"...Every authoritarian regime
throughout history has employed a roving band of armed thugs who
operate outside the law to enforce its strongman’s will. Caesar had his
Praetorian Guard, Francios Duvalier had his Tonton Macoutes, Hitler had
his Gestapo.
Donald
Trump has ICE. ICE is functionally a paramilitary organization, armed
and empowered to harass citizens, brutalize opposition, and murder
people who get in their way. Like any paramilitary apparatus, its chief
aim is to strike fear in the population. It does this not only through
feats of violence, false imprisonment, and kidnapping but also by
repeatedly showing us it can’t be held accountable for its actions. ICE
agents can seemingly do anything they want, and no one is allowed to
stop them: They know it, and they want us to know it.
When
we look at the historical record, the horrifying reality of these thug
paramilitaries is that they do not naturally melt away when the
strongman is finally deposed. They stay on. They align themselves with
the next strongman, or the strongman who wants to overthrow the
republican government that deposed the previous strongman. The next guy
in office tends to want to keep them around anyway, because having a
terrorist apparatus able to operate outside the law is something that
leaders of nations consistently find useful.
These
paramilitaries can be dismantled, but only when the people demand it,
over and over again, and refuse to support any politicians or regimes
who would keep them in place. ICE can be stopped, but we do not elect
people to power who actually want to stop ICE; we tend instead to elect
people who want to “fund” ICE, control it, and use it for their own
purposes. And that is why we fail.
ICE
must be abolished, root and stem, by the next Democratic
administration. As a stopgap, it must be defunded by the current
collection of Democrats, should the party take power in the upcoming
election. ICE is the one true litmus test for an incoming post-Trump
administration. The Democrats will likely not be inclined to do this.
Again, paramilitary thugs have their uses to leaders the world over, and
Democrats are traditionally afraid of looking “weak” on immigration or
actually dismantling the tools of the enemy. Democrats, if they’re going
to do this, must be forced to do this, by the people whose support they
seek."
--Elie Mystal, "Abolish ICE or GTFO", The Nation, January 9, 2026
FBI takes over case of ICE agent killing US woman and cuts Minnesota’s access to evidence
Minneapolis remains on edge, with several protests planned after shooting of Renee Nicole Good
People protest against the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters
8 January 2026
The FBI has taken full control of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, it emerged on Thursday. In a statement, the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA) said it was initially called upon to help investigate the shooting before federal officials “reversed course” and said the case would be “solely led by the FBI”. With its access to the case materials, witnesses and evidence revoked, the BCA said it had to “reluctantly” withdraw from the investigation.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem denied that the BCA had been cut out of the investigation and said it was a matter of jurisdiction. “They have not been cut,” she said. “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”
But Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, told a news conference that “Minnesota must be part of this investigation. It feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome. And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment.”
Indeed, the reversal from federal law enforcement comes as the Trump administration continues to justify Wednesday’s deadly shooting by accusing Good of engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” and claiming that the ICE agent who shot her was acting in “self-defense”, alleging she had tried to run him over. That narrative is at odds with video footage of the incident, which has been widely shared online. It shows Good reversing her car and letting at least one ICE vehicle pass before an officer tells her to get out of the car; she then tries to turn and drive away. An agent shoots her multiple times, remains on his feet and walks away apparently uninjured as her car crashes into a lamp-post and parked vehicle.
The agent was identified independently by the Guardian as Jonathan E Ross, a Minnesota resident and 10-year veteran of federal law enforcement. Noem continued on Thursday to defend the federal agent – whom she described as “an experienced officer” that was “following his training” – and said he had been treated in hospital after the incident. Both she and the vice-president noted that Ross had been injured in an incident six months ago when an undocumented immigrant resisted arrest in a vehicle.
Vance also defended the shooting, repeatedly claiming, baselessly, that Good was part of a “leftwing network” of people who are trying to “incite violence against our law enforcement officers”.
He told the White House press briefing without evidence that the young mother was “a victim of leftwing ideology” and had been “brainwashed”, and doubled down on the administration’s claim that the officer had acted in self-defense. Good, 37, was “dead because she tried to ram somebody with her car”, Vance said.
The deadly incident, which occurred less than a mile from the spot where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020, escalated tensions that have been building for weeks in Minnesota amid ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations and fraud investigations by the Trump administration.
Authorities in Minneapolis had canceled school classes across the city on Thursday amid safety concerns and rising political tension after the US citizen and mother of three was killed during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation the day before.
Dozens of clergy members from all faith backgrounds gathered with hundreds of people at the site of the shooting in south Minneapolis at noon to show that the city was unified in its response. “Renee Good stood for her neighbors. We now must stand for her,” said JaNaé Bates, a co-executive director of the interfaith group Isaiah.
