The consequences of authoritarian power

Bob Sheak, January 12, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

An unnecessary and tragic shooting

Renee Nicole Goodman was shot to death on Thursday, Jan. 8

by an ICE official. “ICE” stands for “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

This United States agency was created, so the government’s account says, to enforce immigration law across the country and protect public safety at the nation’s borders and within them. They are not called officials; they are “federal law enforcement officers” under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Soon after this hideous event, Christi Noam, Secretary of the Department of

of Homeland Security, President Trump, and Vice-President J.D. Vance,  

all described Renee as “a domestic terrorist” who had, they erroneously said, tried to run over one of the ICE law enforcers who then shot her in self-defense. The evidence is abundantly clear that their account is designed to protect ICE rather than to advance accountability and justice. It is simply wrong and cruel.

Here is some of what these immoral government dimwits have said.

Noam

“On Wednesday, Noem said any loss of life is a “tragedy” but alleged that this incident was “preventable” (Noem defends ICE officer who shot woman in Minneapolis as having “followed his training” – CBS News).

“ICE officers and agents approached the vehicle of the individual in question, who was blocking the officers in with her vehicle,” Noem said Wednesday night. “And she had been stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day [not true]. ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement [no obstruction by her], but she refused to obey their commands. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over “

Trump

“President Donald Trump has doubled down on his response to the fatal shooting of a protester by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, but admitted that he did not like to see such tragedies unfolding in U.S. cities” (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-political/trump-ice-shotting-minneapolis-renee-good-b2896922.html). But he is ultimately responsible for these tragedies and his comments about it are ridiculous.

“After Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, was shot dead behind the wheel of her car on a residential street following a confrontation with federal immigration officers, the president took to social media to blame the victim.

“Trump wrote that he had reviewed footage of the incident and concluded: ‘The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and 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.’

“He went on to express sympathy for the agent involved, commenting: ‘It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.’

“That claim was subsequently contradicted by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who told CNN that he understood the victim was the only person hurt in the encounter.”

J.D. Vance

“Vice President JD Vance blamed Renee Nicole Good for her own death during a press briefing one day after the 37-year-old mother was shot and killed by the ICE agent.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jd-vance-blames-renee-nicle-22442628.html).

“Vance, 41, described the circumstances of Good’s death as ‘an attack on federal law enforcement’ as well as ‘the American people’ while speaking to reporters from the White House on Thursday, Jan. 8.

“The vice president, who raised his voice at times while speaking, passionately defended the ICE agent — who has since been identified as Jonathan Ross — while characterizing Good as a radical activist.

“Vance alleged Good was ‘part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job,’ before accusing her of ‘trying to ram this guy with her car,’ referring to Ross.”

“Everybody who has been repeating the lie that this was some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves, every single one of you.”

The shame is his.

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A very different response from the Minneapolis mayor

Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis walked to a lectern Wednesday and delivered a blunt retort, saying that Trump’s officials’ account of what happened was “bullshit,” according to a report by Yasmeen Abutaleb for the

Washington Post  (After ICE shooting, Minneapolis mayor emerges with blunt rebuke of Trump).

“To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis,” Frey added later in his news conference. “We do not want you here”

“Frey, who recounted his experience in an interview with The Washington Post, has emerged as a singular figure in the aftermath of Renée Good’s death. For days, he has aggressively countered the Trump administration’s portrayal of the shooting, becoming one of the most prominent critics of the way the president and his team have depicted the situation.

“While President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended the officer and promised sweeping protections for federal agents, Frey has argued that available footage shows Good was not a threat and that the officer acted recklessly. He penned a New York Times op-ed with the headline stating, ‘Trump Is Lying to You’ and lambasted the FBI for seizing control of the post-shooting investigation, cutting out local officials. ‘This is not a time to hide from the facts,’ he said Friday.”

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ICE Is a Domestic Terror Threat

Jordan Liz discusses the issue in more general terms for Common Dreams, Jan 8, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ice-domestic-terrorism).

The Trump administration false claims.

On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Immediately, the Trump administration sprang into action to propagandize the incident. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the woman “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed, “It was an act of domestic terrorism.”

President Donald Trump posted via Truth Social:

“…The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”

Jordan Liz writes:

“Even after shooting Good, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was at the scene to provide aid. When an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, they were blocked by ICE vehicles. They harassed her, shot her, and if there was even the faintest possibility that she might have lived, they took that away from her too.”

What really happened.

Liz continues: “There is ample video evidence showing that Good was driving away slowly. None of the agents—who, to be clear, had no right to harass or intimidate her in the first place—were even remotely in danger. They simply shot her because they knew they could. They shot her because the Trump administration has specifically and purposely empowered law enforcement to act without impunity or care.”

