Police, prison and abolition

[blindpig]

ICE killing in Minneapolis sparks mass outrage

The killing occurred one day after 2,000 ICE agents were deployed into the city. Trump administration officials accuse the victim of having committed domestic terrorism.

January 07, 2026 by Devin B. Martinez


Portland Avenue and 34th Street in South Minneapolis where City of Minneapolis officials have confirmed an ICE agent shot 37-year-old Renee Good. Photo: Wiki commons

On January 7, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a woman in the head in a residential neighborhood in south Minneapolis, firing into her vehicle at point-blank range. The woman was later identified by authorities as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.

A neighbor who saw what happened told local MPR news: “She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun … and shot her in the face like three, four times.”

Witnesses said she died immediately.

Within hours, federal officials presented a starkly different account from what eyewitnesses reported.

In a tweet on his Truth Social platform, US President Donald Trump accused Good of “violently, willfully, and viciously” running over an ICE agent with her vehicle. The agent then “shot her in self-defense,” he claimed. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the 37-year-old woman was killed after carrying out an alleged “act of domestic terrorism”.

“A woman attacked [ICE], and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over,” she said on Fox News, adding that the “officer acted defensively” when he shot the woman in her vehicle.

The fatal shooting comes a day after the Trump administration launched what it calls “the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever in Minneapolis-St.Paul.” About 2,000 DHS, ICE, and related personnel flooded the city on Jan 6.

Videos and eyewitnesses debunk Trump administration narrative
Reports from witnesses and local elected officials sharply dispute the Trump administration’s account of the incident. Witnesses on the scene say the woman’s car was blocking ICE, and ICE told them to move, and they shot her in her vehicle as she was driving away, as reported by BreakThrough News.

CBS News reported that witnesses saw a Honda Pilot blocked by multiple ICE agents. “An agent tried to open the driver’s side door. The motorist then put her vehicle into reverse, then into drive. Witnesses said they then heard three shots fired.” The car then crashed into a parked vehicle before stopping.

Videos circulating on social media seem to verify eyewitness reports of the killing.

The Minneapolis Police Chief’s statement underscored that Good was not the subject of any ICE operation, contrasting with federal claims that framed the killing as a response to a targeted threat.

Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the ICE operation and rejected the self-defense narrative of the federal government after watching video footage. During a news conference, Frey had choice words for the agency: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” the mayor said. “We do not want you here.”

Minnesota Senator Tina Smith, Minneapolis City Council member Jason Chavez, and Representative Ilhan Omar, have all identified the victim as a legal observer who was watching the ICE operation from her car.

“Terror” label turned back on Trump and ICE
As the administration framed the killing as a response to “domestic terrorism”. Lawmakers, activists, and journalists have inverted that language, condemning ICE itself as a terrorizing organization.

Rep Omar denounced the agency in a Facebook post after the incident: “ICE must stop terrorizing our communities and leave our city.

“They are the terrorists,” tweeted Lebanese-American journalist Rania Khalek, responding to the Trump administration’s claims. “They invade and bomb countries unprovoked, kidnap heads of states, murder their own people and then cry victim.”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation called the incident “cold-blooded murder” in a social media post on January 7, demanding justice for Renee and “an end to ICE’s reign of terror across the country”.

Disputed fraud allegations target Somali community
Officials have cited an alleged fraud scheme as the justification for the militarized operation that flooded Minneapolis with ICE agents in the first place.

The accusations involve daycare centers and other social services run by members of the Somali community.

While a 2025 case involving the Feeding our Future program did result in several convictions, many prominent voices in the community have argued that the broader, more recent narrative has been distorted for political ends.

Much of the recent controversy seems to center around a widely-debunked viral video by far-right YouTube influencer Nick Shirley, in which he claimed to expose a USD 100 million fraud at Somali-run daycare centers in the area. JD Vance applauded the video, tweeting that Shirley deserved a Pulitzer prize. Local news outlets and state regulators, on the other hand, refuted his claims and most of the featured daycare centers were found to be operating legally with active licenses.

Protests loom as anger spreads across Minneapolis and other cities
Although Governor Walz challenged the federal narrative, he has also alerted the Minnesota National Guard, putting about 13,000 members on notice to deploy to the streets and confront mass protests, which are being called in the city and other areas in the country as anger mounts in response to the ICE killing.

Minneapolis has a recent history of mass protest against state violence, being the city that launched a global movement after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The ICE killing on January 7 adds a federal dimension to that legacy. It may now prove to be a catalyst for renewed mobilizations against militarized immigration operations, state violence, and federal overreach.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/07/ ... s-outrage/

*****

Killing of Woman by ICE Agent Sparks Protests Across United States


Protest against ICE, Jan. 7, 2026. X/ @jacksonhinklle

January 8, 2026 Hour: 9:40 am

Death of Renee Nicole Good reopens tensions over federal immigration enforcement tactics.
On Wednesday, an agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed American citizen Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

Her death has shaken a city where, in 2020, a police officer killed George Floyd on a street less than a mile from where the 37-year-old woman became a victim of excessive and unjustified force.

In several U.S. cities, thousands of people took to the streets to protest ICE, as tension between Minnesota authorities and the administration of President Donald Trump escalates over the rejection of the government’s claim that the agent involved acted in self-defense.

A Farewell Marked by Shock, Flowers and Outrage

With white roses, carnations, candles, handwritten letters and a wooden cross, thousands of citizens joined the neighbors and family of Renee Nicole Good to bid her farewell at the location where she lost her life during an operation that remains under investigation.

Good’s family, along with some of her neighbors, have described her as a “loving” and “kind” woman. The deceased lived in the city with her partner and is survived by a 6-year-old son.

One of Good’s neighbors, interviewed by the local outlet The Minnesota Star Tribune, said she was beloved in the community and, in the shock of the tragic event, called on authorities to remove ICE agents from the city.


Dispute Over Version of ICE Altercation

A series of videos of the moment Good, inside her Honda Pilot SUV, argues with ICE agents went viral on social media. The federal agents order her to exit the vehicle; she attempts to drive away and one of them struggles with the door. Subsequently, an agent standing in front of the vehicle fires multiple shots, and the car crashes a few yards away into a light pole with the deceased woman inside.

Trump blamed the victim for the incident, stating she was a “rioter” who had disrupted the agents’ operation. He also claimed she had run over the federal agent who shot her. Videos of the incident, however, show that did not happen.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem said the agent acted “in self-defense” and was in stable condition and out of the hospital. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the statements made by Trump and his officials “garbage.”


Escalating Conflict Between Minnesota Authorities and Trump

Good’s death has brought back to the forefront the strained relationship between Trump and Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 vice presidential candidate. They have clashed over the presence of ICE in the state, which the governor has called an “act of war” in recent months.

Tensions have been deepened by Trump’s policy toward the Somali community, the largest in the state with about 84,000 people, most of whom are citizens or legal residents.

The federal government has ended protections like Temporary Protected Status for Somalis and has linked the community to fraud investigations, accusations Walz rejected as “vile” and discriminatory, arguing such measures stigmatize entire populations.

Walz has also publicly denounced federal operations as a “media spectacle” and called for respect for local jurisdictions, while Trump has increased his rhetoric about the state and its leadership, holding it responsible for immigration and fraud problems.

Between the last half of 2025 and January of this year, ICE has deployed more than 2,000 agents to Minnesota and reported more than 400 arrests, according to official data.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/killing- ... ed-states/

[blindpig]

Portland Mayor Decries Mounting Bloodshed, Tells ICE to Get Out After Federal Agents Shoot Two
Posted on January 9, 2026 by Yves Smith

Yves here. It’s appalling to see not just persistent ICE jack-bootery but also far too many knee-jerk defenses of its lawlessness in the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. And if you check Twitter on the Portland shootings, you’ll find more ritual denunciations. Nevertheless, there are also some informative takes”:





A key point with the Minneapolis murder-by-ICE that seems to be generally in play (for instance, the use of masks and not presenting badges, statements that they are not subject to normal police accountability): (Video at link.)

And at least as of now, protests are kicking off:

Nationwide protests erupt after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, in Minneapolis. Listen on the Reuters World News podcast


France has such a strong history of taking to the streets because demonstrations were effective, particularly before the days under the Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire. Then, Baron Haussman led a massive redesign of Paris, carving out what were to be grandes boulevards. Modern accounts oddly sanitize the main reason for this massive urban project: better police control of the city. Rabbits’ warrens of narrow streets aid defenders.

We Americans lack such traditions and see protestors as the enemy of the propertied classes, as in a major threat to order, as opposed to defenders of liberties. It seems unlikely geographically separated urban centers can make a stand against ICE, but the quick succession of ICE shootings in different cities are leading to a serious try.

By Jake Jackson, a staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

The mayor of Portland, Oregon told Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave the city after federal agents shot and wounded two people on Thursday, just a day after an ICE agent killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

“We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement. “Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences. As mayor, I call on ICE to end all operations in Portland until a full investigation can be completed.”

The shooting took place Thursday afternoon during what the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described as a “targeted vehicle stop” conducted by Border Patrol agents. Echoing its narrative about the deadly Minneapolis shooting—which was contradicted by video footage from the scene—DHS said the driver “weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents.”

But Wilson said Thursday that the Trump administration could not be trusted to provide an accurate account of events or conduct an honest investigation.

“We know what the federal government says happened here,” said Wilson. “There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time has long passed.”

The man and woman shot by Border Patrol agents were reportedly married, and both were taken to a nearby hospital. Neither their identities nor their conditions were immediately made public.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said late Thursday that his office was investigating the shooting to determine “whether any federal officer acted outside the scope of their lawful authority.”

“We have been clear about our concerns with the excessive use of force by federal agents in Portland, and today’s incident only heightens the need for transparency and accountability,” said Rayfield. “Oregonians deserve clear answers when people are injured in their neighborhoods.”

The shootings in Minneapolis and Portland were hardly the first time federal immigration officers have used deadly force during US President Donald Trump’s lawless mass deportation campaign.

The Marshall Project noted earlier this week that “federal officers have fatally shot at least three other people in the last five months.”