The crowd chanted “ICE out now” throughout the event, against visible signs of the tragedy: red paint in the snow read “ICE kills”, and writing on the street called for ICE to leave.
But emotions remained high in the city, and across the US, as the basic facts of the incident remain the subject of fierce debate. Ilhan Omar posted on social media Thursday morning that thousands of people had gathered to honor Good last night, and that “ICE needs to get out of Minneapolis”.
“We will never accept that a single federal agent can be judge, jury and executioner in our streets,” the Minnesota representative said.
Minneapolis residents hold vigil for woman fatally shot by ICE agent – video
Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, also made several appearances on television networks on Wednesday night calling for peaceful protests and doubling down on his comments at a press conference earlier in the day in which he called for ICE “to get the fuck out of Minneapolis”.
“People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized, and now, somebody is dead,” Frey said.
He said the homeland security department was already “trying to spin this as an action of self-defense”, a claim he said was “bullshit”.
Some Republicans seized on Frey’s comments as incendiary, with Nancy Mace, a South Carolina representative, calling for the resignations of the mayor and Walz. Despite local officials’ calls for federal law enforcement to leave the state, the New York Times reported on Thursday that the Trump administration will deploy more than 100 US Customs and Border Protection agents and officers to Minnesota following the fatal shooting of Good.
The agents will be redirected from operations in Chicago and New Orleans. The deployment is expected to last until Sunday, the newspaper reported, citing documents it obtained.
This story was amended on 8 January 2026 to correct the name of the ICE officer who shot Renee Nicole Good, which is Jonathan E Ross, not Jonathan David Ross. Also, an incorrect reference to Ross being a resident of Minneapolis was removed.
US border patrol agents shoot two people in Portland
Police say pair are in hospital but condition not known,
as mayor urges ICE to pause operations
The Guardian (UK)
US border patrol agents shot two people outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis. The Portland police bureau (PPB) said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that two people were in hospital after a shooting involving federal agents, adding that the conditions of those shot were not known.
Police initially responded to reports of a shooting outside the Adventist hospital campus in east Portland, the department said, before learning “that a man who had been shot was calling and requesting help” about 3 miles (5km) away.
“Officers responded and found a male and female with apparent gunshot wounds. Officers applied a tourniquet and summoned emergency medical personnel. The patients were transported to the hospital,” the police said.
“Officers have determined the two people were injured in the shooting involving federal agents.”
Authorities have not confirmed the condition of the injured, but emergency dispatch audio obtained by FOX 12 Oregon indicated that the 911 call came from a man who said he was shot twice in the arm and his wife had been shot in the chest.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that US border patrol agents had stopped a vehicle to search for a man they suspected of being an undocumented immigrant connected to a Venezuelan gang. According to the agents, they opened fire when the driver of the vehicle tried to run them over, the statement said. “Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene,” McLaughlin said.
Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, said at a news conference:
“We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past.”
Bob Day, the Portland police chief, said: “This is a federal investigation. It’s being led by the FBI.”
Taking place a day after a federal immigration officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, the shooting sparked sharp condemnation and raised fears of increasing tensions in a city that had been galvanized by anti-immigration enforcement protests late last year.
Maxine Dexter, the Democratic representative for the district where the shooting took place, who is also a doctor, said both of the injured people “are alive, but we do not know the extent of their injuries.”
She also called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave the city.
“ICE has done nothing but inject terror, chaos, and cruelty into our communities,” Dexter said. “Trump’s immigration machine is using violence to control our communities – straight out of the authoritarian playbook. ICE must immediately end all active operations in Portland.”
Dexter also demanded a local police investigation. “We must allow our local law enforcement to do its work,” she said. “There must be a comprehensive investigation without Trump’s interference.”
Wilson, the mayor, echoed Dexter’s call for a pause on immigration enforcement in the city. He said: “We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts. 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.”
Kayse Jama, an Oregon state senator who lives in the neighborhood where the shooting took place, said at an evening news conference that the “welcoming” city he arrived in as a refugee from Somalia decades ago did not need aggressive federal immigration enforcement. Addressing the federal agents, he said: “This is Oregon. We do not need you, you are not welcome and you need to get the hell out of our community.” Zakir Khan, a Portland civil rights advocate, called on the hospital, which is part of Oregon Health and Science University, to release any security-camera footage of the incident it might have “as soon as possible”. A man who was at the medical building told the Oregonian he saw federal officers follow a Toyota pickup truck into the parking lot of the office building and try to corner it. One officer pounded on the window, he said. The driver then backed up and moved forward at least a couple of times, striking a car behind them, before turning and speeding off.