The actions of fascists

“What’s particularly alarming here,” Liz writes, “is how, despite the abundance of video evidence and eye-witness testimonies, the Trump administration insists on lying. This is literal fascism. To quote George Orwell’s famous 1984, ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’”

Conservative commentators echo Trump

“And it’s not just the Trump administration. Conservative commentators are also amplifying this obvious falsehood. Megyn Kelly lies, ‘This cop almost got run over by this woman, who accelerated into him.’ Matt Walsh blames the ‘protestor’ and the ‘Democrats who’ve been fomenting chaos and violence against ICE for months.’ Elon Musk, whose Twitter-X is the social media propaganda wing of the Trump administration, backs the ICE agent: ‘Attempting to murder them with a car requires self-defense.’”

Trump and his allies are anti-democratic

Liz continues. “The Trump administration has given up any pretext of being a democracy bound to the Constitution. They demonstrated this when they kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and imposed colonial rule on Venezuela. And they demonstrated it Wednesday domestically against its own citizens. They will lie at every moment.”

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American citizens have rallied around the country to protest Renee Good’s murder

Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports on the protests for NPR (https://www.npr.com/2026/01/10/nx-s1-5673229/ice-protests-minneapolis-portland-renee-good). Consider some of what he writes.

“People took to the streets in cities across the country this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer last week.

“At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls ‘ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action.’

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to ‘grieve, honor those we’ve lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long.’”

“Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted ‘ICE out now!

 during protests across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protesters, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

“The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a “noise protest” in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

“People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O’Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned acts of violence but praised what he said were the “vast majority” of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.”

“In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators ‘were cooperative and peaceful’ at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. No arrests were made.

“Activists participate in a protest prior to a march to the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

“Protests also continued Sunday, including in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

“Crowds gathered across the metro Atlanta area, including on the 17th Street bridge, where demonstrators held signs that read ‘Stop ICE Terror Now’ and ‘ICE out 4 good,’ according to local media reports.

“In Washington, D.C., a day after protesters gathered in front of the White House on Saturday, demonstrators marched to ICE headquarters on Sunday. There were no arrests during the protests, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told NPR on Sunday.

“A large crowd of demonstrators also marched in New York City on Sunday, according to PIX11.”

There were also demonstrations in Columbus, Ohio.

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Prosecute the ICE killer!

Elie Mystal writes in an article published on Jan 8, 2026 that Nicole Good’s murderer should be prosecuted (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/prosecute-renee-good-murderer). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Trump administration has murdered another person. On Wednesday, ICE agents killed a woman, identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was not engaged in any illegal activity.”

“Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey immediately called DHS’s justifications for murder ‘bullshit.’ Again, there is video of the incident, and that video shows that, as usual, DHS and the Trump administration are lying. It shows a nonviolent encounter that turns deadly when an ICE agent unloads his gun into a car at an unarmed woman.”

There are state laws in Minnesota that are meant to prevent the murder of nonviolent people. These state laws also apply to federal agents. Mystal clarifies his point: Bottom of Form’Criminal immunity extends only to agents who are performing their federal duties. Despite the way ICE tends to operate, murdering unarmed civilians is not part of the official duties of ICE agents.’ However, the case for murder may well end up in a ‘lengthy immunity fight in this case and will probably last years and end up in the Supreme Court, where six Republicans stand at the read to lick Trump’s boots and grant him whatever illegal thing he is asking for.’”

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ICE in context

Chris Iorfida considers ICE historically and poses the question, “What is ICE and how has it changed during Trump’s 2nd term? | CBC News.” His basic point is that over the years, “ICE agents have reportedly been involved in dozens of shooting incidents. The article was posted on Jan. 8, 2026.

ICE expansion over 20 years

“ICE came into being after the Homeland Security Act was enacted in 2002, as the United States sought to grapple with the consequences of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.”

“Responsibilities and functions previously carried out by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) workforce under the aegis of the Department of Labour were reconsidered, and ICE was established in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on the removal of unauthorized persons in the U.S. and stamping out cross-border trafficking of migrants.”

“Both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations have utilized ICE — Barack Obama was dubbed by some critics ‘the deporter-in-chief.’ But from the very first moments of launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has focused on illegal immigration in an unprecedented way.”

Iorfida continues. “In his first administration, Trump sought through executive orders and his own pulpit to pressure some local and state law enforcement agencies who over the years began to limit their co-operation with ICE in some circumstances.

Trump has ignored any such local and state pressure.

Since capping his political comeback last year, Trump and some of his closest advisers — including Stephen Miller — have expressed a desire for one million deportations a year.