“Agents have also shot other people,” The Marshall Project added. “The Trace, the nonprofit news organization covering gun violence, has counted more than a dozen such shootings. In some cases, the victims survived, including a woman who suffered multiple bullet wounds in an incident in Chicago in October. The Border Patrol officer who shot her appeared to brag about it in a text message, later presented in court evidence. The message reportedly read, ‘I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.’”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01 ... t-two.html

(About those 'good cops': I was once pulled from a smoke filled apartment by a cop. Also been arrested under dubious circumstances and had a couple of "rough rides" in the back of Baltimore City paddy wagons. I've known cops and had civil conversations with them. Nonetheless even the 'friendly' ones will beat your head in when ordered or just inspired. Abolish the police as they currently exist.)

From comments:

Safety First
January 9, 2026 at 10:13 am
You know what struck me as I’ve been watching videos of ICE agents accosting this or that individual in the streets of this or that city? Even before the shooting in Minnesota, which, by the way, media in Russia and Iran have immediately posted up the full video of the incident with you can imagine what sort of editorial comments. The world is watching, in other words…

…but what struck me is just how similar some of these ICE vids are to the “busification” videos out of Ukraine, where masked and armed agents suddenly jump a rando in the middle of the street and drag him off. Except there, they drag him off to be thrown into the meatgrinder; here, it’s presumably an ICE prison and, possibly, a deportation flight. But if you removed the sound and any other identifiers like street signs or whatnot, one might not be able to tell which is ICE, and which is Ukrainian military recruiters.

Funny that.

[blindpig]

Vance Blasted After Saying ICE Slayer Has Immunity
January 10, 2026

The vice president said Minnesota prosecutors should instead investigate people who “are using their vehicles and other means” to interfere with ICE’s operations.



By Julia Conley
Common Dreams

When Vice President J.D. Vance told reporters at a press briefing Thursday that Jonathan Ross, the federal immigration agent who was filmed fatally shooting Renee Good in Minneapolis, has “absolute immunity,” he was not referring to any recognized statute in United States law, according to legal experts.

Instead, said Human Rights Campaign press secretary Brandon Wolf, “masked federal agents who can gun people down with ‘absolute immunity’ is called fascism.”

Vance addressed reporters at the White House the day after Good was fatally shot at close range while serving as a legal observer of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) surge of federal agents in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration is targeting members of the Somali community in particular.

Widely available footage taken by onlookers shows ICE agents including Ross approaching the car and, according to at least one witness, giving her conflicting instructions, with one ordering her to leave the area and another telling her to get out of the car.

The wheel of Good’s car was seen turning as she began to drive away, just before Ross fired his weapon at least three times.

President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Vance immediately blamed Good for her death, saying she had committed an act of domestic terrorism and had tried to run Ross over with her car.

Vance doubled down on Thursday when a reporter asked him why state officials in Minnesota were being cut off from investigating Good’s death—a fact that has left the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which had been planning to launch a probe, with few tools to bring a case to prosecutors.

The vice president said Minnesota prosecutors should instead investigate people who “are using their vehicles and other means” to interfere with ICE’s operations before claiming that Ross is protected from being held accountable for his actions.

“That guy’s protected by absolute immunity,” said Vance. “He was doing his job. The idea that [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after him and make this guy’s life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous.”



Robert Bennett, a veteran lawyer in Minneapolis, told Mother Jones that he has worked on hundreds of cases regarding federal law enforcement misconduct.

“I’ve deposed thousands of police officers,” he said. “ICE agents do not have absolute immunity.”

He continued:

There’s plenty of case law that allows for the prosecution of federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE. And it’s clear under the law that a federal officer who shoots somebody in Minnesota and kills them is subject to a Minnesota investigation and Minnesota law.

Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, whose jurisdiction includes Minneapolis, appeared incredulous Friday when asked about Vance’s claim.

“I can’t speak to why the Trump administration is doing what it’s doing or says what it says,” she told a reporter before adding unequivocally, “the ICE officer does not have complete immunity here.”

Constitutional law expert Michael J.Z. Mannheimer of Northern Kentucky University told CNN that more than a century of legal precedent has shown that state prosecutors can file charges against federal officials for actions they take while completing their official duties.

“The idea that a federal agent has absolute immunity for crimes they commit on the job is absolutely ridiculous,” Mannheimer said.

Should the state take up the case, Ross could attempt to raise an immunity argument if he were able to move the case to a federal court, where a judge would then conduct a two-part analysis—determining whether Ross was acting in his official capacity and whether his action was “reasonable” considering all the facts on the ground, gathered from video evidence and eyewitness testimony.

While holding Ross accountable may be an uphill battle, former federal prosecutor Timothy Sini told CNN, “officers are not entitled to absolute immunity as a matter of law,” contrary to Vance’s claim.

Gun control advocate David Hogg called the vice president’s comments “insanely dangerous.”

“Just so you all understand what our vice tyrant is saying here this means ICE is allowed to shoot and kill Americans with ZERO consequences,” said Hogg. “It’s important to note that absolute immunity is something that basically no cop gets. It goes even beyond qualified immunity.”

Police officers are typically shielded from liability for civil damages by qualified immunity, provided they can prove their actions did not violate “clearly established” constitutional rights. “Absolute immunity” is typically applied to judges, prosecutors, and legislators who are acting within their official duties.

On Friday, US Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) announced they would introduce a bill aimed at stripping ICE officers of qualified immunity.

Goldman noted that under current law, it would be difficult to prosecute an ICE agent because the legal standard “allows for the officer’s own view to carry a lot of weight.”

“So what this bill does is only for civil enforcement officers—not criminal enforcement officers who are dealing with real bad guys, not moms driving cars—it would say that it’s an objective test,” he said on a podcast by the New Republic. “And if you are acting completely outside of your duties and responsibilities, you don’t have immunity from a civil lawsuit, and you don’t have a defense from a criminal charge.”

Goldman added that the bill would make clear that ICE agents’ “only authority is to investigate and civilly arrest immigrants for immigration violations.”

“And so they should have never been in the situation they were in, where they were trying to take a woman out of a car,” he said. “That was not part of what they should be doing. They could ask her to move if they needed to. It doesn’t look like from the video that she was doing anything that was obstructing them.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has expressed outrage over Good’s killing and demanded that ICE leave the city immediately, called Vance’s claims about absolute immunity “pretty bizarre” and “extremely concerning” in comments to reporters on Friday, and called on the press to “get to a point where we’re not trusting everything that [administration officials] are saying.”

“That’s not true in any law school in America, whether it’s Yale or Villanova or anywhere else,” said Frey. “That’s not true. If you break the law, if you do things that are outside the outside the area of what your job responsibilities require, and this clearly seems to be at the very least, at the very least, this is gray… This is a problem and it should be investigated.”

Vance’s comments, said political scientist Norman Ornstein, made clear that “we are in a police state.”

“The notion expressed by Trump, Vance and Noem that there is absolute immunity for a cold blooded murder if it’s carried out by one of their agents is the final straw,” he said. “If we do not turn this around, we are done for as a free society and a decent country.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/10/v ... -immunity/

[blindpig]

Baltimore doesn’t need a $1.2 billion jail — it needs jobs
January 10, 2026 Lev Koufax



Baltimore City local news publication, the Baltimore Banner, recently reported that the cost of a new state constructed jail in the city would cost more than originally thought. Initially estimated to be a $1 billion investment, which already made the most expensive project of any kind in Maryland history – the “state of the art” concentration camp for the poor will now cost $1.2 billion.

Governor Moore and the Maryland Department of Correctional Services have framed the new prison as a much-needed upgrade to decrease crowding and improve living conditions. However, local prisoner rights advocacy groups have expressed doubt that the $1.2 billion facility would do either of these. The fact is, the Maryland state government and the army of contractors that will build and equip this prison do not care about the conditions of prisoners. They care about two things: more prisoners and a bigger paycheck.

Maryland’s Department of Correctional Services has already spent $54 million on planning, even as the state faces critical budget deficits that the Governor has used to justify cuts to the state workforce and social welfare programs. Governor Moore’s cuts, combined with the ongoing inflation crisis combined with Donald Trump’s slashing of social benefits, have already battered Baltimore.

The city is facing its highest unemployment rate in years, at 5.5%. In his budget for fiscal year 25, Governor Moore nearly froze raises for state workers and delayed the implementation of Maryland’s new family leave program another 18 months. Yet, the new Baltimore City jail construction is all aboard, full steam ahead, and the State of Maryland continues to spend nearly $288 million a year on incarcerating Baltimore City residents.

Baltimore doesn’t need another massive concentration camp. The city already makes up 32% of the state’s prison population, while only accounting for 10% of the overall state population. Baltimore is not only the largest city in the state, but also the home of the largest Black community in the state. This new jail is simply aimed at sharpening the oppression of an oppressed working-class Black city.

US politicians, courts, and bureaucrats insist that the purpose of the country’s massive incarceration system is rehabilitation and prevention. This assertion couldn’t be further from the truth. As with so many institutions under capitalism, the motivation behind the massive prison system that operates at federal, state, and local levels is simply and solely profit.

Construction contractors make profit from building the facilities. Medical supply magnates rake in millions supplying equipment and medicine to prisons that rarely, if ever, use them effectively. The need for uniforms, beds, light fixtures, furniture, and plumbing all provide a boon for the parasitic prison supply industry that has grown like a weed since the 1980s. And this analysis doesn’t even account for the labor actually done by prisoners once the prison is up and running.

Across Baltimore, Maryland, and the Country, prisoners – who are disproportionately Black and Brown – work for cents in wages creating all sorts of goods and providing all sorts of services. In as recently as 2024, the Associated Press investigated a supply chain that used prison labor to slaughter cattle, fish in dangerous waters, and work long hours picking produce in fields. All of these goods find their way to companies like Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Kroger to be sold for exponentially more than the prison laborers were paid.

Baltimore’s new jail is just another avenue for profit in a national prison industrial system that only cares about the bottom line. Not a single city across the country needs more concentration camps for the poor. Those cities need jobs, healthcare, and education.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2026/ ... eeds-jobs/

[blindpig]

Movement against ICE grows in the US in the wake of killing of Renee Good

The ICE killing of Renee Good has sparked nationwide protests that have been met by federal force, arrests, and renewed “domestic terror” rhetoric from the Trump administration.

