The killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis should never have happened. File that sentence under, DUH! A woman is dead, federal agents are placed in the crosshairs, and a city is once again pulled into the national argument.
The immediate reaction is predictable. Each side rushes to claim a moral high ground. One side accuses law enforcement of murder. The other argues the woman put herself in danger by interfering with federal officers. Both claims contain some truth. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
If we start at the moment of the shooting, it is reasonable to question whether the ICE agent was too quick to shoot. It is also reasonable to question why the woman was there and that she had no legal authority to impede the movement of federal officers. Blocking law enforcement with your car purposefully and dramatically increases tensions. The result is two bad decisions and one person dead.
But this did not begin in Minneapolis. It is the product of years of escalation and unresolved conflict surrounding immigration enforcement combined with a sprinkling of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). President Trump didn’t help by deliberately expanding ICE operations in large cities with the intent to signal a return to strict enforcement of immigration law.
Under President Biden, enforcement swung in the opposite direction. Border enforcement was virtually non-existent, and large numbers of illegals crossed the southern border with no consequence. This created the perception that immigration law was only theory. This hardened resentment and fueled demands for aggressive crackdowns once political power shifted.
Long before either administration, federal, state, and local governments spent decades selectively enforcing immigration law. Sanctuary policies proliferated. Terminology shifted from illegal alien to undocumented immigrant, in an attempt to reframe the issue. States began granting in-state tuition and public benefits to people here illegally while denying those same benefits to U.S. citizens from neighboring states. Each of these decisions eroded confidence that the law applied equally.
Law enforcement in the U.S. for decades adopted a posture that often treats citizens as threats rather than people to be protected. They have been conditioned to expect hostility everywhere. At the same time protesters have increasingly used violence. Shooting fireworks, throwing molotov cocktails, bricks, and bottles at police has become the norm. Protests should exist to persuade lawmakers and shape policy, not to replace the rule of law with confrontations in the street. When citizens and police both see each other as enemies what do we expect to happen?
What we are witnessing now is the result. The country has reached a boiling point between those who want nearly unrestricted immigration and those who want almost no immigration at all.
What we need is for everyone to calm the fuck down. On both sides. I think law enforcement should be the first to de-escalate, recognizing that an occupying posture breeds fear and resistance. Protesters need to stop treating ICE agents as subhuman. They are citizens operating under laws they did not write. Disagreeing with those laws does not justify placing yourself and others in danger.
There is a political solution if anyone is willing to try it. Serious immigration reform could legalize long-term illegals who have lived in this country for a decade or more, who have committed no crimes, and who are not dependent on public assistance. Grant them the citizenship they desire. At the same time, make it unambiguous that the border is closed and that those who do not qualify must leave voluntarily or face deportation if caught. Clarity under the law is what is missing.
Ultimately, the line must be drawn at the law. If we want a more porous border, we need to change the law through our representatives. If we want stricter enforcement, the same applies. The reason we are at this flashpoint is that we moved away from being a nation of laws and toward a nation ruled by emotions. Laws can be harsh but they exist to prevent disputes from turning violent.
If every disagreement is treated as existential the next tragedy is only a matter of time. The country needs to remember how a civilized society resolves conflict.
Here’s cell phone footage from the ICE agent. The truth isn’t always so cut and dry is it?
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