion pieces in the hunter/jumper sport. I am not ignorant to the audience we’ve cultivated, and the type of content we reliably provide over the years. But at the same time, I’m having a really hard time caring about fancy horses right now. When children are being used as bait, families ripped apart, and citizens are murdered in the street… it’s hard to shift to the world of $250,000+ horses artistically jumping over sticks.
I don’t know how to handle the disconnect.
Trapped in my house while the literal ice storm outside dropped sleet and freezing rain over Texas, more details emerged. Alex Pretti, 37. Worked as an intensive care unit nurse caring for veterans at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. Family described him as kind-hearted, a nature lover, cyclist, dog owner, and someone active in his community. Bystander and video footage showed him holding a phone—not a weapon—trying to help or shield others when confronted by Border Patrol agents.
On more than one social media app, I encountered the video of him being murdered. I’m using that word specifically. Shooting, assault, confrontation. Those are not direct enough. This was a public ex*****on. And it’s available for anyone to watch. Another American sound byte of trauma we get to store away.
My wife has the reaction I wish I did. She’s fired up. She’s angry. She’s organizing her social circle and planning protests. I admire her, but I’m scared. All I can think about is what if she is the next innocent person to be shot. What’s the difference between Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and her? Or any of us?
ICE and Border Patrol agents have been involved in multiple fatal shootings during interior enforcement operations.
A 5-year-old boy named Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who have an active asylum application and no deportation order, were detained by federal immigration agents in Columbia Heights, Minnesota after returning from preschool, and school officials and community leaders said agents directed the child to knock on the front door to check for others — a tactic they described as “essentially using a child as bait.”
The federal government, under the current administration, cut funding for ICE body-camera programs and significantly reduced staffing in key Department of Homeland Security oversight offices, which watchdogs say weakens independent review of enforcement conduct.
But it’s Monday in America, which means back to work. We’re stuck in a broken, Capitalist system that requires cognitive dissonance to survive. It’s time to get back to fancy show horse journalism.
I would like to talk about the undocumented workforce that is the backbone of our industry. I am afraid for them with our upcoming winter circuits in Texas. I don’t know which week will be the one where part of the “barn family” is quietly taken away while riders smile for pictures with their blue ribbons. The truth of the matter is, I don’t know how much everyone writing the checks actually cares. Is it just an inconvenience for them to have to find new help?
At The Plaid Horse, we like to rally our audience together as an active force for change. Within our industry, so many of these opinion pieces on systemic change end with a call to contact our governing agencies. I would love to offer some hope or a call to action here, but I don’t know what to do. I am trying not to feel hopeless, and I know I’m not the only one.
When things feel impossible, I can only rely on the facts.
Innocent people are being murdered. It is not okay. I care. I am paying attention. Until these activities stop, we are not safe.
📎 Save & share this article by Lauren Mauldin at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/01/26/i-dont-know-how-to-handle-the-disconnect-in-america/
📸 © Jenny Salita via Flickr