January 11, 2026 by Devin B. Martinez


Protest in San Diego calls for "ICE out of our communities!" Photo: Micah Fong

Protests against Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) are escalating across the United States. Mobilizations are calling for the arrest of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent identified as Renee Macklin Good’s killer, and the abolition of ICE altogether.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 10, in the largest demonstration yet since Good’s killing.

On Friday, January 9, hundreds of protesters descended on the Hilton hotel in Minneapolis where they believe ICE and federal agents are staying. Using everything from cymbals, noisemakers, and drums to pots and pans (and even fireworks), waves of noise reverberated for several blocks and continued through the entire night.

Hundreds of riot police and state troopers were deployed to the noise protest.

Minneapolis Police Chief O’Hara had initially signaled alignment with community concerns and opposition to the federal operation. However, the noise protest highlighted the tension between federal agencies and local communities when law enforcement declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. Heavily-armed officers confronted crowds even as they demanded that those same forces arrest ICE agent Jonathan Ross and remove the federal presence from the city.

From Minneapolis to main streets nationwide, protestors mobilize
Immediately after the fatal shooting of the 37-year-old mother by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, residents began gathering at the site of the killing, demanding “ICE out of our communities!”


Thousands gather at vigil in Minneapolis after the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Photo: Bobby A

By that evening, thousands had flooded the residential neighborhood where Good, who had been participating in an ICE watch, was shot three times in the face in her vehicle. Makeshift memorials appeared that night, with residents placing flowers, candles, chalk tributes, and messages honoring Good.

Simultaneously with the vigils and protests in Minneapolis, cities across the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Phoenix, Columbus, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and many others, broke out in protest demanding justice for Good and all victims of violence by ICE.

Throughout the country, waves of people marched through the streets calling for the abolition of ICE and demanding the arrest of Jonathan Ross. Speeches condemned the federal government’s attempt to label Good a “domestic terrorist”.

Ross has currently not been convicted of any crime related to the shooting, and is reportedly still an active duty officer at this time. US Vice President JD Vance even said during a press conference that the ICE agent would be immune from prosecution.

Although the protests erupted after Good’s killing, they have quickly expanded into a nationwide condemnation of militarized federal operations. Throughout 2025, ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the National Guard, and other federal forces have been deployed in various US communities resulting in multiple shootings, including the deaths of Keith Porter Jr. in Los Angeles and Silverio Villegas González in Chicago, as well as the wounding of Marimar Martinez. On Thursday, January 8, a Venezuelan couple were shot and injured by CBP agents in Portland.

This pattern of violence has galvanized communities beyond Minnesota, setting the stage for widespread resistance.

Anti-ICE protests widen into broader political resistance

”It is not enough to feel sad about what happened to Renee,” said Claudia De La Cruz, executive director of IFCO Pastors for Peace, during a speech at a rally on January 8 in Newark, NJ.

“What will make it enough is organizing, is mobilizing, is fighting, and winning!”

Many areas saw mass mobilizations, despite freezing weather, rain, and difficult conditions.

“Abolish ICE!” crowds chanted, and “Not a penny, not a dollar, we won’t pay for ICE’s slaughter!”

“We have a terrorist government that has terrorist agents, terrorizing our communities, kidnapping our people, and killing our people with impunity!” shouted Cruz to a roaring crowd.

Palestine flags and keffiyeh’s were visible at many of the protests, alongside flags from various Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Mobilizations are increasingly becoming a wider condemnation of the Trump administration. With speakers highlighting the violence of the recent US invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro. (Video at link.)

“These issues are always interconnected,” said one protester at a rally in Portland. “What the United States is doing intervening abroad in Venezuela. What the United States is doing here to our people at home.”

Placards read “Hands Off Venezuela!” and “Down with US imperialism!”

This convergence of issues follows the months-long escalating US war on Venezuela, alongside intensifying militarized ICE operations in US communities. Trump’s rhetoric about the alleged threat of the Tren de Aragua gang and drug trafficking has been instrumental in justifying both campaigns in parallel.

Chants like “Healthcare and education, not war and deportation,” were part of the chorus of protests, framing the ICE killing as part of a system of “terror” by the US government both within the US and beyond its borders.

ICE intensifies violence in the wake of Good’s killing
On January 8, the day after Good’s killing, video surfaced of ICE agents firing chemical agents, pepper balls and pepper spray, at students at Roosevelt High School at dismissal time. Witnesses said the armed, masked officers came onto campus and began tackling people, dragging people on the sidewalk, and tussling with several students as bystanders shouted and blew whistles.

One school official told MPR News: “The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down.”

“I’ve never seen people behave like this,” the official added. “They’re just animals.”

Citing “safety concerns”, Minneapolis Public Schools abruptly cancelled classes across the district for the remainder of the week.

Another video, during a demonstration in Minneapolis, shows an ICE agent pulling his gun on a protester, placing the barrel just a few inches from the person’s face.

Makeshift barricades, made of pallets, debris, and old Christmas trees, began to appear that same day on the street where Good was killed.

Law enforcement officers have reportedly met demonstrations with force, chemical agents, and arrests. At least 11 protesters were reportedly arrested on January 8 and 30 were arrested January 9 in Minneapolis.

Federal narrative clashes with local outcry
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has doubled down on its defense of the ICE killing in Minneapolis and its rhetoric that Renee Good was a “domestic terrorist”. They claim Good tried to run the agent over with her vehicle, but video footage sharply contradicts the claim. The federal government has promised to intensify deportation operations further.

Minnesota state officials have demanded to be involved with the FBI’s investigation of the killing. However, as of Friday, January 9, Hennepin County Attorney General Mary Moriarty said they still have “no access to evidence collected by the FBI.”

At the same time, the community is also rallying behind Good’s family. In a statement released to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday, Good’s wife, Becca Good, said:

“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.”

She added, “I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world.”

A grassroots fundraiser has surpassed USD 1 million for Renee Good’s family, which includes three children.


Anti-ICE signs during protest in San Diego. Photo: Micah Fong

Protests surge into their fourth day and beyond

Protests continued into the weekend in Minneapolis and across the country. With over 1,000 protests being organized for the coming weeks. Mobilizations broadly feature coordination between labor unions, immigrant rights groups, Palestine solidarity organizations, anti-war groups, socialist parties, anti-racist groups, and more.

As a renewed movement emerges, organizers and supporters say they view Good’s death not as an isolated tragedy but as a catalyst for sustained resistance against federal enforcement practices they see as “a reign of terror” and “a war against working class people”.

Groups are vowing to continue the struggle until ICE is gone for good.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/11/ ... enee-good/

*****


Renee Nicole Good tells ICE thug, “I’m not mad at you” seconds before he kills her Screenshot from Jonathan Ross’s phone.

ICE: “Fucking Bitch”
Originally published: Common Dreams on January 10, 2026 by Abby Zimet (more by Common Dreams) | (Posted Jan 12, 2026)

It was shocking how quickly the psychopaths in power launched their vicious lies about Renée Good—“violent rioter,” “domestic terrorist,” “self-defense”—shot in the face for trying to drive away from ICE. It’s all bullshit, proven by stunning new video from the killer’s own phone. Bafflingly, JD Vance posted it, thinking it proved his smears. How sick is he? Good was “pure sunshine …kindness radiated out of her,” says her wife.

We stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.

Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and widow of a veteran, was dropping off her youngest child, 6, at a Minneapolis school when she encountered an ICE raid at 34th Street and Portland Avenue; it was the second day of a 30-day “surge” of siccing America’s Gestapo on the state’s Somali-American population. On Instagram, Good described herself as “a poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado”; she and her wife Becca had recently moved there, finding what Becca called “a vibrant and welcoming community” with a strong sense of people “looking out for each other.”

Horrific, widely viewed footage shows what happened next: The sirens and unmarked cars, masked thugs getting out, Good’s car straddling the road, protesters shouting and then, suddenly, screaming as one goon approaches her window, yells “Get out of the fucking car,” and fires off three shots through the windshield as Good’s car careens wildly off and crashes. Multiple cellphone videos and eyewitness accounts concur: Good was trying to turn around, let one ICE car pass ahead, backed up slightly to turn to the right, pulled forward and around the agent—a few feet away—as he shot her three times in the face.

The horror kept coming. Witnesses said Good slumped in her car onto a blood-soaked air bag for up to 15 minutes with no medical attention as protesters yelled and wept. One man asked agents if he could check her pulse. They said no. “I’m a physician,” he pleaded. “I don’t care,” said the thug, claiming “we have our own medics.” “Where the fuck are they?” shrieked a distraught woman. Emergency responders finally arrived without a stretcher; they carried Good away, said one woman, “like a sack of potatoes.” Mayor Jacob Frey was livid:

To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.

Despite the clear, stark evidence, the fascist propaganda machine shot into high gear. In Texas, ICE Barbie, cosplaying in a ludicrous cowboy hat, proclaimed “an act of domestic terrorism…a woman attacked (ICE) and attempted to run them over.” Dead-eyed DHS spokesbot Tricia McLaughlin raved about “a violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over law enforcement officers.” Vance called Good “a deranged leftist.” In an incendiary post, Trump ripped a “disorderly” woman “obstructing and resisting” who “then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer…It is hard to believe he is alive.”

More to the point, it is hard to believe how brazenly, brutishly, remorselessly these motherfuckers can spew their fucking lies in the face of demonstrable, overwhelming reality, demanding we not see what we see or hear what we hear. Eventually, even Trump had to back down, slightly, after both the Washington Post and New York Times committed a rare act of journalism—the Times, to his face—and declared the video entirely contradicted his vile fantasy. Then, on Friday, the right-wing, Minnesota-based Alpha News released 47-second footage of the scene from the phone of ICE agent Jonathan Ross, Renée Good’s murderer.

An Iraq War veteran, Ross has worked for ICE since 2015 and is also a firearms instructor and SWAT team member; he was injured last summer when he was dragged by the vehicle of a fleeing suspect. The footage shows Ross arriving and walking around Renée Good’s red Honda recording with his phone; he circles back to her window as another agent curses and tries to open her door. Sitting behind the wheel, her dog in the back, Good smilingly tells the agent, “It’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you.” Seconds later, shots ring out. Ross stands safely away as her car veers off. Audio catches a man muttering,

Fucking bitch.