“The first-year Trump budget allocated more than $170 billion US over four years for border and interior enforcement, with $75 billion going to ICE for further arrests of immigrants, including the building of more detention facilities. In an analysis critical of the administration, the liberal Brennan Center for Justice said the ICE budget for 2025, at almost $29 billion, was nearly triple the amount of the previous year’s budget.”

ICE tactics and arrests

Iorfida continues.

“U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is supposed to be targeting criminal illegal immigrants, but more American citizens and legal immigrants are being rounded up. For The National, CBC’s Terence McKenna talks to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents and asks: Is America becoming a police state?

“Mike Fox, a legal fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington,” Iorfida writes, “criticized that approach in September in an interview with CBC News.

“‘The [deportation] numbers are going to be a lot lower if you’re actually focusing on the violent people that you should be focusing on,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot easier to just stand outside a Home Depot and round people up.’”

Many people rounded up by ICE have no criminal record

“Cato has been among a number of think-tanks and civil rights groups to point out that the statistics provided by the federal government have shown that significant numbers of people detained by ICE have not incurred a criminal record since entering the U.S.”

Shootings, but not indictments

“Good’s killing was the second fatal shooting by an ICE officer in four months.”

“ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old cook from Mexico, during a traffic stop in suburban Chicago on Sept. 12. The FBI and DHS have yet to release any information concerning previously announced inquiries into the shooting.”

“ICE-involved shootings before this year were rare but not unprecedented, according to The Trace, an outlet devoted to gun-related news. What is unheard of are prosecutions.

“…between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers occurred across 26 U.S. states, leading to 23 fatalities.” There were no indictments of ICE agents.

———-

It is not at all surprising that Trump and his administration flout the law.

Journalist at the New York Times interviewed Trump and find this to be true.

Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’

David E. Sanger,Tyler Pager,Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html). These reporters were able to interview Trump in the Oval Office.

Here is some of what Trump said on whether domestic law restrains or guides his behavior as president.

He did acknowledge in the interview some constraints at home, “even as he has pursued a maximalist strategy of punishing institutions he dislikes, exacting retribution against political opponents and deploying the National Guard to cities over the objections of state and local officials.”

Trump suggested

“that judges only have power to restrict his domestic policy agenda — from the deployment of the National Guard to the imposition of tariffs —

under certain circumstances.’

“But he was already considering workarounds. He raised the possibility that if his tariffs issued under emergency authorities were struck down by the Supreme Court, he could repackage them as licensing fees. And Mr. Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some National Guard units if he felt it was important to do so.”

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A final note: He and his family are profiting from his presidential power as chaos, fear, and anger soar across the country

David Kirkpatrick, interviewed on Democracy Now, discusses how New Yorker Mag “Reveals Trump Family’s Frenzy to Cash in on the White House”

(https://democracynow.org/2025/8/20/trump_profit). The money flows to Trump and his family through numerous sources. Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now, offers this summary of Kirkpatrick’s research.

 “Many payments now flowing to Trump, his wife, and his children and their spouses would be unimaginable without his Presidencies: a two-billion-dollar investment from a fund controlled by the Saudi crown prince; a luxury jet from the Emir of Qatar; profits from at least five different ventures peddling crypto; fees from an exclusive club stocked with Cabinet officials and named Executive Branch.”

Here are excerpts from what Kirkpatrick said in the interview.

• 20 million dollars over the last few years selling campaign merchandise through the Trump Organization’s online story (e.g., baseball hats, flip-flops)
• $550 million through selling NFTs, or non-fungible crypto tokens, 75% of which flows to the Trump organization
• Selling stablecoins, providing a way to transfer money here and there digitally. Trump’s sons set up a company to deal in these coins called World Liberty Financial. They are invested in Treasuries. The United Arab Emirates put up $2 billion to buy stablecoins.
• Profiting from the rising stock price in their online company, Truth Social.
• The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who controls the public investment fund, invested $2 billion with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.
• Kushner has “accumulated as much as $4.8 billion in assets under management….quite a bit of it also from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.”

Kirkpatrick adds, 

“Now, again, in my accounting, I’m not including deals which appear to be extensions of the business they were in before he was elected. You know, he had licensed his name for use on four condominium buildings around India before he ever went into the White House. Now there are five more Indian projects. Fine, let’s leave that aside.”

———-

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his administration are essentially anti-democratic and cruel. This is reflected in the abuses of ICE as it enforces Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. It is dramatically and tragically reflected in the murder to Renee Good, which has sparked outrage and protests against Trump and ICE across the country. And it is sadly reflected in how Trump is dismissive toward the law and how his family profit amidst it all. We hope that such abuse of power will culminate in voters holding the administration and its Republican toadies accountable in upcoming elections.