The US government smears the woman murdered by ICE as a ‘domestic terrorist’, but the real terrorists are the ones detaining innocent people and shooting unarmed women, argues Clementine Russell

On Wednesday morning, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed an unarmed woman in her car. The woman, Renee Nicole Good, was described by Democratic Minnesota congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, as a legal observer. She was shot in the head three times while attempting to drive away from the ICE agents. Reports from the scene say that an onlooking doctor attempted to give Good medical attention but was prevented by ICE officers. Scripps News reports that ICE agents told another witness, “No, shut up. We don’t care.” in response to the physician. When an ambulance arrived, it was blocked by ICE vehicles and paramedics had to walk to Good.

Following the shooting, President Trump posted on Truth Social on the matter. He calls the screaming woman recording the video a “professional agitator”. He makes the baseless claim that Good “violently, wilfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self defence.” He goes on to say of the ICE officer “it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in hospital.” In the clip he claims to have watched, Good’s car is clearly driving away from the ICE officers, and both officers are clearly completely unharmed, the shooter walking away uninjured. To anyone who has seen the video of the event, this is nothing more than a bold-faced lie. But then, as Goebbels is often reported as saying, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Trump finishes his statement claiming that ICE is “just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.”, and blames “the radical left movement” for inciting “violence and hate.” Good was a white, American citizen, she was a mother and a wife; the exact characteristics Trump claims ICE exists to protect. What many of us already knew has been made very clear today: ICE does not protect anyone. It is an unlawful organisation used to carry out a fascistic government’s wishes.

Even if claims that the ICE agents were under threat were true, it begs the question why they did not de-escalate the situation in any way before resorting to violence. In my opinion, it’s because they know they will get away with it. They can shoot a woman in cold blood and have the president lie on their behalf. They wear face coverings, they do not have identification, they exist in a lawless state where they can do as they please under the pretence of ‘protecting America’. If this is what they feel safe enough to do on the streets, whilst being recorded, to a white, American-born woman, what are they doing to the migrants they’ve detained behind the scenes? 

For Trump, there is no objective truth. He can lie brazenly without consequence and still have millions of devoted followers. Any standards that politicians in a democratic society should be held to have gone out the window with Trump. This has been proven time and again, from the January 6th riot in 2021 to his impeachment. He acts without consequence, leading the way for America’s descent into authoritarianism.

Many have likened the behaviour of ICE yesterday to that of the IDF. In Georgia, there is an international law enforcement exchange program, which has been sending people to Israel to train for over 30 years. Israel uses a militarised form of ethnonationalism that is slowly surfacing in the US. The IDF acts as a prototype that America is using. As Steven Miller recently said on CNN: “We live in a world, in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered on the scene, resulting in ICE agreeing to leave. Since yesterday morning, protests and vigils have erupted across Minneapolis and the rest of the country, calling for accountability from ICE. Videos of these protests show dystopian images, protesters holding up ‘ICE OUT’ signs facing officers decked in military gear and face coverings.

The US government described Renee Nicole Good as a ‘domestic terrorist’. But the real terrorists are the ones in riot gear detaining innocent people, shooting unarmed women, and those in the White House defending them. We must do all we can to stop them.

In the last week, tens of thousands around the globe have taken to the streets in opposition to Trump’s state-sanctioned violence at home and imperial endeavours abroad. The murder of Renee Nicole Good has ignited even more anger. We must support demands for ICE to be held to account and abolished in America, and join protests saying ‘No to Trump’s War on Venezuela’ in the UK.