A Republic on Fire: ICE’s Reign of Terror

The shootings of Renée Nicole Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in January are two of the latest tragic incidents of the reign of terror unleashed on us by the second Trump administration. By visual, auditory, and witness accounts, these were murders. Good, a mother of three, was shot in the head while driving away from a chaotic situation involving conflicting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commands directed at her. The following day, another shooting happened, this time in Portland, Oregon, where the two who were shot were fortunately not killed (this time, the shooters were members of the US Border Patrol rather than ICE). Alex Pretti, a respected Minneapolis nurse, was shot ten times by Border Patrol while on the ground after he tried to help a woman in distress. Renée Good was an American citizen, as was Alex Pretti. The two other people shot in Portland were immigrants suspected of being Tren de Aragua gang members fleeing arrests. Citizen or immigrant, the brutality is shocking.

According to The Trace, a non-profit investigative organisation that focuses on gun violence in America, immigration agents acting since Trump began his crackdown have shot at people 23 times and, separately, held people at gunpoint ‘under questionable circumstances’ 43 times (data up to 23 February 2026). Many of these happened after unwanted and unrequested ICE deployments in places like Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Victims include both citizens and non-citizens.

ICE et al insist that their agents were defending themselves in these incidents. Investigations are ongoing and/or pending. Court cases are challenging ICE deployments in these cities.

But why does any of this matter? I offer three reasons: accountability, transparency, and clarity. 

Not one ICE agent has been investigated or held accountable for any documented shooting involving ICE, or for their expanded use of heavy-handed tactics against civilians by using guns, tear gas, bullets, crowbars, and clubs. (From now on I am mostly focusing on ICE, since ICE is the primary culprit in all this. But much the same could be said about related agencies.) After the killing of Renée Good, Vice President J.D. Vance stated that ICE agents have ‘absolute immunity’ (he later weaselled out and backtracked on this) and vowed to go ‘door to door’ to root out illegal immigrants. This is all justified by the administration as necessary to go after the ‘worst of the worst’, yet, according to a February 2026 Guardian analysis, 77% of those ‘who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and reality.’

And then there is the lack of transparency and clarity. After these violent encounters, municipal and state authorities have been impeded from doing their investigative duties. How impartial will ICE investigative actions be when they are conducted by a federal government captured by Trump and his cronies? This is a clear example of the fox ruling the hen house.

The blurring of reality with lies also impedes transparency. Trump’s many paranoid rants continue to include the lie that crime prevention is the reason for ICE deployments. Yet, in addition to the above point about the majority of those detained by ICE having no criminal conviction, a mid-2025 report from the independent and nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice showed that violent crime has continued to decline across America. And curiously, many of the most violent cities are in red states, yet there have been no ICE deployments in these cities, while places like Minnesota and Oregon do not have such high crime rates.

Is a ‘big lie’ being told about crime to justify the imposition of ICE on American cities that the administration doesn’t like? As Adolf Hitler once said, people ‘more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.’

And let’s be clear what ICE really is: a publicly funded, semi-private army of anonymous, armed-to-the-hilt, masked men. What is the motivation of those recruited to be ICE agents? How are they vetted, and what training are they given to handle challenging, often deadly, confrontations? Are they Christian nationalists, i.e. modern-day KKK? One can only speculate, given the agency’s secrecy. Have the pardoned felons and thugs of the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol been transformed into ICE? Have yesterday’s Proud Boys vigilantes been outfitted with ICE uniforms today? Is this why masks and anonymity are necessary? With the clarity that history affords, ICE is frighteningly reminiscent of the Nazi Brownshirts and SS. Unchecked and sanctioned by state leaders, these groups produced the violence of Kristallnacht and cleared the way for the Holocaust.

I am reminded of the words of Anne Frank, written in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in 1943:

Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. 

From my own personal experience and looking at historical patterns, it seems to me that ICE’s actions during encounters with demonstrators are normalising state-sanctioned violence. There is a big difference compared to the encounters I had with law enforcement in the past. Along with many, I have expressed my First Amendment rights to peaceful speech and lawful assembly for many years. In the 1960s, I used my rights to resist the Vietnam War and stand in support of the civil rights movement. Despite some difficulties and some horrible incidents (e.g. the Kent State murders and the Petit Bridge attack, both as abhorrent and as deadly as ICE’s actions today), it was relatively simple to demonstrate then. Now, though, my preparation for peaceful protest against ICE involves me looking up some very sobering advice from coordinating organisations like MoveOn, Indivisible, and the ACLU.

They tell me to be prepared to de-escalate aggressive confrontations with individuals and groups like MAGA fanatics and ICE by using specific body language and posturing, walking a certain way, and speaking specific words. I am told to have an emergency plan, including a ‘safe haven’ to which I can escape. I am told that I should have contact information handy, just in case I am carted off. I am told that I should carry a first-aid kit. I am even told to be ready to use defensive fighting tactics as a last resort.

So, is this what America has become after 250 years? In the past five decades that I have expressed my First Amendment rights, something fundamental has changed. In earlier demonstrations and protests, the individuals and groups I joined interacted with local law enforcement with friendly words, even jokes, with civility, and with a respectful demeanour. As long as we confined our actions to public property and acted within the law, the police treated us with respect. That isn’t the way it works today.

Something has changed, and brutality has become normalised. It is no longer a shocking exception. ICE is effectively Trump’s private army, charged with silencing free speech and suppressing the lawful assembly of those who oppose his views. In the past twelve months, insecurity and chaos have reigned in this republic. Fear, intimidation, and deadly force are the law of the land. And there are signs that ICE confrontations will continue to be damaging and deadly as long as Trump’s ‘might makes right’ philosophy is allowed to flourish and as long as Congress and the Supreme Court fail to exercise their Constitutional mandate to check power.

Let us hope that the tyranny of ICE will be stopped before it is too late for our republic. I am reminded of another famous historic quote, this time from Martin Luther King, Jr.: ‘History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.’ Let it not be so again.

Related reading

Christian nationalism threatens democracy. Secularism protects it. By Stephen Evans

Is Democracy Overrated? The Vacuity of Curtis Yarvin and His ‘Dark Elves’, by Jonathan Church

White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser

Review: Jonathan Rauch, ‘Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy’, by Patrick Seamus McGhee

The Fourth of July and the Battle for America’s Soul, by Daniel James Sharp

How Trump will reshape America’s global role in his image, by Matt Johnson

American democracy will soon turn 250. Freethought can reinvigorate it. By Patrick Seamus McGhee

‘Project 2025 is about accelerating the demise of a functioning democracy’: interview with US Representative Jared Huffman, by Daniel James Sharp

Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, by Jonathan Church

Judeo-Christian religionists cannot ‘liberate’ Muslims (or Iran), by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid