Why Renee Good Was, and Is, So Dangerous to TrumpThere are many ways to define an enemy. One is someone who isn’t afraid of you.
WHY THE HELL are federal forces brutalizing Minneapolis? Are the Twin Cities a bastion of undocumented immigrants? The Migration Policy Institute estimates around 100,000 people in all of Minnesota are in the country illegally. Sound like a lot? The organization’s estimates for Florida, Texas, and California are 1.2 million, almost 2 million, and just under 3 million, respectively. Clearly, any immigration-enforcement pretext for a massive ICE surge is bullshit. The state’s childcare fraud scandal—a real problem first investigated years ago, which has been raised to public attention again thanks to the work of right-wing social media influencers—has allowed for a convenient White House narrative to differentiate the Minneapolis operation from other recent ICE actions: Minnesota must be saved from itself. Possibly through the invocation of the Insurrection Act. It all amounts to one more scene in an ongoing production of political theater, as the federal agents themselves demonstrate by having their cameras constantly in hand, filming clips for DHS’s aggressive social media campaign supporting their actions. The problem is that they are real masked agents in tactical gear nonetheless, and they’re carrying real guns. Unchecked violence, including against U.S. citizens, was a likely possibility built into the foundation of this scenario. But why did Renee Nicole Good have to die? And why did the Trump administration move so swiftly after her murder to disparage her, label her a domestic terrorist, and investigate her? They even targeted her widow—who, it should be remembered, was a witness to her wife’s killing and likely heard her being called a “fucking bitch” by the ICE agent who pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, deaths at the hands of ICE are not a new phenomenon: In all my years covering immigration, I’ve learned that one of the most undercovered aspects of the story is how many immigrants die in detention. However, in this area, things have recently gotten much worse. Last year was the deadliest year to be in ICE custody in more than twenty years, with thirty-two deaths. A Wall Street Journal investigation additionally found that immigration agents shot into cars thirteen times since July, hitting eight people and killing two of them. GOOD’S KILLING, which was captured in clips from multiple angles including that of the shooter, is the latest in a long line of shocking episodes witnessed over video by millions. Before her, there was video of Silverio Villegas-González being killed by an ICE agent in Chicago; those clips circulated in September. The circumstances of his death were similar to Good’s: He had just dropped off his 3-year-old son at daycare when an unmarked car pulled in front of his own. Less than a minute later, he was dead. DHS got out early with a made-for-TV story of a violent immigrant resisting arrest and dragging a heroic agent with his car before being shot. When the video came out, it showed the agent to be fully mobile after the shooting and describing his own injuries as “nothing major.” The reason Good’s killing stands out is not because it was caught on video; it’s not because she was fearless in the face of an armed, hostile agent; and it’s not because she was calm and smiling and apparently in full control of her emotions—much more so than her killer—right until her death. What makes Good’s killing unique is that she was a blonde, white woman and a U.S. citizen. It’s Good’s whiteness and her American citizenship that has made her so dangerous to the Trump administration. It’s what made Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem call her a domestic terrorist, almost immediately, with no facts to back up that baseless allegation. It’s what led JD Vance not just to blame Good but to announce federal agents doing immigration work have “absolute immunity.” (It was an appalling performance, even by JD Vance’s standards.) And it’s what led Trump to post, “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.” Once again, the federal government is telling us that what we saw with our own damn eyes is wrong. But this isn’t the usual lie—that all immigrants are criminals, or that melanin leads to blue city violence. This is a new one. And it’s sadly revealing how quickly the administration realized they needed a different lie for a white lady than for all the other innocent people DHS has killed. Good was dangerous because she stood in solidarity with immigrants, with her neighbors, and the people of this country. As her widow said, “We had whistles, they had guns.” Latinos and immigrants have and will continue to die under this administration, and the media probably won’t bat an eye. Their deaths won’t penetrate the busy daily lives of Americans. It’s terrible but important to note that it took someone like Good dying the way she did for the media and the public to take notice. Good didn’t ask to be a hero or a martyr, but this administration killed her and then sought to cover it up. The federal government has pushed the FBI to investigate Good rather than Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot her, while blocking state and local participation in the investigation of what happened—all while disparaging Good along the lines Vance and Noem set out in their public statements. They have created a MAGA-inspired fantasy where they are saving the country by assaulting immigrants (and natural-born citizens) at their jobs, outside their places of worship, and at the schools where they drop off their kids. When Good and others like her, no matter their race, stand up and directly challenge that fantasy, it comes crashing down, and fast. I’VE BEEN SHAKEN by not just the horror of Good’s killing but the cruel and soulless rush to paint her as evil and unworthy of our sympathy or understanding. So I spoke to people I respect in the larger community of immigration advocates to try to get some perspective on why this happened. Tony Hernandez, the founder of the Immigrant Archive Project, an oral history of immigrants from all over the world, cited Bill Clinton in our discussion on Good: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” “She was a noble woman who interjected herself into this fight when she didn’t have a dog in the fight, but she had empathy for those being abused,” he told me. “As we look back on this moment, future historians will say she was on the right side of history pushing back on this nonsense, but we need a lot more of that for this to end. We need a lot of people to have the empathy that she displayed because those who have it are afraid to speak up.” Good’s death hit the activist community particularly hard. Many groups—such as Siembra NC, a group that protects North Carolina immigrants—held vigils for Good and helped facilitate ICE watch activities, arming the participants with whistles and voices just as loud as Good’s was. “This was a white woman doing ICE watch; it hit a completely different nerve,” Jackie Ramirez, 23, a member of Siembra NC, told me. But instead of seeing volunteers get scared away, Ramirez saw them recommit to the work of protecting their community. “It’s not like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to do this anymore.’ Our allies are asking, ‘How are we going to respond?’ They’re not saying, ‘We’re fearful’—they’re saying, ‘How do we keep continuing to honor the work she was doing?’ They really struck a nerve in the movement with this one.” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), who introduced legislation this week to require ICE and Border Patrol agents to wear scannable QR codes that link to the officer’s identifying information, said the MAGA worldview was effectively summarized in something Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) recently said: “If you impede the actions of our law enforcement as they seek to repel foreign invaders, you’ll get what’s coming to you.” “If you get in our way, we’re going to execute you,” was Torres’s gloss on that remark. “It’s in the nature of a corrupt authoritarian regime to treat the victims as victimizers and victimizers as victims,” Torres said. “Donald Trump’s mantra is he is the state. The execution of Renee is the clearest manifestation of Donald Trump’s fascism, the most cold-blooded.” Torres said he introduced this legislation in the wake of her killing because asking an officer for a physical ID requires an encounter that could turn violent; Torres says there is an “urgent” need to unmask ICE and CBP “not only physically, but digitally.” Corbin Trent, a former aide to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), went on Fox News recently and left the host speechless after pointing out the hypocrisy of threatening Iran for shutting down protests when Trump’s “oppressive regime” is doing the same thing here. Trent told me that the administration needs ICE to feel protected “because if ICE agents start getting charged with murder, that’s really going to put a damper on Stephen Miller’s plans.” Trent said solidarity from Americans is what can stop this administration from shooting people with impunity. “I don’t understand why there hasn’t been more solidarity on whether or not the government can assassinate you, that’s a lot of power to give away willy-nilly with no checks and balances,” he said. “That’s the ballgame. If people come together, they’re fucked.” |
