ICE Is the Domestic Terror Threat
The federal agent who killed Renee Nicole Good shot her because he knew he could—because the Trump administration has purposely empowered law enforcement to act with impunity.
Jordan Liz
On January 7, an Immigration and Customs (ICE) Enforcement agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Immediately, the Trump administration sprang into action to propagandize the incident. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that Good “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, meanwhile, claimed, “It was an act of domestic terrorism.”
President Donald Trump posted via Truth Social:
The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!
This is a national tragedy. A young woman, a U.S. citizen, is now dead. A completely avoidable death if only ICE officers could exercise any level of restraint. If only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wasn’t actively invading Minneapolis and indiscriminately targeting its residents — citizens and immigrants alike.
Even after shooting Good, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was at the scene to provide aid. When an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, it was blocked by ICE vehicles. Agents harassed her, shot her, and if there was even the faintest possibility that she might have lived, they took that away from her too.
The Trump administration is trying desperately to politicize her murder to further attack its political enemies. Agents kill an innocent woman and then the Trump administration uses her death to villainize the people protesting her killer.
There is ample video evidence showing that Good was driving away. None of the agents — who, to be clear, had no right to harass or intimidate her in the first place — were in any real danger. They simply shot her because they knew they could. They shot her because the Trump administration has specifically and purposely empowered law enforcement to act with impunity.
Don’t forget, President Trump has explicitly told law enforcement: “Please don’t be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car, and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put your hand over. I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’” For Trump, it doesn’t make a difference whether the person has been convicted or is merely suspected. He chooses and promotes violence at every turn.
What’s particularly alarming here is how, despite the abundance of video evidence and eye-witness testimonies, the Trump administration insists on lying. To quote George Orwell’s famous 1984, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
And it’s not just the Trump administration. Conservative commentators are also amplifying this obvious falsehood. Megyn Kelly lies, “This cop almost got run over by this woman, who accelerated into him.” Matt Walsh blames the “protestor” and the “Democrats who’ve been fomenting chaos and violence against ICE for months.” Elon Musk, whose X is the social media propaganda wing of the Trump administration, backs the ICE agent: “Attempting to murder them with a car obviously requires self-defense.”
Even in this instance, where the evidence against their propaganda is staggering; where the murdered person was a white U.S. citizen; and where telling the truth would have been advantageous for them, they lie. If the Trump administration was even remotely competent, it could have used this moment to hold this one ICE agent accountable for his crimes and avoid the protest that its lies are provoking.
The administration could have exploited Good’s death to feign the appearance of being a legitimate, rule-based government. But it couldn’t even do that. Driven solely by arrogance, narcissism, and unmitigated contempt for anyone they consider part of the “enemy within,” Trump and his allies can never accept fault.
The Trump administration has given up any pretext of being a democracy bound to the Constitution. It demonstrated this by kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and imposing colonial rule on Venezuela. And on Wednesday, this was demonstrated domestically. They will lie at every moment. They will resort to violence at every moment. And they will kill you if you show any level of resistance.
In this moment, we cannot allow ourselves to be scared into submission. Elected officials, Americans, immigrants, anyone who cares about democracy, all of us need to stand up against this threat.
But the steps we take have to be productive. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for instance, is correct to call out DHS’s “propaganda machine.” However, sending in the National Guard immediately after an armed federal agent kills an innocent woman will likely work to silence and suppress protest. Insisting that “they’re there to protect you and protect your constitutional rights” doesn’t change this dynamic. Walz is not meeting the moment.
What people are protesting here isn’t simply this one act of state violence. They are protesting the entire monopolization of force by those who were elected to protect people. They are protesting indiscriminate violence by militarized law enforcement. They’re protesting ICE’s domestic terrorism.
This protest is not only righteous, but morality and justice demand it. In moments like this, we must remember that in democracies like the United States there are four systems of checks and balances: In addition to the executive, judicial, and the legislative branches, there’s the people. We are the ultimate check against state-sanctioned terrorism. We must be that today.
A version of this article was also posted at Common Dreams.
Jordan Liz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. He specializes in issues of race, immigration and the politics of belonging.