Inexplicably, both Fox News and J.D. Vance posted the footage. “Watch this, as hard as it is,” Vance wrote. “Many of you have been told (Ross) wasn’t hit by a car, wasn’t being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman.” The footage, he said, proves Ross “fired in self-defense” when his “life was endangered” by Good. What the ever-loving fuck. Ross, he adds, “deserves a debt (sic) of gratitude. This is a guy who’s actually done a very important job for the United States of America.” AOC speaks for us all:

I understand that Vance believes shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not… I do not believe the American people should be assassinated in the street.

Good was ICE’s ninth victim. Her murder—a white woman, not brown guy, it must be noted—has prompted nationwide outrage, and a GoFundMe that aimed to raise $50K is now at over a million. “This is an execution plain and simple,” said journalist Krystal Ball. “If your Trump love or immigrant hatred has you justifying murder, please seek help.” “We’re a Third World country now,” said Jesse Ventura, citing the history of 1930s Germany. “That’s what happens in a dictatorship—in comes the military.” And on the “giddy sadism” we see daily,

All of us, citizens and immigrants alike, are being ruled by people who think life is a privilege bestowed by authority, and death is a fair penalty for disobedience.

Still, it goes on. They are still assaulting people, usually brown, sometimes citizens. In a clumsy, nasty encounter in North Carolina, they attacked two U.S. citizens in their car and only gave up when both guys kept filming the abuses. The lesson: “Film them. Always.” In Minneapolis, they blithely moved on from murdering Renee Good to terrorize workers at a nearby childcare center and students at a high school, tackling people, handcuffing two staff members and firing teargas at bystanders until the schools were forced to shut down. “They’re just animals,” said one school official.

I’ve never seen people behave like this.

Meanwhile, Renée Nicole Good is being mourned, in the words of her mother, as “an amazing human being” and “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known..” On Friday, Renée’s wife Becca Good released a moving statement thanking all the people who have reached out to support their family:

This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renée Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her… Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow.

She described moving to Minnesota,

like people have done across place and time… to make a better life for ourselves. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever… We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renée lived this belief every day… We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.

https://mronline.org/2026/01/12/ice-fucking-bitch/

[blindpig]

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Imperial Boomerang
January 12, 2026

In the videos of a jumped-up ICE agent murdering Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis we see the violence of the American empire coming home to preserve itself.


South Minneapolis on Jan. 7, where city officials confirmed an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good. (Chad Davis/Flickr/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)

By Patrick Lawrence
in Torrington, Connecticut
Special to Consortium News

The murder-in-broad-daylight of Renee Nicole Good on a Minneapolis street last Wednesday shapes up as a watershed moment in national politics. Let us hope this proves so, in any case. Our crumbling republic is greatly in need of a watershed or three.

Via all the video of the incident that has since circulated, the nation watched as a goon from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fired point-blank into the windshield of Good’s car as she tried to avoid a confrontation with two more of these jumped-up punks. Jonathan Ross, the murderer, then fired twice more at Good, the last of these shots from behind.

I could not take my eyes off the videos before rerunning them several times, and I’ve watched them several more times since. The scene, start-to-finish, is grotesque in 10 different ways.

Look at the body language at the start of the incident — aggressive, predatory — as one of these ICE primitives approaches Good’s vehicle. “Get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the fucking car,” he commands. This is not someone who is enforcing the law in a sound, disinterested manner.

No, this guy, seething with animosity, has nothing to do with law enforcement or legitimate authority. He is a straight-out expression of the ressentiment abroad among the rightist constituencies now running riot in our no-longer-fair land.

Ressentiment is a French term the Germans borrowed in the 19th century to describe the poisonous mix of hatred and envy shared by any group that feels itself spurned or scorned or disdained — socially, economically, politically. This is the defining feature of the MAGA crowd. Most ICE “officers” are MAGA people who nurse their feelings of inferiority — another feature of the ressentiment complex — behind badges. What we see in the videos of Good’s murder is not the enforcement of anything. It is a hate crime.

Follow the videos of the immediate scene to their end. You see the stunning indifference of Ross and his colleagues while Good slumps over in her car, which is at this point smashed into another vehicle on the side of the street. Ross approaches Good’s car but walks away without checking whether she is alive or dead. In one of these video clips, two ICE people share a moment of self- congratulatory glee, Good’s car behind them.

The Trump regime has since described Good as “a deranged leftist” (J.D. Vance) and “domestic terrorist” (Kristi Noem, President Trump’s shockingly primitive Homeland Security secretary). Vance, Trump’s v.p., describes Good’s murder as “a tragedy of her own making” and promises Ross “total immunity” from prosecution.

On the Streets

What happened last Wednesday in Minneapolis and what has happened since has got a lot of Americans out in the streets. They are demonstrating against ICE, yes, but a lot of other things, too —Trump’s lawless presidency, the collapse of American democracy, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s laundering of the Epstein files such that what is disclosed discloses nothing.

All good. Ordinary people are beginning to connect the dots and get off the sofa, having at last seen the oneness of the full-dress crisis in which the reigning regime has so swiftly plunged America. “Everything is a part of everything”: Remember that idiotic phrase from the 1960s? It does not seem so dreamy when you consider the American condition at the start of 2026.

I went to one of these demonstrations here on Sunday morning. It was a good turnout on the village green. I am pleased to be a member now of a statewide group called “ICE Out for Good” — a brilliant and compassionate pun that opens the mind as the meaning of the phrase takes hold.

Torrington is an old factory town in northwest Connecticut that once thrived on water power and the manufacture of brass products but now searches for a new way forward — a familiar story across the country. The remnants of the old, white working class now live side-by-side with a considerable population of Hispanics.

Torrington, population plus-or-minus 35,000, is vulnerable to the predations of ICE, to put the point simply. Nobody seems to know when the agency’s goons will come, but it seems a given that at a certain point they will.

The crowd at Coe Memorial Park Sunday came to several hundred and was properly spirited. And the placards held aloft were of infinite variety:

“ICE — Trump’s Gestapo.”

“Say her name.”

“Once you know, they all have to go.”

“Impeach Kristi Noem.”

“Protect neighbors, not Nazis.”

“Fuck ICE. No goons allowed.”

“America is anti-fascist. Fascism is anti–American.”

Etc. Now you know what a little speck of America sounded like this past weekend.

On the way home I thought about what I had seen, read on placards, and heard in conversations. I am leery of hyperbole, as it does nothing to clarify one’s moment, but is “fascism” at last our word? So I wondered. We are certainly closer to it than I imagined even a few months ago.

In this connection, I was bitterly amused to see Kristi Noem, as she declared she would urge the Justice Department to prosecute those of Renee Good’s kind as domestic terrorists, wearing a brown shirt (along with an outsized cowboy hat that made her look like a high school cheerleader somewhere in Texas).

Memo to Secretary Noem: Anything but brown next time.


Noem holding a press conference at the border in Brownsville, Texas, on Jan. 7. (Mikaela McGee/DHS /Flickr/U.S. government)

I count this a new moment as of last week. How to define it, how to name it deserves careful consideration, and I will give it some in a future column — accurate nomenclature being the key to clarity of mind.

But there was one placard that I will address right away. It was a piece of brown cardboard held by a kindly lady dressed in pajamas and slippers and holding her dog beneath her overcoat. It read:

“Look up. Imperial boomerang.”

How exceptionally astute is this? It seems to me this is what Americans must most urgently think about now if they are to understand their new moment.


Anti-ICE protest in Torrington on Sunday. (Cara Marianna)

The policy cliques in Washington and the pols that front for them have managed an imperium for nearly 80 years now, and no imperium is ever managed without violence. Was it anything other than a matter of time before what the American empire has long done abroad would eventually turn out to be what the empire would have to do at home to preserve itself?

A lot of the placards I read this past weekend in Torrington had to do with the defense of American democracy:

“Save our Constitution.”

“Criminalizing dissent is un–American.”

These sentiments go straight to the point. Since the United States began to cultivate its imperial aspirations 128 years ago — taking my date from the Spanish–American War — it has all along been a choice between democracy at home or empire abroad.

It is not an original thought. Twain and others in the Anti–Imperialist League got this right as the 19th century turned into the 20th .

ICE is at bottom a paramilitary force — precisely of the kind the United States has supported abroad in numerous cases over the past 80 years. Now the managers of the imperium impose one on Americans. Any understanding of this new moment must begin with this reality.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/12/p ... boomerang/

(And they can't believe that bourgeois democracy was only a curtain all along...)

PPS - Ms Noem thinks she's hot stuff and likes to play dress-up.

******

Illinois, Minnesota Sue Over Trump ICE Agents Who ‘Have Acted as Occupiers’
Posted on January 13, 2026 by Yves Smith

Yves here. While it is an open question as to whether litigation to stop ICE violence and flagrant disregard for long-standing policing practices, IMHO the presumption that the Supreme Court would back Trump not a given. Supreme Courts regularly skew their rulings in favor of evolving public sentiment. It has hit the point that even GOP members see Trump as having gone too far, witness Senator Tom Tillis fiercely criticizing Trump over his criminal investigation of Powell and the large number of GOP Congresscritters who have decided not to seek re-election. And even before the ICE savagery, polls found considerable opposition to Trump defiance of court rulings.


Now admittedly this is all moot if Trump manages to gin up a pretext for declaring martial law. But reports that the Pentagon is telling Trump “no” or at “not now” over his Greenland adventurism and his eagerness to attack Iran say that, perversely, our protection from Trump may come via a soft military coup, in the form of it not executing his orders. This happened before, as Douglas Macgregor recounted long form. Trump ordered the withdrawal from Afghanistan at the very end of Trump 1.0 and went through all the proper forms, but the armed services ignored him.

By Jessica Corbett, a staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

Illinois and Minnesota, along with targeted cities in both states, filed a pair of federal lawsuits on Monday in hopes of ending deadly operations by President Donald Trump administration’s intended to hunt down and deport immigrants.

