Bemidji Candlelight Vigil Remembers 42 People Who Died in ICE-Related Incidents

A candlelight vigil and march in Bemidji drew local residents to the Beltrami County Courthouse area on Friday, Feb. 20, where organizers with the unofficial group Warm Hearts said they were remembering 42 people who they say died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody or in encounters with ICE agents. The organizers asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons while they lit candles and read victims’ names aloud.

To recognize the victims’ names, Warm Hearts held the Feb. 20 vigil as the second of two protests the group organized against ICE, Bemidji Pioneer reporting notes. The first protest, on Jan. 25, formed a human sign spelling out anti-ICE phrases. Organizers reiterated their anonymity at the Feb. 20 event, saying the request to remain unnamed was made “once again” for safety concerns.

Bemidji Pioneer coverage lists several of the names read or referenced at the vigil, including Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Renee Good, Parady La, Victor Manuel Diaz, Heber Sanchez Dominguez, and Alex Pretti. The paper also reports that two of those named, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by Department of Homeland Security agents during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

Organizers at the vigil delivered two terse, anonymous statements captured in Bemidji Pioneer reporting. “It took a lot of compassion,” an organizer said of the event. The same organizer added, “The main thing that brought us together is compassion and fatigue. This is our everyday life now; people are just dying in the streets, and, you know, going missing, and that’s not acceptable.”

The community tally cited at the vigil - 42 people - was presented by Warm Hearts as the total the group memorialized. Bemidji Pioneer separately reported specific recent-year counts that do not appear packaged as the same list: at least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, at least one other individual was killed during an altercation with ICE agents “last year,” and so far in 2026 six individuals have died in ICE custody, the paper reported. Those 2025 and 2026 figures, and the two deaths tied to Operation Metro Surge, were reported by Bemidji Pioneer; sources in the event did not provide a public methodology for the organizers’ 42-person list.

The discrepancy between the organizers’ 42-person subtotal and the Bemidji Pioneer year-by-year counts highlights gaps that warrant verification. The names visible in local coverage account for a portion of the list cited at the vigil; Warm Hearts has not published a publicly documented roster in the materials provided to reporters, and Bemidji Pioneer did not attach a compiled source for the 32 and six counts in the excerpts reviewed.

Local residents should note that the Feb. 20 vigil was explicitly organized by Warm Hearts, an unofficial group of Bemidji community members, and that participants read specific names including Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Organizers’ anonymity and their charge of “compassion and fatigue” underscore both community concern and safety worries among those staging the protests. Public records and official statements from ICE or DHS were not part of the reporting cited, so further confirmation of the full list of 42 and of the statistical counts will require follow-up with Warm Hearts, family members named at the vigil, and federal agencies.