Jan. 21, 2026

When the State Kills Its Citizens

How ICE Crackdowns Set Off a Resistance in American Cities

In Minneapolis and other cities where federal agents have led immigration crackdowns, residents have formed loose networks to track and protest them.

In Minnesota, where an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, last week, tensions have mounted since an immigration crackdown began there in early December. Some Minnesota residents have thrown icy snowballs or other objects at agents, called them Nazis and fascists and trailed them in their cars, honking their horns, a practice frequently used in Chicago last year.

New York Times January 14, 2026

On a cold Minnesota street, a 37-year-old mother of three was shot and killed by a masked federal agent. Within 36 hours, before any meaningful investigation could occur, the President of the United States, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Homeland Security had already delivered their verdict: Renee Nicole Good was a “professional agitator” who committed “domestic terrorism” and her death was “a tragedy of her own making.”

This is not how a democracy works. This is how authoritarian regimes operate.

The speed and coordination of the administration’s response should alarm every American who values due process and the rule of law. President Trump declared that Good “aimed her car at a law enforcement officer” and that “deadly force is justified” when “a vehicle is coming at you and is being used as a weapon.” He called her a “professional agitator” and falsely claimed the agent was “recovering in the hospital” despite reports that the officer suffered no apparent injuries.

Vice President JD Vance went further, insisting the ICE officer “deserves a debt of gratitude” and framing Good’s killing as justified self-defense. “I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it is a tragedy of her own making,” Vance declared, with a callousness that would be stunning if it weren’t becoming routine from this administration.

But it was Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem who deployed the most dangerous rhetoric. Noem labeled Good’s actions “domestic terrorism,” claiming she “weaponized her vehicle” in “an act of domestic terrorism [that] happened on our shores.” She painted a picture of an officer heroically defending himself and the public from a violent threat.

There’s only one problem: the evidence doesn’t support their narrative.

Video footage and witness accounts tell a very different story than the one being pushed by Trump, Vance, and Noem. State and local officials in Minnesota have strongly disputed the federal characterization of events. The investigation is ongoing, with both the FBI and state authorities examining what actually happened.

Yet the administration couldn’t wait for facts. They needed a villain, and they found one in a 37-year-old woman who was documenting immigration enforcement actions in her community.

The “domestic terrorism” framing is particularly insidious. It transforms a U.S. citizen exercising her First Amendment rights into an enemy of the state. It justifies extrajudicial killing. It sends a chilling message to anyone who might dare to observe, document, or question federal law enforcement operations: you could be next, and when you are, the full weight of the federal government will be deployed to destroy your reputation and justify your death.

The response from within the justice system itself speaks volumes. At least twelve federal prosecutors have resigned in protest over this incident—six from the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s office and at least six leaders from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. These are career prosecutors who have seen misconduct before, who understand the pressures of political administrations. For them to resign en masse is extraordinary.

The prosecutors felt pressure from Justice Department leadership, both in Minneapolis and in Washington, to investigate any ties to activist groups by Good and her widow rather than the officer who shot her. They objected to a decision to cut out state and local authorities from the federal investigation, breaking from decades of routine practice in officer-involved shootings. When federal and local authorities initially agreed to a joint investigation—standard procedure—the FBI later revoked Minnesota’s access to all evidence.

Among those who resigned was Joseph Thompson, the top federal prosecutor leading Minnesota’s fraud investigations—the very cases the Trump administration cited as justification for sending ICE to Minnesota in the first place. When the leader responsible for prosecuting fraud cases resigns, it becomes clear this was never really about fraud at all.

These prosecutors watched the Civil Rights Division—created specifically to investigate potential law enforcement abuses—be blocked from examining the shooting. They saw Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon decide there would be no investigation into the ICE officer’s actions, even after career prosecutors offered to drop all their other work to investigate the Minneapolis shooting. Instead, the case was reframed: not as a potential civil rights violation, but as an assault on a federal officer—with Good as the criminal and Ross as the victim.

And they couldn’t be part of it anymore.

There’s another deeply troubling dimension to this story: the ICE agents conducting these operations have been wearing face masks and balaclavas, obscuring their identities from the public. This is not standard tactical gear for routine immigration enforcement—it’s a recent phenomenon that began with this administration’s crackdown. This is a deliberate choice to operate without accountability.

