"I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here," said Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and remained a close friend for nearly 17 years. "It just means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex, too."

A few blocks away, similar stickers mark the spot where an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mother of three and U.S. citizen, just weeks before Pretti's death. In Houston, voters left stickers at a memorial for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and Mexican immigrant killed by an ICE officer in July.

Adams said the stickers and the election results send a clear message to Congress: "You work for us, and please carry on these values that we care about … We want to be seen and heard and taken care of and have our neighbors taken care of."

The deaths of Pretti and Good during the federal immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis became a pivotal moment, sparking intense public backlash against President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts. Federal law enforcement officials have given little indication they are progressing in investigating those deaths, or the deaths of at least seven other people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for the status of those investigations.

Now, after Democrats' sweeping wins this week, those deaths will likely be the targets of renewed congressional investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath. That could include White House Border Czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others. Congress can also demand internal documents like use-of-force reports.

"They can dissect these individual shootings, and really unravel the story of what happened," said Naureen Shah, who leads the ACLU's immigration policy work.

Democrats have already held shadow hearings on the ICE shootings, calling family members and witnesses to testify. But Shah said Congress can now ask key questions of top decision makers: What orders were given to immigration officers in the field? What was training like for these officers? Who made the decision to paint Good and Pretti as threats — including calling Pretti a "would-be assassin" and a domestic terrorist — when video showed otherwise?

"It's like we can turn the faucet on and actually find out so much more," Shah said. "There's an aspect of this that is really about a kind of reckoning with how it's possible that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you have that reckoning if you don't actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?"

Democratic leaders have already said that's the plan. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, said Congress will use "every tool" at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it is time for the agency to "start answering to the American people." California Rep. Robert Garcia, expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, vowed to take on DHS and ICE abuses in a two-word statement: "Lawyer Up." Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding the agency "comply with all document preservation requirements." Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social media that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should "clear" their schedules.

In response, DHS general counsel James Percival said Democrats are "more interested in political shenanigans than in governing" but said the agency is prepared to "deal with this nonsense."

There are key limitations to what Democrats can do with their majority, said Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Major changes, like clawing back funding for the agency, would require a veto-proof majority, something Democrats don't have.

"You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and in fact, a great deal of knee jerk defensiveness about their conduct," Moran said.

A White House spokesperson said that "if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people" and added that Democrats "should be reminded that we still control the federal government and all of its powers." But Congress has its own powers, including the ability to compel testimony. Moran said a deeper probe could still serve important purposes, like making evidence available for states to use in their own criminal investigations. Minnesota officials have been fighting with the federal government to get evidence related to the Pretti and Good killings.

Brent Ganger, Renee Good's brother, said learning more about his sister's death will be hard to hear, "but I think it's also super important for us to understand what happened that day. I don't want history to keep repeating itself." He said it was painful to watch immigration agents kill more people after his sister, and he thought her death would be a turning point. In a way, it might have been the start of one. After the surge in Minneapolis, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.

Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister's memorial site covered in "I Voted" stickers. "I was very grateful to see the repudiation of this administration from the country. It felt very supportive of my entire family," he said. The next morning, in his home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister's favorite breakfast.