Enemy from within
Outrage across America at the murder of Renee Good
On Sunday, shocked and angry Americans gathered in over 1,000 cities and towns, joining in outrage to condemn the killing of Renee Good, an unarmed, 37-year-old American citizen, by an agent of ICE.
On January 7, Ms. Good, a mother of three (and an award-winning poet), was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ICE had been conducting aggressively violent ‘sweeps’ of Good’s neighborhood for weeks, ostensibly in pursuit of illegal immigrants, when the masked, heavily armed agent suddenly shot her in the face at point-blank range.
The presence of ICE on the block had aroused the attention of residents, and within a short time multiple videos of the incident flooded the news media -including one taken by the shooter, holding his phone in his left hand while pulling the trigger with his right.
The videos seemed to confirm that the petite, unarmed woman posed little threat to the ICE agents, and provided no obvious justification for her sudden execution.
Tonight -just a few days later- the evening news is covering yet another shooting in Minneapolis. Reportedly, there have been at least 24 such shootings by immigration agents since January, 2025, of which 6 have resulted in deaths; along with 32 dead among detainees in ICE custody in 2025.
The pursuit, incarceration and deportation of illegal immigrants has always been a cornerstone of trump administration policy. Now, however, with a dramatically expanded paramilitary force unleashing unrestrained aggression on the streets of American cities, fear and anger are no longer limited to immigrant communities.
A pregnant woman who was recently dragged face-down through the snow has lost her baby as a result; and in today’s news, a 21 year old who was shot in the eyes by ICE is now permanently blinded. Stories abound of American citizens being confronted or detained by squads of masked, armed agents; of cars being stopped arbitrarily, their windows smashed and their occupants dragged outside; and of random individuals grabbed off the street, thrown into a van, and transported away to …who knows where?
America was never perfect; but what is happening now is not normal- far from it. The rules we always knew suddenly no longer apply, and the laws that defined our society now seem irrelevant to those in power. Even the U.S. Constitution, our government’s ultimate guidebook through 250 years of democracy (with its guarantees of rights and freedoms), is being disregarded at will by some who swore a sacred oath to uphold it.
Americans are anxious; we fear for the future of our beloved country. Many of the more vulnerable among us are terrified. The path ahead is unclear; but it resembles too closely a roller coaster whose brakes have failed, hurtling ever faster downhill towards disaster.
May Renee Good, and all of the victims of this chaos and violence, Rest In Peace.
And may the rest of us, and may our country, find the strength to overcome-
