ice

HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE

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UNTIL ICE JUST MELTS AWAY?

A protestor in Minneapolis, one of thousands demanding that ICE end its violent occupation of the city and its abuse of immigrants and people of color, carried a simple message: Americans in 2026 still believe in the nation’s founding principles of equality and the rule of law. That belief—not chaos, not extremism—is what now fills the streets.

What is happening in Minneapolis is not a rebellion against law. It is a rebellion against lawlessness by the federal government.

When federal immigration agents shoot and kill residents during opaque enforcement operations—and then shield themselves behind jurisdictional fog, immunity doctrines, and bureaucratic delay—the problem is not protest. The problem is power without accountability, exercised by agencies overseen by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and defended by a Justice Department now led by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti did not spark unrest because Americans suddenly became radicalized. They sparked unrest because they laid bare a system in which armed federal agents operate inside U.S. cities with fewer checks than local police, weaker transparency requirements, and near-automatic protection from meaningful consequence. Minneapolis did not radicalize the country. ICE did—under leadership that has explicitly framed immigration enforcement as a show of force rather than a civil function bound by constitutional restraint.

The public response has been swift and unmistakable. Thousands marched through sub-zero streets not merely to grieve but to insist that constitutional rights do not end at the border—or at the badge of a federal agency. Protesters invoked the First Amendment, due process, equal protection, and the most basic democratic demand: if the government kills, the government must answer.

So far, that answer has been partial at best.

Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice has opened a federal civil-rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti. That decision matters. It signals that the use of deadly force by federal agents is not automatically immune from scrutiny. But it also exposes a troubling inconsistency: no comparable investigation has been opened into the killing of Renée Good. Two deaths. One investigation. One silence.

That selectivity is not merely procedural. It is political.

Bondi’s DOJ has emphasized federal authority and jurisdictional limits while declining to explain why one killing triggers civil-rights review and another does not. At the same time, DHS—answerable to Secretary Noem—has resisted broader transparency, forcing courts to intervene simply to ensure that evidence is preserved. Accountability has not been embraced; it has been extracted under pressure.

The legal deck is stacked. Criminal prosecutions of federal officers face extraordinarily high barriers. Prosecutors must prove not only that deadly force was excessive, but that it was willfully unlawful. The Supremacy Clause allows federal agents to claim immunity from state prosecution so long as they assert they were acting within their official duties. In practice, that doctrine has become a near-automatic shield, transforming federal authority into federal insulation.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has demanded cooperation and accountability, while Minneapolis officials have questioned why their city is being subjected to a level of federal force more commonly associated with counterterrorism than civil immigration enforcement. Members of Congress, including Representative Pramila Jayapal and other House Judiciary Committee Democrats, are now pressing Bondi’s Justice Department to explain its selective approach to civil-rights enforcement.

Even some Republicans have voiced concern, warning that unchecked federal policing undermines public trust. That bipartisan unease underscores a central truth: this is no longer simply a debate about immigration policy. It is a debate about democratic control over armed federal power.

Civil rights groups, including the ACLU, have filed lawsuits alleging racial profiling, warrantless stops, and unconstitutional conduct by ICE and Border Patrol agents operating in Minneapolis. Yet recent Supreme Court decisions narrowing claims mean that even when constitutional violations occur, victims’ families may be left without meaningful recourse. Accountability, once again, is delayed—if it arrives at all.

This accountability crisis did not arise in a vacuum. It has been engineered, in part, by a Supreme Court that has steadily narrowed the ability of ordinary people to hold federal officials accountable for constitutional violations. In decisions written or joined by justices such as Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts, the Court has aggressively restricted claims, effectively telling victims of federal abuse that even clear violations of rights may have no remedy in court. The message has been unmistakable: federal officers can violate constitutional protections, but the courthouse doors may be closed. That judicial retreat from accountability now plays out on the streets of Minneapolis, where families are told to trust internal investigations instead of independent courts. A Constitution without enforceable remedies is not a shield, it is a suggestion. And when the Supreme Court treats accountability as optional, federal agencies learn to do the same.

Critics argue that protests like those in Minneapolis undermine order. The opposite is true. What undermines order is an enforcement regime that treats constitutional safeguards as optional, deploys militarized agents into civilian neighborhoods, and responds to public outrage with selective investigation and legal maneuvering.

The protesters are not rejecting American ideals. They are insisting that those ideals apply to everyone, including ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, the agents he commands, and the Justice Department that decides when federal power will be restrained and when it will not.

This moment exposes a deeper truth: ICE has become an agency structurally insulated from democratic accountability. It operates across jurisdictions, blurs the line between civil enforcement and criminal policing, and relies on legal doctrines that make oversight rare and consequences rarer still. No democracy can sustain an enforcement apparatus that answers upward to political leadership but never outward to the public.