Trump has sent thousands of US Department of Homeland Security agents—including from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to the Twin Cities in recent days for an operation that resulted in the death of Renee Good, a US citizen and mother fatally shot by a federal officer in Minneapolis.

Amid the mounting violence by federal agents in Minnesota and the Trump administration’s related propaganda—which have fueled protests across the country—the state’s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, plus the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, took aim at DHS, CBP, ICE, and various agency leaders in a US district court.

“Defendants claim this unprecedented surge of immigration agents is necessary to fight fraud,” says the complaint, filed in the District of Minnesota. “In reality, the massive deployment of armed agents to Minnesota bears no connection to that stated objective and instead reflects an alarming escalation of the Trump administration’s retaliatory actions towards the state.”

In a Monday statement, Ellison stressed that “the unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota.”

“People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted,” he noted. “Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing. This federal invasion of the Twin Cities has to stop, so today I am suing DHS to bring it to an end.”

As footage of an ICE officer shooting Good began to circulate online last week, Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey publicly told the agency to “get the fuck out” of his city. On Monday, he added that “when federal actions undermine public safety, harm our neighbors, and violate constitutional rights, we have a responsibility to act. That’s exactly what we’re doing today.”

Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota this year followed the September launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” in Illinois, which targeted Chicago and its suburbs—where immigration agents have also shot multiple people in recent months, including one fatally.

“Border Patrol agents and ICE officers have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law,” Democratic Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul declared Monday. “They randomly, and often violently, question residents. Without warrants or probable cause, they brutally detain citizens and noncitizens alike.”

“They use tear gas and other chemical weapons against bystanders, injuring dozens, including children, the elderly, and local police officers,” he continued. “I filed this lawsuit to stand up for the safety of the people of Illinois and the sovereignty of our state.”

The 103-page suit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois, followed another from the state and city of Chicago that blocked Trump’s attempt to deploy the National Guard in the area, as he had done in Los Angeles, California and Washington, DC. At the end of last month, the president announced troops would leave Chicago, LA, and Portland, Oregon, but also said that “we will come back.”

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—a frequent critic of the president—said Monday that “Illinois is once again taking Donald Trump to court to hold his administration accountable for their unlawful tactics, unnecessary escalations, and flagrant abuses of power.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson emphasized that “these actions weren’t just unlawful; they were cruel, needlessly inflicting fear and harm on our communities.”

“My administration will forcefully protect our residents’ rights and hold anyone accountable who abuses their power,” Johnson pledged. “Nobody is above the law. This lawsuit is about ensuring there is accountability for the lawless actions of the Trump administration and justice for the Chicagoans who have been wronged.”


In statements to multiple media outlets, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin made clear that the Trump administration plans to fight back against both states’ moves. She called the Illinois filing “a baseless lawsuit,” and saidof the Minnesota case, “We have the Constitution on our side on this, and we look forward to proving that in court.”

Meanwhile, critics of the Trump administration, and particularly its immigration operations, welcomed the new suits.

Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a daughter of immigrants, wrote in a social media post about the suit in her state that “DHS’s terror force is the greatest threat to our safety. Their militarized invasion of our cities puts us all at risk. They need to be defunded. They need to be held accountable. In the streets, in Congress, and in courts, we will fight to protect our communities, and we will win.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01 ... piers.html

[blindpig]

ICE detains Indigenous people in Minneapolis, tribes cite treaty violations
January 14, 2026 Gary Wilson


Rachel Dionne Thunder, an Indigenous activist, shares her experience of federal agents attempting to detain her on Jan. 9.

Federal immigration agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have seized at least five Indigenous people during raids in Minneapolis in early January, triggering furious denunciations from tribal governments who say the arrests violate binding treaties.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe confirmed that ICE is holding four Oglala Lakota people who were arrested near the Little Earth housing complex in the East Phillips neighborhood. A fifth person, Jose Roberto Ramirez, a 20-year-old Red Lake Anishinaabe man, was also detained after ICE agents repeatedly punched him in the face while he was complying with their orders, according to video evidence and family testimony.

“This is a treaty violation. Treaties are not optional. Sovereignty is not conditional. Our citizens are not negotiable,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in a statement. “The irony is not lost on us.”

Militarized raids target Indigenous people

The detentions occurred as roughly 2,000 ICE agents and other federal personnel swarmed the Twin Cities in one of the largest immigration enforcement operations in the region’s history. The raids followed the Jan. 8 killing of Renee Nicole Good, a legal observer and mother of three, who was shot by ICE agents during protests against the crackdown — underscoring the level of force now being deployed against entire communities.

Tribal leaders say ICE has no jurisdiction

When the Oglala Sioux Tribe demanded information about its detained members, federal officials responded with an ultimatum: the tribe would only receive details if it entered into a formal agreement with ICE. Tribal leadership refused, stating that such an agreement would directly violate treaties that explicitly recognize tribal sovereignty and self-governance.

“We will not enter an agreement that would authorize, or make it easier for, ICE or Homeland Security to come onto our tribal homeland to arrest or detain our tribal members,” Star Comes Out wrote in a memo addressed to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The memorandum states plainly that “tribal citizens are not aliens” and are “categorically outside immigration jurisdiction.” The implication is unavoidable: federal agents are acting as if treaties do not exist.

Detentions tied to a site of genocide

ICE has established its base of operations at Fort Snelling, a site inseparable from the history of genocide and forced removal in Minnesota. In 1862, the U.S. military imprisoned Dakota people at Fort Snelling following the U.S.-Dakota War, a campaign that culminated in the mass execution of 38 Dakota men — the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

“The fact that Lakota citizens are reported to be held at Fort Snelling — a site forever tied to the Dakota 38+2 — underscores why treaty obligations and federal accountability matter today, not just in history,” Star Comes Out said.

Community mobilizes to block arrests

Indigenous communities have responded with rapid-response defense networks aimed at physically protecting tribal citizens from ICE seizures. On Jan. 10, Rachel Dionne-Thunder, founder of the Indigenous Peoples Movement, narrowly avoided arrest after ICE agents surrounded her vehicle and threatened to smash her window. Community members quickly converged on the scene, forcing agents to retreat.

“ICE returned to their vehicle and left me alone when they saw the power of our people,” Dionne-Thunder said at a press conference. “The real power is with the people — with our connection to each other and to the earth. That’s what they’re afraid of.”

Sam Strong, secretary of the Red Lake Chippewa Nation, said approximately 8,000 Red Lake citizens live in Minneapolis and are directly threatened by the raids. “We are going to protect each and every one of them, including our descendants,” Strong said. “We are going to defend our people, and we are going to stand up for all of Minneapolis, all of Minnesota.”

Tribal governments including the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Lac Courte Oreilles, and the Fond du Lac Band have issued statements condemning the raids and circulating “Know Your Rights” guidance. Several tribes are distributing free tribal identification cards while warning that documentation alone does not guarantee safety from detention under ICE operations.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has pledged aggressive legal action to secure the immediate release of its detained members.

Oglala Sioux Tribe bans Homeland Security’s Noem

In a related development, the tribe formally banned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation on Jan. 9, one day before the Minneapolis detentions were publicly confirmed.

The ban followed repeated comments by Noem, made while she was governor of South Dakota, claiming that “Mexican drug cartels” operate on tribal reservations and that murders on Pine Ridge were being committed by cartel members. Noem has also repeatedly described migration at the southern border as an “invasion.”

Star Comes Out rejected those claims outright, calling them a racist pretext for militarization and repression. He noted that many migrants arriving at the southern border are Indigenous people displaced by poverty, violence, and economic devastation rooted in U.S. imperialist policies.

“Calling the United States’ southern border an ‘invasion’ by illegal immigrants and criminal groups to justify deploying the National Guard is a red herring that the Oglala Sioux Tribe doesn’t support,” Star Comes Out said in the Jan. 9 statement announcing Noem’s ban from tribal lands.

The Native American Rights Fund has reiterated that ICE has no jurisdiction over Indigenous people in immigration matters and urged anyone whose rights have been violated to contact the organization at 303-447-8760.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2026/ ... iolations/

****

“Now is the time”: Minnesota calls for general strike on January 23 to drive ICE out

Faith groups, labor unions, community organizations, businesses, and more have come together to mobilize millions to withdraw from the economy on the day of action.

January 13, 2026 by Devin B. Martinez
Minnesota community calls for day of action against ICE



The movement against ICE has continued to surge in Minneapolis and across the United States in the wake of the killing of Renee Good.

On January 13, a coalition of faith leaders, union presidents, business owners, and community figures in Minneapolis called on “every worker in Minnesota to refuse to show up to work” and “every single Minnesotan to not spend a dime” on Friday, January 23, to demand an end to the “violence and horror” that ICE has unleashed on the community and the agency’s complete removal from the state.

“We are going to leverage our economic power, our labor, our prayer for one another,” said JaNaé Bates, co-executive director of Isaiah MN, an interfaith and multiracial community organizing network.

“We are not going to shop, we are not going to work, we are not going to school on Friday, January 23.”

Dozens of labor unions, faith groups, businesses, and community organizations across the state are backing the call, with many more joining by the hour. Bates added, “Some people they call that a strike. For many of us, we say this is our right to refusal until something changes.”

Instead of participating in the economy, the organizers are calling on people to use the day to be conscious of the community. Faith groups will be fasting and praying. And at 2pm in downtown Minneapolis, organizers hope millions will gather for a mass march.

“Now is the time,” said the minister. “If you ever wondered for yourself: ‘When is the time that we do something different? When is the time that we stand up and say that this has to change? That this needs to end?’ The time is now.”

Violence in Minnesota backed by Nazi rhetoric in Washington
Speakers at the press conference expressed outrage at the ICE killing of Renee Good, whose “whistle blowing was returned by bullets”. They also described the escalating violence by ICE agents against the community in recent days. According to videos on circulating on social media from Minneapolis, ICE is raiding homes, separating families, dragging employees from their workplaces, pepper spraying people, assaulting high school students and staff, shooting activists with flashbangs, and more.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued to defend the ICE operations with far-right rhetoric. US Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino recently called Minnesotans who oppose ICE “weak-minded”, echoing Nazi-era language about degeneracy and social cleansing. During a press conference on January 12, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had the line “One of ours, all of yours” on her podium. A shocking moment given that the slogan is directly linked to Nazi collective-punishment doctrine. The line comes from an atrocity known as the Lidice Massacre. After one Nazi soldier was killed in a Czech village, the Nazis massacred 170 men and boys of that village, deported 200 women, and killed 82 children in gas chambers.

On the morning of January 13, in a post on his Truth Social platform, US President Trump again claimed that there are thousands of violent criminals in Minnesota that ICE is removing.

Responding to Trump, Bates declared that Minnesotans do want to remove the criminals: “Those thousands of people committing crimes in the state are the ICE officers! Who have been ramming their cars into our people, who have been stealing our people, kidnapping folks, who have been beating folks up and dropping them off in random locations.”

“The beauty about Minnesotans is that we have stood up for each other. We have come together,” she said. The minister was flanked by business owners, faith leaders, and community figures who echoed the demand for ICE to leave Minnesota and any other state in which it is operating.

Faith-labor unity: “Prayer is not a passive activity. It is one that is of action.”
James Earl Johnson, pastor at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Saint Paul, said that January 23 will be a day to reflect on the truth and the call from God to love our neighbors.

“We will pray for the power we have as people of faith to stop this madness, and for ICE to leave Minnesota and any other state where their actions are abusing the children of God.”

Pastor Brian, of Zion Baptist Church, described the ICE presence in Minneapolis as “spiritual warfare”.

“Darkness can’t drive out darkness, right? Only light can break darkness. And we choose to be light today. We choose to speak peace and not hate. We choose unity and not division. And so we will collectively come together on the 23rd.”

JaNaé Bates underlined the duty of faith leaders and congregations in this moment to use fasting and prayer to mobilize the community against the militarized federal forces in the twin cities.

“Prayer is not a passive activity. It is one that is of action. It is one about transformation. It is one where we get to transform ourselves and this world.”

She also highlighted that faith communities are not in this fight alone, listing dozens of unions, businesses, and inter-faith organizations that have already joined the “Day of Truth and Freedom”.

Day of Truth and Freedom
Amid the “lies” by the Trump administration framing Renee Good as a “domestic terrorist”, leaders say truth is essential at this moment.

“The truth is … that life is sacred,” said Bates. “In no way, shape or form should we dismiss someone being killed. In no way, shape or form should we give excuses to people being harmed every day, right? That is the truth.”

The faith leader added: “We need to take a real pause, a real time to step away and say, you know what? Here is actually what is happening.”

Bates made the point that to live in fear, surrounded by violence, is not freedom.

“Freedom is not just the freedom from constraints. It is the freedom to have safety. It is the freedom to have joy. It’s the freedom to be able to thrive. That is why we are choosing this day of freedom and truth.”

Community leaders reiterated the call for every single Minnesotan who loves “this notion of truth and freedom”, to refuse to work, shop, or go to school on January 23.

Organizers asked people to spend the next ten days before the day of action talking to businesses, small and large, and ask them what their plan is for Friday, January 23, and how they are standing up to demand that ICE leave Minnesota.

This thing called hope
“I am a woman of faith. And there’s this thing we talk about called hope,” Bates said, in response to a reporter asking her if she thinks the strike day will work to drive ICE out.

“I believe this is going to rock this state in the most beautiful and glorious of ways. It is going to open our eyes to what is possible,” the minister said.

“For too long we have been told nothing is possible. Bow down. Obey. And do whatever it is that somebody at the top says to do. But we know that that is a lie from the pit of hell. And let me tell y’all this, there is so much that is able to be accomplished when we come together and say no more to what is awful and yes to what is possible.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/ ... e-ice-out/

******

The United States is turning into a brutal Gestapo state

George Samuelson

January 14, 2026

If Mrs. Good was a “domestic terrorist,” then the United States is a breeding ground of all those millions of “terrorists” who drive around town with their families inside of SUVs.

Americans took to the streets over the weekend in over 1,000 protests across the country to demand justice for a mother who was shot dead by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Renee Nicole Good was your typical suburban American. She was the mother of three children and liked to write poetry. But on January 7, her life was cut tragically short when she was shot in the head by an ICE agent, yet another tragedy that has sharply divided the nation. The protesters insist that Good was unjustly killed, and the visual evidence of the incident strongly supports that argument.

Good was seen on video blocking a neighborhood street with her SUV. While that is certainly grounds for law enforcement to arrive on the scene, what happened in the course of action defies logic. As two ICE agents approach the vehicle, no attempt to calmly converse with Good was seen. Instead, one of the agents grabs the door handle and aggressively demanded that Good exit the vehicle. Obviously scared by the encounter, Good made a fatal decision as she attempted to flee the scene. This caused the second officer, who was standing off to the left in front of the vehicle, to open fire at the windshield with three bullets, hitting Good in the head and killing her instantly.

Most people by now recognize the difference between a regular police stop and the abuse of police powers. A routine police stop involves the officer speaking to the driver in a calm manner while performing the necessary task of checking documents, like the driver’s license and registration. Most Americans are rightly frightened when they get pulled over by the police, and this necessitates that the intervening officer keep the situation under control. That was clearly not the case with Renee Good, who had the misfortune of coming in contact with an ICE agent who is clearly in the wrong profession.

While the jury is still out on the incident, it does not bode well for civil rights in the United States how Good was treated by the Trump administration following the cold-blooded murder. Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, portrayed the victim, a mother and award-winning poet, as a “domestic terrorist”. Good, Noem continued without providing any evidence, had been “stalking and impeding” ICE officers before “weaponizing her vehicle” in an effort to run over the agent who ultimately killed her.

The victim-blaming did not end there. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a spokesperson for ICE, declared in a post on X that “one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them – an act of domestic terrorism”.

And just like that, an American mother has been placed in the same category as Osama bin Laden. This gross characterization will only serve to reinforce law enforcement in the United States that they are justified for using any means necessary to fight against “the enemy,” which are the very people they are supposed to protect. Two days after the killing of Mrs. Good, Border Patrol agents in Portland, Oregon shot at the occupants of a vehicle as they attempted to flee.

When the Border Patrol agents identified themselves to the car’s occupants, “the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents,” McLaughlin said. One agent, “fearing for his life and safety,” fired a shot, and the driver sped off with the passenger, she said. The occupants of the vehicle survived the attack while an investigation into the shooting is unlikely to provide any real answers.

Of course, there are times when there is no choice but for the authorities to use deadly force when confronting certain individuals in particular cases. What is disturbing about the recent incidences, however, is that the Trump administration is tossing around explosive terms like “domestic terrorists” and “rioters” before any investigation has begun.

It is very difficult to believe that Mrs. Good was a “domestic terrorist.” If that were true, then the United States is a breeding ground of all those millions of ‘terrorists’ who drive around town with their families inside of SUVs. The US Constitution clearly provides for the American people to have the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly and the freedom to address the wrongs of the US government. All of those liberties were glaringly denied to this single American mother, who tragically lost her life due to the brazen behavior of law enforcement. The Trump administration has a duty to not only round up illegal immigrants, but to make sure American citizens are not treated like terrorists in the process.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/ ... apo-state/

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Renee Good, Keith Porter and the Normalization of Police Violence

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 14 Jan 2026


Law enforcement in the United States is responsible for more than 1,100 deaths in a typical year. This level of bloodshed goes unnoted even when police killings are deemed newsworthy and attract public attention. Police impunity is accepted and normalized by millions of people.

The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has ignited a firestorm of condemnation and protest across the country. The Trump administration unleashed ICE not just on undocumented immigrants, but on anyone who opposes their actions in any way, or, like Good, may be in the line of fire because they attempted to protest. ICE officers have assaulted not just the people they seek to capture, but also people trying to defend them, and charged them criminally with obstruction. The scenes of assaults and violent kidnappings are shocking to the conscience of millions of people and have become a focal point for protest in the U.S.

Despite the righteous outrage evoked by Nicole Good’s killing, however, it is important to remember that her experience was not at all singular. The Mapping Police Violence project reports that at least 1,182 people were killed by police in the United States in 2025, an average of at least three people every day. There were only seven days in 2025 during which there were no documented instances of police killing anyone.

It is inevitable that the shooting raises discussions on racism and state violence, as well it should. But white people like Ms. Good can also be found on this awful list. Of the 1,182 people killed by police in 2025, 397 were white. It is still true that Black people are the most likely to be killed by police, but the level of carnage itself is striking, with the U.S. once again being an outlier nation in a terrible metric.

Periodically, a police killing will electrify public attention, as happened with George Floyd, also in Minneapolis, in 2020. The video footage of his murder galvanized masses of people around the country in numbers that had not been seen for decades. Yet the focus on highly publicized cases obscures a disturbing fact. State violence is normalized to such an extent that what is a common occurrence is treated as though it is a rarity.

Of course, it is very necessary to dissect and to analyze body camera footage and videos from bystanders, and as always, to question law enforcement accounts of their actions. But there is a larger question at work about rights we think we have when we actually don’t, and how what passes for a criminal justice system very rarely punishes murder when committed by people who wear law enforcement uniforms.

There is another recent case of a fatal shooting committed by ICE. On December 31, 2025, a Black man named Keith Porter was shot to death by an off-duty ICE officer in Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles police have not identified the shooter nor have they provided information on their investigation, allowing the Department of Homeland Security to comment on its own agency, which refers to Porter as an “active shooter” who allegedly exchanged gunfire with the ICE officer. This response to Porter’s killing is far more typical, with the victim’s actions being questioned while the person who took his life is defended or, as in this case, is allowed to disappear altogether.

The outrage expressed after the shooting of Renee Good gained national attention because it involved ICE in a state specifically targeted by the Trump administration for enhanced enforcement, and—of course—because she was white. Yet the righteous response is partly misguided because the narratives almost always express shock that a white woman was killed. But, in reality, white people are killed all the time by police, an average of once every day. Of course, Black people are also killed every day by police, but as a smaller percentage of the population, that number is an indicator of the high levels of oppression exercised against Black people.

