The following is a speech written by our Operations Director Alli for a recent demonstration outside of Senator Fetterman’s office in Pittsburgh. The event was hosted by SEIU, PA Stands Up and Indivisible PA as one of several rallies across Pennsylvania urging Fetterman to vote against a spending proposal that would continue to fund operations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) that have resulted in the detention, deportation, and death of several innocent citizens. Following these actions, Senator Fetterman opted to vote against the funding bill on Thursday, January 29th. We continue to call on him to stand against any proposal that would enable this administration’s war against Americans. You can write him and Senator McCormick with a single click using our action alert link here.
My name is Alli. I’m a veteran and a native of Washington County.
In the heart of Pennsylvania’s fracking country, I’ve watched extraction – of coal and gas, of labor and land, of hope and dignity – hollow out our communities. I joined the Air Force right out of high school, served as an air traffic controller for four years, and later spent three years living in Kabul, Afghanistan as a government contractor. In those three years working in Kabul, it became very clear to me that there were uncomfortable similarities between where I was stationed and where I grew up: violence justified by false narratives, with devastating human consequences.
Today, that same pattern is playing out in Minneapolis, Portland, Memphis – and anywhere ICE chooses to terrorize. We are watching people mowed down in the streets of the United States of America. And for what? Someone else’s sick agenda.
Border security is not a free pass to dehumanize people or trample basic rights.
Some people love to pound the table about rights when it fits their narrative: free speech, the right to bear arms, due process. Showing up to a peaceful protest and exercising your First and Second Amendment rights sounds pretty damn American to me. But the moment those same rights are used to protect people this administration has decided are disposable, we’re suddenly called naive, gullible, or “sheep.” If believing that people have the right to exist, to live where they are, and not be hunted in their own communities makes me naive – fuck it, I’ll own it.
That’s not a weakness: that’s having a spine when power demands silence. It’s time for Senator Fetterman to show that same spine. He says he’ll never vote for a shutdown, that he remains committed to being a voice of reason and common sense. He says leadership changes at DHS are enough. He has said the Minneapolis operation should stand down. He has called these tactics dangerous.
And then he says he will never vote to block ICE and DHS funding.
Let me be real with you: That is common sense only if protecting people isn’t really the priority. A government that harms its own people, that kills civilians on American soil, cannot claim legitimacy while continuing to fund the agencies responsible for that harm. I don’t understand how anyone is worried about a shutdown while communities are being terrorized. A government that harms its own people is already shut down morally.
Here’s some actual common sense, Fetterman: If DHS won’t practice restraint and won’t accept oversight, elected officials have a responsibility to take that power away. That’s not a shutdown, that’s accountability. You don’t fix abuse by funding it. You stop it by cutting off the power that makes it possible.
In uniform, power comes with restraint – not excuses. Oversight is not an attack – it’s a duty. That is the choice: Funding violence – or protecting our freedoms. Our tax dollars should strengthen people – not bankroll fear and death. ICE is already the most-funded law-enforcement agency in this country. They don’t need more billions. You know who does? Our vulnerable neighbors who are struggling to heat their homes and feed their families. Our veterans who are struggling with physical and mental health – people who Alex Pretti cared for as a nurse.
Overseas or at home, it’s always the same story: The rich pit us against each other while they profit and working people are told violence is inevitable. It isn’t. It’s a choice. And so is real safety: investing in people, protecting communities, and stopping the machinery of violence instead of feeding it.
DHS wants to distract us. They want us arguing while people are harmed. We will not take that bait. Service does not place anyone above the law. The uniform is a promise to the public. And when that promise is broken, accountability is required.
I’m a veteran and a gun owner, and I see the hypocrisy clearly. Selective outrage puts lives at risk. When children are murdered in schools, families are left to grieve alone.
When innocent people are killed in our streets, communities are told to endure it. But when it serves those in power, the response is force — not care, not prevention, not accountability. Force is not safety. People, and caring for them, are.
That kind of selective, politically convenient use of force endangers our families, our freedoms, and our futures: this is a direct threat to our lives.
When civilians are harmed, silence is complicity. When power is used against civilians, the obligation is simple: answer for it. Veterans did not enlist to protect violence. We enlisted to protect people.
Don’t ever use veterans as a shield for violence. Our service is not your cover.
Our communities are not a war zone – and we will not let this administration turn them into one to serve their agenda.