If citizens of the United States are serious about equality before the law, then accountability cannot depend on discretion exercised behind closed doors at DOJ. It must be automatic, independent, and uniform. That means mandatory federal review of all fatal uses of force by federal agents, full cooperation with state investigations, enforceable transparency standards, and consequences not just for individual officers—but for leadership failures at DHS and DOJ alike.

Minneapolis is not rejecting America. It is reminding the country what America claims to be.

In 2026, the demand echoing through the streets is not radical. It is foundational: no agency, no badge, no attorney general stands above the law. Equality without enforcement is a slogan. The rule of law without accountability is a lie. And the people of Minneapolis are no longer willing to accept either. Abolish DHS!

T. Michael Smith

wwwtmichaelsmith@gmail.com

SURVIVAL IS NOT A THEORY

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IT IS A FACT OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Survival is not a theory (Rev Jen Raffensperger- Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke). It is not an abstract concept relegated to think-tank reports or academic debates. It is lived in real time by mothers dropping their kids off at school, by workers juggling multiple jobs to pay rent, and by communities watching federal agents descend into their streets with overwhelming force. In Minneapolis this winter, this basic truth was laid bare with tragic clarity.


When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good during a federal enforcement operation in Minneapolis on January 7, the incident sent shock waves through the city. Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, was killed near Portland Avenue South amid a surge of federal agents deployed to carry out immigration actions—part of a larger campaign known locally as “Operation Metro Surge.”


Local leaders and civil rights advocates have raised alarm over the heavy-handed approach. Video and eyewitness accounts contradicted initial federal claims that Good posed an imminent threat, with many describing her as trying to move away from agents when she was shot multiple times. Protests erupted, challenging not just the specific use of force, but the broader role of ICE in communities already burdened by economic insecurity and racial inequity.


This tragedy in Minneapolis illustrates a painful reality: enforcement policies that treat immigration, poverty, and policing as separate challenges ultimately compound trauma for the more vulnerable populations. In neighborhoods where wages lag behind the cost of living and opportunities are scarce, survival is not something people theorize about—it’s something they struggle for every day. Yet when federal and local authorities respond to desperation and informal economies with tactical deployments and steel-toed enforcement, they risk turning survival itself into a criminal act.

ICE’s increased presence in Minneapolis did not happen in a vacuum. Advocates have criticized tactics ranging from expansive surge deployments to controversial detentions of children and parents, raising fears that enforcement has become punitive rather than protective. Another American was killed in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti. ICE agents shot him after wrestling him to the ground.


Policing poverty with force only deepens mistrust. When federal agents operate alongside local police without clear oversight or accountability, the message is chilling: struggle for survival at your own risk. Families scrambling to make ends meet see school attendance drop amid fear of raids. Community members hesitate to seek help, fearful that any interaction with law enforcement could escalate into something worse. And when incidents like Good’s and Pretti’s killing occur, local authorities and residents are left demanding transparency while federal agencies retreat behind outright lies and claims of immunity and jurisdiction.


Survival cannot be secured through deterrence or deterrence by force. Treating migration and poverty as problems to be policed rather than conditions to be addressed only shifts the burden onto people least equipped to bear it. Minneapolis—still scarred by past trauma and divisions—now grapples with the consequences of a system that has chosen militarized enforcement over humane policy.


What Minneapolis needs—and what every community struggling under poverty and immigration stress deserves—is investment in human infrastructure: housing, livable wages, healthcare, schools, and legal pathways that respect dignity. It means disentangling community safety from punitive policing models and rejecting the notion that survival must be negotiated through fear. Courageous cities and countries that have tackled poverty with social programs rather than handcuffs have seen crime and instability decrease, not increase.


Survival is not a theory. It is the most basic affirmation of human dignity. Any society that treats it as optional or negotiable, that responds to hardship with militarized force, has already failed the people it professes to serve. Our response to tragedy—whether in Minneapolis or communities nationwide—must be rooted in justice, accountability, and a recognition that people’s lives are not collateral in a political strategy.


T. Michael Smith
wwwtmichaelsmith.com

ICE Is A Threat To The American Way

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Reform or Abolition Is the Only Path to Preserving Our Democracy

In a healthy democracy, law enforcement exists to serve the public, protect rights, and operate under clear constraints. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE—fails that test. While often defended as a necessary tool of sovereignty and rule of law, ICE as it currently operates undermines core democratic principles: due process, accountability, equal protection, and civilian trust in government.

