VA investigated employees who attended vigils for slain colleague Alex Pretti and spoke to the press

In the days after Alex Pretti, a Department of Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January 2026, VA employees held vigils at health centers across the country, partly in protest and partly to mourn a colleague. According to a CNN report published May 5, 2026, the VA then opened internal investigations into employees who attended those vigils and spoke publicly about Pretti to the news media — turning the agency's internal-discipline machinery on workers for First Amendment-protected mourning, assembly, and speech.

The most fully documented case is that of Becky Halioua, a recreational therapist and local president of the American Federation of Government Employees at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. After she attended a January 28 candlelight vigil off-duty and gave an interview to a local CNN affiliate, her supervisor told her she was under investigation for violating agency rules requiring employees to route media requests through the communications office. Investigators emailed her photographs of herself taken from news coverage of the vigil, with her image circled and labeled by name — which she described as "very stalker-like." The VA concluded she had violated agency rules by consenting to an interview without prior approval. CNN reported that at least three other VA employees were investigated over interactions with the press, at least one of them also tied to Pretti.

The VA press secretary declined to discuss Halioua's case, citing employee-privacy law, and did not address broader questions about how often such investigations occur. The American Federation of Government Employees said Halioua had followed the rules of conduct and was exercising her First Amendment rights, and National Nurses United condemned the probes as an attempt to silence federal workers. (The event date reflects the May 5, 2026 disclosure; the underlying vigils occurred January 28 and the investigations unfolded over the intervening months.)