There were months of protest in Portland last year centered on an ICE processing facility in the city’s south waterfront. Donald Trump tried to deploy national guard members to the city in response, but the deployment was blocked by a federal judge who said the president’s claim that the city was “war-ravaged” as a result of small-scale protests “was simply untethered to the facts”.
Jeff Merkley, one of Oregon’s two Democratic senators, urged protesters to remain calm in light of the shooting. “Trump wants to generate riots,” he said in a post on X. “Don’t take the bait.”
The Portland police chief echoed those pleas. Bob Day said: “We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”
A banner at the top of the Portland city government website late Thursday advised residents: “Respond with calm and purpose.”
Early in the evening, about a hundred protesters gathered outside city hall in downtown Portland to chant: “Abolish ICE!” A smaller number of protesters also returned to the ICE facility in south Portland, many of them dressed in the animal costumes that have helped defuse tensions in recent months. Later, police used force to clear protesters from the street outside the facility, arresting six, including a young man who usually wears an inflatable frog costume to protests but was in street clothes when detained on Thursday night.
Tensions remain high across several major cities in the US following the shooting of Good in Minneapolis.
On Thursday, the FBI took control of the investigation into that shooting, and the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA) said its access to the case materials, witnesses and evidence had been revoked.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, denied that the BCA had been cut out of the investigation and said it was a matter of jurisdiction.
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, told a news conference that the state “must be part of this investigation”.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continued to justify the deadly shooting by accusing Good of engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” and claiming that the ICE agent who shot her had been acting in “self-defense”. That narrative is at odds with witness video of the incident, which has been widely shared online, and shows the driver had turned the wheels of her vehicle away from the agent before he shot her three times as she attempted to drive away. Explore more on these topicsPortlandICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)Trump administrationOregonWest CoastUS politicsUS immigrationnewshttps://www.thenation.com/article/politics/newsletter-abolish-ice-conway/PoliticsAbolish ICE or GTFOIn this week’s Elie v. US, The Nation’s justice correspondent makes the case to get rid of ICE, explores George Conway’s congressional campaign—and shares his New Year’s resolution.by Elie Mystal
January 9, 2026
The Nation
PHOTO: Demonstrators in Minneapolis protest the murder of Renée Good. (Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images)[This is a preview of Nation Justice Correspondent Elie Mystal’s new weekly newsletter. Click here to receive this newsletter in your inbox each Friday.]
Every authoritarian regime throughout history has employed a roving band of armed thugs who operate outside the law to enforce its strongman’s will. Caesar had his Praetorian Guard, Francios Duvalier had his Tonton Macoutes, Hitler had his Gestapo.Donald Trump has ICE. ICE is functionally a paramilitary organization, armed and empowered to harass citizens, brutalize opposition, and murder people who get in their way. Like any paramilitary apparatus, its chief aim is to strike fear in the population. It does this not only through feats of violence, false imprisonment, and kidnapping but also by repeatedly showing us it can’t be held accountable for its actions. ICE agents can seemingly do anything they want, and no one is allowed to stop them: They know it, and they want us to know it.When we look at the historical record, the horrifying reality of these thug paramilitaries is that they do not naturally melt away when the strongman is finally deposed. They stay on. They align themselves with the next strongman, or the strongman who wants to overthrow the republican government that deposed the previous strongman. The next guy in office tends to want to keep them around anyway, because having a terrorist apparatus able to operate outside the law is something that leaders of nations consistently find useful.These paramilitaries can be dismantled, but only when the people demand it, over and over again, and refuse to support any politicians or regimes who would keep them in place. ICE can be stopped, but we do not elect people to power who actually want to stop ICE; we tend instead to elect people who want to “fund” ICE, control it, and use it for their own purposes. And that is why we fail.ICE must be abolished, root and stem, by the next Democratic administration. As a stopgap, it must be defunded by the current collection of Democrats, should the party take power in the upcoming election. ICE is the one true litmus test for an incoming post-Trump administration. The Democrats will likely not be inclined to do this. Again, paramilitary thugs have their uses to leaders the world over, and Democrats are traditionally afraid of looking “weak” on immigration or actually dismantling the tools of the enemy. Democrats, if they’re going to do this, must be forced to do this, by the people whose support they seek.Current issue I’ve liked to think of myself as a single-issue voter, with that issue being Supreme Court expansion. But no longer. Abolish ICE, or GTFO of my primary.
PHOTO: Andrea Lucas, the chair of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in her office in Washington last month. Credit: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
