Stewart adds to her activism by publicly taking a stand for immigrant communities and for her wife and family.
In the wake of the tragedy in Minnesota last weekend when ICE agents shot Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti to death as he was attempting to help a woman they’d shoved to the ground, Breanna Stewart decided to make a statement.
And she did it in a way where no one could misconstrue where she stood.
On Sunday, during the player introductions for an Unrivaled 3-on-3 game, Stewart stepped onto the court and held up a hand-lettered sign reading “ABOLISH ICE.”
After the contest, Stewart told the media that she had spent the previous day following the news of Pretti’s death and her anger in response led her to use her platform to take a stand.
“We’re so fueled by hate right now instead of love, so I wanted to have a simple message of ‘Abolish ICE,’ which means having policies to uplift families and communities instead of fueling fear and violence,” she said.
The two-time WNBA MVP also spoke in detail about her marriage to fellow basketball player Marta Xargay Casademont, a citizen of Spain, and how this motivated her to take a stand against ICE’s actions.
“It’s scary. You see it on social media, you see it splitting up families and dissecting communities and kids are being involved. And to be married to Marta…we’re working to get her citizenship, and she is a legal permanent resident and all of that. But it seems like it doesn’t matter. And I think that’s why these policies need to be put in place, that reform needs to happen, because it doesn’t seem to be affecting the right people. It’s not helping anybody,” she said.
Stewart and Xargay have also been raising a family over the past five years.
Despite being WNBA opponents on the court, Stewart and Xargay announced their engagement and got married in 2021. Later that summer, the couple added a baby to their household one day after Stewart won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
This is not the first time Stewart has spoken out about social justice issues important to her.
Following the 2020 season where she won a WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm and was named Finals MVP, for example, Sports Illustrated named Stewart one of its five “Athlete Activist” Sportspeople of the Year, lauding her for allyship with Black Lives Matter.