When federal agents patrol American cities with their faces covered, they transform from law enforcement officers into an occupying force. The masks send a clear message: we don’t answer to you. We don’t want you to know who we are. We operate in the shadows, beyond identification, beyond accountability.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become a rogue agency operating with impunity, and the Renee Good shooting reveals the catastrophic consequences of the Trump administration’s reckless expansion of ICE.

In less than a year, ICE added approximately 12,000 new officers—more than doubling its workforce from roughly 10,000 to over 22,000 personnel. This represents a 120% expansion achieved through what can only be described as a hiring free-for-all designed to meet political quotas rather than maintain professional standards.

To achieve these numbers, ICE eliminated degree requirements that had been standard for federal law enforcement positions. The agency removed all age limits for new recruits. Most alarmingly, ICE cut its training program length in half—from programs that traditionally ran 16 to 27 weeks down to dramatically shortened 6 to 8 week timeline. Congressional oversight revealed that the agency rushed recruits into training programs before proper vetting was complete, leading to trainees dropping out after failing background checks, academic requirements, or fitness standards.

Former ICE Director John Sandweg, who served under President Obama, warned of the parallels to the disastrous Border Patrol expansion under George W. Bush: when standards were lowered and training rushed, law enforcement ended up with individuals “who just weren’t well suited for some of the stressful encounters you have as a law enforcement agent. They resorted to force too quickly. They resorted to force that was unreasonable.” That expansion led to increased arrests of CBP officers for misconduct, including high-profile corruption cases involving agents working with cartels.

Now we’re watching history repeat itself, but on a larger and more dangerous scale. ICE is offering signing bonuses up to $50,000, student loan forgiveness, and lucrative overtime packages to attract recruits—financial incentives that may draw people for the wrong reasons.

The agent who killed Renee Good, Jonathan Ross, has been described by family and friends as a “hardcore conservative Christian and MAGA supporter.” He’s a firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, field intelligence officer, and SWAT team member—heavily armed, ideologically aligned with the administration’s most extreme rhetoric, and now responsible for killing an American citizen on an American street.

These agents now patrol our cities in tactical gear with face masks covering their identities—not standard equipment for routine immigration enforcement, but a deliberate choice to operate without accountability. When federal agents cannot be identified by the citizens they are supposed to serve, when they shoot and kill a woman and then hide behind masks and the full protective apparatus of an administration that has already decided she deserved to die, we are watching authoritarianism take root.

This is intolerable in a democracy.

The Case for Defunding ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has demonstrated it cannot be reformed. The agency’s rapid, politically-driven expansion with inadequate training and lowered standards has created a dangerous force operating with impunity on American streets. The Renee Good shooting is the inevitable result of empowering an agency to operate above the law, shielded from accountability, and staffed with poorly-trained agents who may harbor ideological animosity toward the communities they police.

We need a national conversation about disbanding ICE entirely. The agency has proven repeatedly that it:

Cannot maintain professional standards while pursuing political quotas
Operates with insufficient training and inadequate vetting
Views American communities as occupied territory rather than citizens to serve
Shields its agents from identification and accountability
Responds to legitimate civic observation with deadly force

The response from Minneapolis residents—forming networks to track ICE operations, following agents in cars honking horns, yes, even throwing snowballs—is not “domestic terrorism.” It is civic resistance to an occupying force. It is what Americans do when their government oversteps its bounds. When federal agents wearing masks kill citizens for observing their operations, and the entire apparatus of government rushes to justify that killing, resistance becomes a civic duty.

A Stain on the Administration

This incident reflects catastrophically on President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Secretary Noem. Their rush to judgment, their willingness to deploy inflammatory “domestic terrorism” rhetoric, their eagerness to defend a shooting before the facts were known, their false claims about the officer’s injuries—all of it demonstrates an administration that values political narrative over truth, that prioritizes protecting federal agents over protecting citizens, and that will weaponize the full power of the state against anyone who challenges its authority.

The twelve prosecutors who resigned understood this. They saw where this leads. They refused to be complicit.

