Minneapolis is a victim of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) draconian style of immigration enforcement, which left two American citizens dead in January.
On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by ICE. Good was on her way home after having dropped off her son at school when she encountered the agents. After an agent approached her car door, she attempted to drive off when the agent murdered her.
About two weeks later, ICE detained 5-year-old Liam Ramos. Agents planned to use Ramos as bait for his mother. Ramos and his father were taken to a family detention center in Texas. During the arrest of Ramos, his neighbors interjected that his parents had legal documents ensuring that he would remain under their custody if something happened to them. Yet, ICE still found it necessary to detain a 5-year-old and take him to a detention center. Thankfully, Ramos was returned to Minneapolis on Feb. 1 after extreme public outcry and criticism from Democratic politicians responding to the kidnapping.
Just four days after Liam Ramos’s detainment another immigration-enforcement officer shooting occurred. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, noticed an altercation involving ICE agents and a female protester. He became involved, before being wrestled to the ground and shot and after agents discovered his gun. Pretti at no point brandished his gun against the officers, yet he was executed for both concealed carry and resisting the agents. He died for having a gun by the very same administration that had previously written that the Second Amendment is “foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.”
Then, a few days later, independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were detained by ICE. The pair previously entered a church that protestors disrupted because the pastor was an ICE officer. The Trump administration accused the pair of violating people’s religious freedoms by entering the church.
Consequently, the Trump administration found it befitting to protect people’s First Amendment rights to religious freedoms by prosecuting journalists for their coverage. The logic behind the action is contradictory because ICE is inherently a hypocritical organization.
ICE is an agency that supposedly intends to “protect the public safety and national security interests of the American people.” The killings of Good and Pretti, both American citizens, highlight that ICE has become increasingly deserving of being called a paramilitary organization. When armed officers roam the streets with the explicit intent to detain nonviolent people, these deaths are inevitable. It isn’t just that ICE is in the streets but also that it has received an extra $65 billion dollars of funding due to the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress.
Minneapolis, much like Los Angeles last summer, has rejected the notion that federal agents can roam their cities and terrorize their communities. ICE’s hostile, combat-style operations within American cities are the reason for the rampant discontent expressed by the American people. ICE doesn’t bring law and order. Only crime and chaos.
The proposed responses of opposition to ICE have varied. A new YouGov poll found that more Americans support the abolition of ICE rather than reject it, though many are still unsure. Meanwhile, major politicians, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Congress to block ICE funding and California Governor Gavin Newsom called for an end to the “reckless crackdown.”
However, it isn’t just politicians vocalizing their disdain for ICE, but the student body as well. Almost a year ago, students walked out in protest of Trump’s immigration enforcement policy. Now, another walkout is scheduled to take place on Feb. 6. This walkout is said to be in response to the “aggressive actions of ICE and Border Patrol and the recent killings in Minneapolis,” according to an Instagram post from one of the organizers. The walkout hopes to pull in students from Birmingham Community Charter High School, Lake Balboa College Preparatory Magnet, Magnolia Science Academy, Mulholland Middle School, High Tech Los Angeles Charter High School and Daniel Pearl Magnet High School
No matter what solution people propose, large-scale ICE operations need to end. When you place droves of armed federal agents in the streets across America and instruct them to detain people, that brings disorder to the streets. The very people that Trump supposedly intends to protect, being the American citizens, are the people who have been victimized by his immigration enforcement policy.