Protests surrounding police murders follow the same sad pattern of temporary media attention, righteous indignation, and calls for reform or abolition, while little is said about the impunity that leads to more than 1,100 people being killed every year. Policing is one of the most well-funded governmental operations in the U.S. ICE is now the biggest federal law enforcement agency, but nationwide, local and state police departments are funded to the tune of $178 billion annually. Not only is ICE the biggest federal law enforcement agency, but its budget is larger than the military budgets of most countries.

The United States is a police state in the truest sense of the term, and the bloodshed that sometimes boils over into national consciousness should be recognized as being common and not a strange occurrence. If that acknowledgement is not made amid the protests, then those protests are for naught.

As Black Agenda Report pointed out in 2017, the drive to keep Black people under control cannot always be controlled and thus, there are white victims. An armed police force given a mandate to kill inevitably will endanger everyone. The genie cannot be put back into the bottle if the use of force is given state sanction.

That sanction comes from the majority of white people, who demand that Black people be surveilled, locked up and shot. The Minnesotans who took to the streets to denounce the killings of George Floyd and Renee Good are to be commended, yet they are the outliers in their community. Police violence is normalized because it is what millions of other white people want. When members of that same group are victimized, they are caught in a conundrum. Disputed accounts about what transpired before ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good are largely biased in his favor. Showing any skepticism about his actions would create troublesome cognitive dissonance.

Good is that odd white person who has been vilified because she was murdered by an agent of the state. The Department of Homeland Security said that her actions constituted “domestic terrorism.” The President and Vice President of the United States have both called her “violent,” “radical,” and a participant in “classic terrorism.” Porter gets the usual treatment. The man who shot and killed him was a resident of the same apartment complex. Porter’s family said he was firing into the air in a New Year’s Eve celebration and posed no danger to anyone. Currently, there are no witnesses to the shooting, and there is no video evidence. The account of his unnamed killer is given credence and protection. Keith Porter’s family has secured legal counsel but if his case follows the usual trajectory, they may win monetary damages but the leveling of any criminal charges against his murderer is highly unlikely.

The U.S. Department of Justice is not investigating Good’s killing but is instead investigating her wife and her actions, and her background. Six federal prosecutors recently resigned, reportedly in protest over the choice of the investigation target. Minnesota state prosecutors are asserting their rights to carry on an independent investigation. So it is possible that there may be some justice for Good But it is extremely unlikely that there will be any for Porter. Regardless of the outcome, Good is not coming back to life.

The U.S. often refers to nations named as enemies as “state sponsors of terrorism.” It doesn’t mean much except that the country doesn’t act in ways that the U.S. wants. State-sponsored terrorism is far more common in this country, and it comes under the guise of providing protection. The perpetrators may be ICE or the NYPD, or LAPD or some other iteration. When killing is justified by the agents of these entities, then Renee Good, Keith Porter, and more than a thousand unnamed people every year, will pay the price as long as the determination to give a license to kill continues.

https://blackagendareport.com/renee-goo ... e-violence

Spinning Half-truth straw into big lie gold…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence 14 Jan 2026



POP-POP-POP … One, two, three kill shots disturbing
ICE-cold Minnesota morning. Morning frozen in the past.
Bloodstained airbag. Driver-side door ajar. A
Third Reich-ish morning ambush on crooked legs of big lies …

Expletives dripping from masked lips— shooter man struts
away after blasting 3 holes into the bullseye. No pulse to check.
No blood to scrub. No tears to fight. He prances away as if it was
routine rifle range target practice. Or, the video game of — Gaza.

Made his bones. No one to answer to but remote-controlled, traitorous,
CRC: Cruel Reich Cult. They got his back. The violence-worshipping
vampiric cult celebrates bloodshed. And for its Fox-box foot soldiers
heirs of Goebbels quickly begin to spin half-truth straw into big lie gold …

No semiautomatic “thoughts and prayers.” No “Political violence is
unacceptable.” “Indefensible.” or, “has no place in our democracy.”
No “good guy with gun is the only thing that could’ve stopped bad guy
with gun.” Mother-poet-guitarist-legal observer’s character must die too.

Career criminal 34-count felon floods the zone riddling her body with dreck-
dipped bullets. Buckeye big lie “Haitians are eating the dogs” architect empties
his clip center mass. Puppy-killing princess of darkness, fires “domestic terrorist”
shots. “Weaponized vehicle” shots. Blonde Lil Eva Braun blasts “lunatic” rounds …

School Shooting Du Jour; War Of The Week; Nonstop Genocide—
Holy trinity, sacred triad of violence worshipped daily by Warfare State.
And besides, didn’t its high priest—pomade man— prance and pontificate to a roomful of medals “ Maximum lethality—not tepid legality.” “Violent effect—not politically correct?”

© 2026. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

https://blackagendareport.com/spinning- ... g-lie-gold

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ICE Agent Shot Person During Arrest Attempt in Minneapolis


ICE agents in Minneapolis, U.S., Jan. 14, 2026. X/ @AnarchoPhil2

January 15, 2026 Hour: 9:23 am

This incident comes a week after fatal ICE shooting in the same city.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a person in the leg during an attempted arrest.

The ICE agent fired his weapon after an undocumented immigrant allegedly violently assaulted the officer while resisting arrest. The incident occurred in downtown Minneapolis, the same Minnesota city where an ICE agent shot and killed Renne Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, one week ago.

The injured migrant first attempted to evade arrest by fleeing in a car, which crashed into another parked vehicle, and then continued to flee on foot, the DHS stated.

When the ICE agent tried to apprehend him, the individual resisted and “violently assaulted” the officer, while two additional people emerged from a nearby apartment and also attacked the agent with a snow shovel and a broom handle.

BREAKING: Here is the video that the family of the man who was just shot by ICE in Minneapolis recorded as they were on the phone with 911 trying to get the police to come out to their house and while ICE was still outside.

ICE appears to be blatantly lying about what actually… pic.twitter.com/X5rAjwm7kt

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 15, 2026

“Fearing for his life and safety while being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired defensive shots to protect his life. The initial subject was wounded in the leg,” the Department of Homeland Security said.

According to local television reports, the wounded person is a Venezuelan national, but that information has not yet been confirmed by authorities. Currently, both the officer and the person who was shot are hospitalized.

The scene of the attack is filled with protesters demanding the identification of the ICE agent who fired his weapon during the operation, while dozens of federal agents are attempting to secure the area.

On Jan. 7, Good died after being shot by an ICE agent in the same city, triggering thousands of protests nationwide and straining relations between local authorities and the administration of President Donald Trump, who has openly defended the actions of the agents.

During the first year of Trump’s term, ICE intensified its arrest and deportation operations, recording several shooting incidents that left people dead and injured, prompting criticism over the use of lethal force and protests in cities across the country.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/ice-agen ... nneapolis/

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JOHN KIRIAKOU: Unabated US Prisoner Abuse
January 16, 2026

Guards are leaving federal inmates in restraints for hours and even, in dozens of cases, as long as a week. That’s just the latest finding on abuses pervading the system.


U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. (Steve Fernie /Flickr/ CC BY-NC 2.0)

By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News

I’m a regular writer on prison conditions across the United States. Stated plainly, all Americans should be ashamed of the states of U.S. prisons, whether at the federal, state or local levels.

Overall prison conditions, medical care, poor food quality, violence, the use of solitary confinement as a punishment, drug and other contraband sales by guards, and sexual abuse are on par with some of the worst prison systems in the world. Indeed, they are akin to the situation in many underdeveloped countries.

The conventional wisdom in the United States is that the federal system is better than state and local prison systems and, if you must go to prison, you should want to be a federal facility. That’s not saying much.

The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a broken, dysfunctional mess, even though President Donald Trump actually tried to shake up the place by naming a former federal prisoner as the BOP’s deputy director. A year in to Trump’s second term, however, there are no notable improvements.

Animal-Grade Food

Medical care remains substandard, to put it nicely. It is not unusual, for example, for prisoners to complain repeatedly to their prison’s medical unit of serious symptoms, only to be given Tylenol or, frequently, accused of malingering and given nothing.

Months later, we read in the criminal justice media that the prison had cancer or AIDS or some other dread disease and that their family or estate had filed suit against the BOP for wrongful death.

Similarly, much prison food is classified as “animal grade,” rather than “human grade.” I’m not talking about the year-old dyed green bagels that prisoners get every day for months after they went unsold during the previous year’s St. Patrick’s Day. (I’m not joking here.)

I’m talking about food that is literally not meant for humans. When I first arrived in prison, on my first full day there, I saw boxes of fish stacked up behind the “chow line” in the cafeteria and clearly marked, “Alaskan Cod—Product of China—Not for Human Consumption—Feed Use Only.” I declined the fish.

Part of the problem is that many prisons have been privatized, at all levels of government. Companies like GEO make a profit by spending as little money on prisoners as possible. And the easiest way to cut costs is in food and medication.

And who’s going to do anything about it? Can you imagine being a member of Congress running for reelection, and going out on the campaign trail to say, “I want to give prisoners BETTER food and medicine!” You won’t win many new votes.


Headquarters of the GEO Group in Boca Raton, Florida, 2013. (Eflatmajor7th /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0)

The problems in the BOP go beyond food and medical care. I wrote recently in Consortium News about the arrests of a huge number of prison guards across the country on charges of bringing drugs, cell phones, and other contraband into prisons. It happens every day. But there are other problems besides these obvious ones that are not being addressed.

Unrestrained Restraints

Earlier this year, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (IG) released a report taking the BOP to task for misusing restraints against prisoners. The IG found “thousands of incidents” where BOP guards kept prisoners in restraints involving both wrists and both ankles for at 16 hours.

In hundreds of incidents, prisoners were restrained for more than 24 hours, as well as dozens where prisoners were kept in restraints for as long as a week.

The law is clear that when a prisoner is in restraints, he must be checked every 15 minutes by a guard, every two hours by a lieutenant, every four hours by medical staff, and every eight hours by a psychologist. But a majority of guards were found to not understand the definition of the word “restraint,” and so the extra supervision was rarely enforced.

Violence continues to be endemic in federal prisons. I’m not talking about prisoner-on-prisoner violence, which is to be expected. I’m talking about guard-on-prisoner violence, which, of course, is illegal, yet common.

In one recent example, a prisoner identified in court documents as JM bought a straw hat from the prison commissary. A guard, apparently not knowing that straw hats were for sale in the commissary confiscated it from JM.