This is not an argument against immigration law itself. Democracies have the right to regulate borders. But how those laws are enforced matters. ICE has evolved into an agency defined less by lawful administration than by deterrence through fear and violence—and that is fundamentally incompatible with democratic governance.

ICE was created in the aftermath of 9/11, folded into the new Department of Homeland Security during a moment of national trauma. That origin story matters. ICE inherited the logic of emergency powers: expansive discretion, secrecy, and an assumption that certain populations posed inherent threats. Two decades later, those assumptions remain embedded in the agency’s culture, even as the national emergency has long passed.

A Politicized Enforcer: Kristi Noem and ICE

Under the current administration, led by President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE has become even more politicized and aggressive. Noem has publicly defended immigration enforcement actions that resulted in the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen, framing the incident as justified and even characterizing it in militarized terms without independent investigation. Her department’s posture has shifted toward confronting domestic critics and expanding federal law enforcement deployments in cities like Minneapolis in the face of protests. This combative stance erodes public trust and signals that ICE’s neutral enforcement of law is but a tool of political theater and coercion, weaponized against dissent. The Trump administration is trying hard to project dictatorial strength and power, but the narrative is slipping away from it.

The Human Cost: Remembering Renee Good

The danger of ICE’s current posture is not abstract. On January 7, 2026, an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, poet, and U.S. citizen, during an enforcement operation. Good was not being arrested or charged with any criminal offense at the time; video and eyewitness accounts indicate she was driving away when an ICE agent opened fire. This killing has sparked national outrage, widespread protests, and calls for independent investigation and accountability from lawmakers, local officials, and civil rights advocates. Good’s family has urged empathy and justice, emphasizing her role as a devoted mother and community member. In the wake of Good’s murder, the administration sent more agents to Minnesota in what appears to be an attempt to gin up protests that change the subject from Good’s murder and appear to justify ICE’s violence.

Her death is a stark reminder that enforcement without accountability can cost innocent lives—and destroy families. It raises urgent questions about the use of force by a domestic agency that should be focused on lawful, proportionate action, not militarized confrontation. Adding flame to the fire, President Donald J. Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem all defended her killing by calling Renee Good and her wife “domestic terrorists.”

ICE Undermines Democracy, Does Not Uphold It

Democracy depends on due process. Yet ICE operates in a legal system where civil detention can mean prolonged confinement without the full protection guaranteed in criminal court. People can be detained far from home, denied meaningful access to counsel, and deported through fast-track proceedings that prioritize speed over fairness. Legal residents, asylum seekers, and long-term community members are routinely swept into this system. When liberty can be taken without full constitutional safeguards, democracy is already in retreat.

ICE’s defenders often invoke public safety, but this claim collapses under scrutiny. The majority of ICE arrests are not of violent criminals but of people whose primary offense is a civil immigration violation. Meanwhile, evidence consistently shows that immigrant communities—documented or not—commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. The agency’s most visible actions—workplace raids, courthouse arrests, and neighborhood sweeps—do not make communities safer. They make them quieter, more fearful, and less likely to cooperate with police or civic institutions.

Even more troubling is how easily ICE becomes a political instrument. Enforcement priorities swing wildly from one administration to the next, not because the law changes, but because presidential rhetoric does. This volatility reveals a deeper problem: ICE possesses enormous discretionary power with weak democratic oversight. In practice, that discretion allows immigration enforcement to be weaponized for political signaling—who belongs, who is suspect, who should be afraid.

Reform or Abolition: A Democratic Imperative

The public must confront a crucial question: Can ICE be reformed, or must it be abolished and replaced? Meaningful reform would require stripping the agency of its broad enforcement and detention authority, separating civil immigration administration from criminal investigation, and placing every enforcement action under clear judicial oversight. It would mandate full transparency and independent civilian review of uses of force, along with strict limits on civil detention and guaranteed legal representation in immigration proceedings.

But reform risks being superficial if the underlying culture of impunity remains. Abolition advocates argue that the functions ICE now performs—immigration processing, asylum adjudication, workplace compliance—should be transferred to civil, non-coercive agencies that operate with strict adherence to rights protections. Criminal investigations should remain with law enforcement agencies that are accountable, trained, and constrained by constitutional norms.

A democracy that enforces unjust systems unjustly erodes the legitimacy of law itself. Rule of law is not measured by how harshly a government can punish, but by how faithfully it protects rights while administering policy.

ICE, as it exists today, does not strengthen American democracy. It corrodes it. And until the United States is willing to reckon with that truth—through reform or abolition—tragedies like the killing of Renee Good will continue, and with them, the weakening of democratic ideals we claim to uphold.

T. Michael Smith

wwwtmichaelsmith.com