Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs Intensive Care Unit nurse, was tackled to the ground and shot and killed by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and wife, was killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 in the middle of a Minneapolis street.
Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father, was killed by an off-duty ICE agent outside of his apartment complex in Los Angeles on Dec. 31.
Kaden Rummler, a 21-year-old protester was permanently blinded by a federal agent as he was protesting Good’s death in Santa Ana, California, on Jan. 9.
This is how ICE treats the American people. This is the brutality this administration deems acceptable.
The violence must end.
The Trump administration is not going to stop, so the American people must gather together and demand justice and humanity in a time where apathy and cruelty are normal.
Footage from multiple angles showed Good’s car turned away from federal agent Jonathan Ross, who officials claim “acted in self-defense” when he shot through her windshield.
“It’s OK, dude. I’m not mad at you,” said Good only a few moments before she was shot.
With the federal government denying state access to the investigation of Good’s death, many are concerned with the impartiality of the federal investigation.
“When you have a federal administration that is so quick to jump on a narrative as opposed to the truth, I think we all need to be speaking out,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told NBC News only a few days after Good’s death.
In an interview with Fox News, Vice President J.D. Vance said the rate of deportations will rise once ICE recruitment numbers increase and these agents can begin “door to door” operations.
Federal agents are going household to household, hunting down anyone they think does not match this administration’s idea of a citizen. Those who are detained are sent to detention centers where they face inhumane conditions.
It is important to remember that this kind of brutality is historically very American. Slave-catchers hunted down runaway enslaved people. Japanese Americans were thrown into internment camps during World War II.
Some argue that ICE should receive extensive training so federal agents are more prepared to handle tense situations like the shooting of Good.
Others argue a well-trained ICE agent is still a danger to any community they enter and that ICE should be abolished.
ICE is just a violent limb attached to the already violent body of the U.S. government dragging the nation toward authoritarianism.
With the escalation of ICE raids across the country, the vice president claiming Ross and other ICE agents have “absolute immunity” and the pushback toward peaceful protesters, we must consider what this means for the future of this nation.
The relentless dehumanization of immigrants, people of color and trans people is a tactic to distract and divide the people from this administration’s overhaul of democracy.
Legal observers are being detained by federal agents for the simple act of documenting ICE encounters. Journalists are being threatened into compliance.
The military has been mobilized on our soil toward the American people in an attempt to quell civil action and opposition.
How could any person be expected to remain calm and obey orders from heavily armed masked individuals with virtually free rein in our streets? They are allowed to execute us, but we are not allowed to defend ourselves or speak out against this violence?
To a moral world, this is nonsensical. To a realistic world, this is the next logical step in the rise of violent nationalism and government overreach.
Will we stand up for each other before it is too late?
Or will we bury our heads like so many Americans have done before while our fellow humans suffer?