Several hours later, JM asked for his hat back, only for the guard to pull him into an area not covered by security cameras. The guard beat JM severely, shoved a blunt object up his anus, and left him bleeding on the floor.

JM eventually made his way to the prison nurse, who refused to allow him to filed a sexual assault complaint against the guard. And when he complained in writing, he was transferred to a higher-security prison. JM said in his lawsuit that he knew the protocol for reporting such a crime because this was the second time a guard had sexually assaulted him.

The Justice Department isn’t spending money on food or medication for prisoners, nor is it spending money to maintain the physical plant of its prisons.

U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan, where Jeffrey Epstein died, were closed because they were literally uninhabitable. The Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Dublin, California, the site of the BOP’s “rape club” was deemed to be “unreformable.”

Fourteen prison officials, including the warden, the chaplain, the captain, and the doctor were charged with raping dozens of female prisoners, who ended up sharing in a $114 million federal settlement.

And now FCI Terminal Island, California, is being closed because chunks of concrete are falling from the facility’s ceiling. One chunk was so big that it disabled the heating system for the entire prison. It would have been only a matter of time before someone was killed or injured.

Trump said earlier this month that he wanted to increase the Pentagon’s budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The current budget is already more than the next eight largest countries’ defense budgets combined. How about a few bucks to ensure the most basic human rights of America’s prisoners?

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/16/j ... ner-abuse/

******

US Judge Blocks ICE Force in Minnesota Protests

Minnesota judge limits ICE actions against peaceful protesters after fatal raid.


Demonstrators gather outside a federal building in Minneapolis as ICE monitors the protest. Photo: @axios

January 17, 2026 Hour: 6:56 am

A Minnesota judge bars ICE from using force or making unjustified detentions amid protests following a fatal immigration raid.

A federal judge has barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota from using force against peaceful demonstrators, citing serious concerns over reported misconduct.

Judge Katherine Menendez, in an 83-page ruling, prohibited the use of pepper spray or non-lethal munitions against nonviolent protesters. The order also forbids detaining drivers or passengers without “any reasonable and articulable suspicion.”

Menendez highlighted troubling reports that federal agents threatened to break car windows, waited outside activists’ homes, pursued them, or warned they might appear at their residences. “There may be sufficient suspicion to stop cars, or even arrest drivers engaging in dangerous conduct while following immigration officers, but that does not justify stopping vehicles that are not breaking the law,” she wrote.


The restrictions follow heightened protests after Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent during a raid. Demonstrators filed complaints with the Department of Homeland Security, alleging violations of their constitutional rights to free speech under the First Amendment and protection from unlawful detention under the Fourth Amendment.

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said authorities were acting to protect officials and the public from dangerous agitators, noting that agents had been injured but had used minimal force. The Trump administration also criticized Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, accusing them of obstructing ICE operations.


ICE’s presence has faced growing public opposition, amid incidents including the death of a Venezuelan national, injuries to two people in Portland, and two deaths in ICE custody. President Trump warned he could intervene in Minnesota if necessary, promising to act “quickly and effectively.”

The judge’s order will remain in effect until the heightened ICE deployment in Minneapolis ends.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/us-judge ... -protests/

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‘We will get ICE out of Minnesota’: Community, unions mobilize for Jan. 23
January 17, 2026 Melinda Butterfield


In Minneapolis, 100,000 people marched against ICE terror and the murder of Renee Good on Jan. 10, 2026. Photo: MIRAC

Imagine federal agents are besieging your neighborhood. Gas canisters and explosives are popping off all around. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have just shot someone nearby.

You pile your children, including your six-month-old baby, into the family car to get them out of harm’s way.

“Officers threw flash bangs and tear gas in my car. I got six kids in the car,” Shawn Jackson told TV station KMSP. “My 6-month-old can’t even breathe.”

“The explosions were strong enough to trigger the car’s airbags,” Raw Story reported.

“They were innocent bystanders driving through what should have been a peaceful protest when things took a turn,” Destiny Jackson, the children’s mother, explained. ICE agents “began to start throwing tear gas bombs everywhere.”

“One of the bombs rolled under our truck, and within seconds our truck lifted up off the ground, and the airbags deployed, the car doors locked themselves, and the car began to fill with the powerful tear gas. We fought hard to get the doors open and get all of the kids out. Bystanders had to help.”

The baby stopped breathing, requiring emergency CPR on the scene. All six children were hospitalized.


Memorial for Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Photo: MIRAC

Now imagine you and your wife just dropped off your child at school. You get a notification that ICE agents are threatening neighbors nearby. You drive to the location to observe and document the abuses.

An ICE agent threatens you. You and your wife return to your vehicle and attempt to move away from the scene. The federal cop pulls a gun and shoots your wife in the face four times, killing her.

“We had whistles,” said Becca Good, the widow of Renee Nicole Good. “They had guns.”

Imagine you are a disabled person on your way to a checkup at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center. ICE agents stop your car. You explain your situation and ask to be flagged through. Instead, the masked, gun-toting men pull you violently out of your vehicle.

“In the video, one masked agent smashes [Aliya] Rahman’s passenger side window while others cut her seatbelt and drag her out of the car through the driver’s side door. Numerous guards then carried her by her arms and legs toward an ICE vehicle,” reported the CBC.

“While in custody, Rahman said she repeatedly asked for a doctor, but was instead taken to the detention center.”

“I thought I was going to die,” said Rahman. She was put in detention, where she lost consciousness. Eventually, she was hospitalized, and credits the emergency staff with saving her life.

It’s January 2026. Welcome to Minneapolis.

Community fights back

The horrors are real. For many workers across the U.S., especially white people, the plentiful videos and testimonies are shocking. To Black and Brown people, the scenes seem all too familiar.

All of the people mentioned above were U.S. citizens. None were doing anything illegal.

The scale of the repression unleashed on the Upper Midwestern city by the Trump regime and its ICE, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is genuinely shocking. The city has been flooded with thousands of federal agents, far outnumbering the local police force.

Agents have begun going door-to-door to terrorize residents, under the command of CPB head Gregory Bovino. Schools began offering remote classes after high school students were attacked by Border Patrol agents.

Members of the Oglala Sioux tribe have been detained in violation of treaties. It’s believed that the U.S. government is holding them hostage to force the Indigenous nation to make an agreement with ICE.

The pretext for the violence? A story promoted by a MAGA YouTube “influencer” about a supposed scandal involving state funding of child daycares in the Somali community.

Last year, “Congress gave ICE $75 billion over four years, approximately $18.7 billion each year. Added to the $10 billion Congress already appropriated ICE for fiscal year 2025 in March, ICE now has $28.7 billion at its disposal this year. That $28.7 billion figure is nearly triple ICE’s entire budget for FY24,” reported Brennan Center for Justice.

That money has been used to recruit thousands of far-right bigots – including members of the Patriot Front and Proud Boys, participants in the January 6, 2021, coup attempt, and former police, Special Forces and prison guards. The government’s recruitment campaign is built on openly fascist imagery and slogans. There is no effort to vet the recruits.

The results, seen on the streets of Minneapolis, are exactly as intended.

On Jan. 15 – the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in U.S. troops to crush protests in Minneapolis. Readers may remember that Trump made similar threats when the country erupted in protests following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

But there are other viral videos too. They show dozens, hundreds, and thousands of Minnesotans responding to every ICE attack on Somalian, Hmong, and Mexican migrants and other people of color – often chasing off the armed bigots, sometimes freeing targeted people, being wounded and threatened but refusing to back down. Students have walked out of classes from Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul to Duluth and Madison, Wisconsin.

Videos show working people and youth adopting creative tactics, like pouring water around ICE headquarters in the freezing Minnesota cold to slow down and trip up the fascist troops.

While the federal government uses its familiar tactic of claiming “outside agitators” are responsible for protests, the real outsiders – ICE and other federal goons – have shown themselves poorly equipped to deal with the Minnesota winter, slipping and sliding on black ice patches as they attempt to terrorize legal observers.

Across the city, people armed with whistles, phone cameras and gas masks are ready to respond to ICE raids at a moment’s notice. Community organizations and churches deliver meals to immigrant families so they don’t have to leave their homes.

On Jan. 10, three days after the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 100,000 people answered a call to protest by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) to demand “ICE Out of Minnesota, Real Sanctuary Now, and Justice for Renee Good.”

The march united migrant communities, unions, the LGBTQIA+ community, Indigenous nations, students, anti-war organizations, and people of all nationalities against government terrorism.

Jan. 23 ‘Day of Truth and Freedom’

Struggle-La Lucha spoke to Mira Altobell-Resendez of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC). “We’re unable to go about business as usual with these racist attacks taking place everywhere, all day, every day,” they explained.

“We will keep up the fight for immigrant rights no matter what the Trump regime throws at us because we are powerful when we stand united. We will get ICE out of Minnesota.”

MIRAC, along with local unions, churches and community-based organizations, has called for an ICE Out of Minnesota day of action on Friday, Jan. 23: “Day of Truth and Freedom: No Work, No School, No Shopping.” A mass march is planned in downtown Minneapolis at 2:00 p.m.

The demands for the day of action are:

ICE must leave Minnesota now.
The agent who killed Renee Good must be held legally accountable.
No additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming Congressional budget; ICE must be investigated for human and constitutional violations.
Minnesotan and national companies must cease economic relations with ICE and refuse ICE entry or using their property for staging grounds.
“MIRAC sees the Jan 23 call to action as a necessary escalation in resisting the violent federal occupation by ICE,” Altobell-Resendez told SLL.

On Jan. 16, local and state labor federations and councils officially endorsed the call, opening up the possibility for the Day of Truth and Freedom to take on the character of a general strike.

Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation President Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou said: “Working people, our schools and our communities are under attack. Union members are being detained commuting to and from work, tearing apart families. Parents are being forced to stay home, students held out of school, fearing for their lives, all while the employer class remains silent.

“Our labor federations are encouraging everyone to participate on Jan. 23. It’s time for every single Minnesotan who loves this state and the notion of truth and freedom to raise their voices and deepen their solidarity for our neighbors and coworkers living under this federal occupation.”

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2026/ ... or-jan-23/