The tyranny of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the gang of government enforced hall-monitors, has largely been directed toward human beings living in the United States without full legal protection under U.S. law. Illegal aliens, with a litany of laws allowing for incarceration and disgusting dehumanization at the hands of the US government.
Yet the brutal killing of a Minneapolis woman on Jan. 7, pushes the true horror of the bureaucratic violence machine into unmistakable view. This killing is intolerable and should have every American asking themselves: how many lives must be destroyed for us to end our passive tolerance for this engine of violence?
The life taken by ICE was that of 37-year-old Minneapolis mother, and American citizen, Renee Nicole Good. After blocking a street in a protest of ICE, agents surrounded her car, and in what looked like an attempt to back away from the agents, Good was shot and killed by an ICE thug.
“Get the f–k out of Minneapolis,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said in response to ICE. Profanity is not typical of a politician, well, a Democratic politician, but here it was well warranted. It was a deserved response to an act of violence which shattered a family and stoked outrage across the country.
Opposing voices, however, presented a different story. Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security announced that the agents acted in self-defense.
That claim is an insult.
An insult and a lie neglecting video evidence suggesting otherwise. U.S. citizens are being lied to by the czars of bureaucratic evil, demanding obedience while insisting that we disbelieve our own eyes.
The treachery of ICE transcends beyond killing. A typical ICE holding room contains multiple people (including children and the elderly) without access to a bed, privacy or even a light switch. Though many are designed to hold people for only a couple of hours, The Guardian reports many examples of people being forced to stay in these rooms for days, weeks or in one case, two and a half months. These people are provided with food during their stay. Food described as “rotten” by former inhabitants; people who described themselves as “starving.”
Even American citizens are subject to this incarceration. As of October, Propublica has found more than 170 U.S. citizens who have been mistakenly detained in ICE facilities. A perfect example of the agency being so incompetent it isn’t even capable of terrorizing the “right” people.
Some immigrants have been deported to The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), which is the project of El Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele, who commissioned the gigantic concrete box, housing hundreds of people in single cells. These people are unable to leave their containment, unable to have a trial and unable to ever seek freedom. Even an American LEGAL resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported to this prison for over two and a half months. CECOT raises another question. Should we tolerate our government sending human beings to giant torture boxes, for commiting the crime of wanting a better life? Base empathy should tell us no.
Sadly, ICE has largely been successful in its mission of deportation. The year 2025 featured the forced deportation of 605,000 human beings. A clear sign that ICE is winning.
As they continue to win, I see pictures of the felt-masked faces of ICE officers, see their bulky, brutalist bulletproof vests gleaming, and I see a crystal ball. A ball showing images of a future America where democratic institutions crumble. A future where people stand and stare idly while human rights are being violated. A future as tyrannical as it is deeply un-American.
U.S. citizens are being lied to by the czars of bureaucratic evil, demanding obedience while insisting that we disbelieve our own eyes. ICE’s lack of empathy is un-American; their dehumanization goes against the very clause to open the tapestry of our country: “all men are created equal.” To be an American should obligate us to object to ICE, to not look into the face of the elites pushing false narratives and “drink the Kool-Aid.” To not watch our fellow human beings be hauled off to chambers under the guise of their “illegality.” If we are to truly value that beautiful opening clause, the onus is put on us. It is on us to not stand idly by and to vocally, unapologetically, unite against ICE.
