'They are actually gaslighting a whole country'

What young people say about ICE in Minnesota, how it's affecting them elsewhere, and what older generations are missing

If your social media feed looks anything like mine, the names Alex Pretti and Renee Good — the two 37-year-old Americans killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota — are everywhere.

Taking stock of the events of the past few weeks, I checked in with The Up and Up’s Gen Z community to learn how they’re feeling about everything going on in Minneapolis and beyond.

Since Sunday, I’ve heard from more than two dozen young Americans ages 18-30 from 15 states and Washington, D.C. They hold political views across the ideological spectrum. Some voted for President Donald Trump, others did not.

Well before this week there was already a long list of reasons young Americans were fed up with Trump (including some of those who voted for him) — from rising costs and unaffordable rent to a fear of war or frustration over the Epstein files. As I wrote last week, Trump’s favorability with young adults has dropped 34 points since last year.

But ICE’s actions in Minnesota and the Trump administration’s response are now the cherry on top of a mounting litany of concerns, and for some, it’s turning passive resentment into motivating anger.

I asked our respondents to share something about this political moment they think older generations are misunderstanding.

As one young man in Wisconsin who voted for Trump in 2024 said: “This moment is incomparable to everything they have experienced in their lives politically.”

Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha, are growing up and developing their political muscle in an environment where one violent act compounds on top of the next. That takes a toll. When I asked what the political or social issue affecting them most was, a number of respondents said something having to do with murder, death, or violence.

“The Minnesota shooting and the Charlie Kirk assassination,” a 19-year-old young woman in Illinois shared, for example.

Young adults are continuously peppered with news alerts about political violence and graphic videos of killings. It was just last summer that former Minnesota house speaker Melissa Hortman was assassinated along with her husband and state Senator John Hoffman and his wife were shot while in their own homes. Then, as the young women above mentioned, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, and that video plays on a loop in the minds of many young Americans.

“The core wants of having a safe and affordable America is what most young voters want, we just have a different way of approaching it,” said a 20-year-old from North Carolina.

Safety, a core human right, is currently something many young Americans don’t feel they are granted. In fact, a law student in New York said she has “created plans for [her] family in case of things taking a bad turn.”

I asked our respondents if their views on Trump have changed since this time last year. The consensus is that for a president who promised to put ‘America First,’ he seems to be doing the opposite.

“I am very worried about government overreach. That guy in Minnesota was killed for practicing his first and second amendment rights,” said a 26-year-old in DC. “I think Trump is anti-American, and I am scared of what is happening.”

Here’s more of what I heard about how ICE’s actions are affecting young Americans and what we should make of that.