What Congress Must Do Now

Members of Congress have both the power and the constitutional duty to rein in this out-of-control agency. Here is what must happen immediately:

1. Defund ICE Operations

Congress controls the purse strings. The appropriations process gives lawmakers the authority to zero out ICE’s budget entirely or restrict funding for specific operations. At minimum, Congress must:

Halt all funding for the expanded workforce until proper training standards are restored
Prohibit funding for tactical gear, face masks, and military-style equipment for routine immigration enforcement
Eliminate funding for ICE operations in schools, parking lots, churches, hospitals, and other community spaces
Require that any ICE funding be contingent on cooperation with state and local oversight

2. Mandate Transparency and Accountability

Congress must pass legislation immediately requiring:

ICE agents to wear visible identification at all times during operations
Body cameras for all ICE enforcement actions, with footage made available to state investigators
An absolute prohibition on face coverings during operations except in genuinely dangerous tactical situations
Real-time notification to local law enforcement before ICE operations in their jurisdictions
Mandatory cooperation with state and local investigators in any use-of-force incident

3. Restore Community Standards

ICE must be banned from conducting operations in sensitive locations. Congress should codify protections that prohibit immigration enforcement in:

Schools and school bus stops
Hospitals and medical facilities
Churches and places of worship
Courthouses (except for specific criminal proceedings)
Public parking lots and Home Depot locations where workers gather
Domestic violence shelters and social service agencies

These are places where people should feel safe to access education, healthcare, justice, and employment without fear of federal agents in tactical gear sweeping through their communities.

4. Demand Noem’s Resignation

Secretary Kristi Noem has demonstrated she is unfit to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Her rush to label Renee Good a “domestic terrorist,” her false claims about the circumstances of the shooting, and her defense of an officer who killed an American citizen exercising her First Amendment rights are disqualifying.

Congress should demand her immediate resignation. If she refuses, the House should begin impeachment proceedings. A Cabinet secretary who weaponizes “domestic terrorism” labels against American citizens, who spreads disinformation to justify extrajudicial killing, and who oversees an agency that operates with such complete disregard for civil liberties cannot be allowed to remain in office.

5. Establish Real Oversight

Congress must create an independent commission to investigate:

The ICE expansion and its impact on training standards and agent quality
All use-of-force incidents involving ICE agents since the expansion began
The Justice Department’s interference with state and local investigations
The circumstances surrounding the twelve prosecutor resignations

6. Consider Abolishing ICE Entirely

ICE was created in 2003. Before that, immigration enforcement functioned under different agencies with different cultures and constraints. The United States enforced immigration law for over 200 years without ICE.

The agency has proven itself incapable of reform. It cannot maintain professional standards while pursuing political deportation quotas. It cannot operate with accountability while wearing masks and blocking state oversight. It cannot serve American communities while viewing them as occupied territory.

Congress should seriously consider legislation to disband ICE and return immigration enforcement functions to agencies with proper training standards, civilian oversight, and respect for constitutional rights. Immigration law can be enforced without masked agents conducting military-style raids in American parking lots and killing citizens who dare to document their actions.

The Time for Action is Now

Every day Congress delays, more poorly-trained agents are deployed to American streets. More communities live in fear. More families wonder if they’ll be the next to receive a visit from masked federal agents. More prosecutors may face pressure to investigate victims rather than shooters.

This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This is not America.

Members of Congress who believe in the rule of law, in civil liberties, in the basic principle that federal agents should not kill American citizens with impunity—it’s time to act. Use your power of the purse. Use your oversight authority. Use your legislative power.

Defund these operations. Demand accountability. Remove Noem. And seriously consider whether an agency this broken can be saved, or whether it’s time to start over.

The rest of us need to ask ourselves: what kind of country do we want to live in? One where masked federal agents can kill citizens with impunity, where the President and Vice President and Cabinet secretaries rush to smear the dead, where observing law enforcement is reframed as terrorism, where prosecutors resign in protest because they’re being pressured to investigate the victim’s family rather than the killer?

Or do we want to live in a democracy with accountability, transparency, and the rule of law?

Renee Nicole Good was a 37-year-old mother of three. She lived in Minnesota. She was an American citizen. She was shot and killed by her own government, and that government immediately went to work destroying her reputation to justify her death.

We owe her memory—and our country—better than this.

If you believe in accountability for law enforcement, in the rule of law, and in the right of citizens to observe and document federal operations without being killed for it, share this piece. The administration is counting on this story disappearing. Don’t let it.

FTS