America Awakens to the Horrors of ICE Tactics

By Mildred Robertson

Everyone has heard of Renee Good and Keith Pretti, both executed by ICE agents while peacefully protesting in Minnesota. It is horrific and sickening. It is unthinkable that those are the images I see when I turn on the morning news. Muted in the media coverage, however, are stories of black and brown people who have been abused and murdered at the hands of ICE. Extrajudicial killings of people of color is normal in America. It does not pierce the conscience of America as these killing did, though it should.

Another narrative in the media is how Renee Good and Alex Pretti were great citizens, and from all accounts they were. But that was not what made their murders wrong. No one needs to be dragged through the streets, peppered sprayed in the eyes and set upon by a hoard of jack-booted thugs and ultimately be slain.  

The brutality of this agency is unbelievable. There are at least 13 instances of immigration officers firing at or into civilian vehicles. At least eight of those resulted in gunshot wounds, with two leading to deaths. Those are just the ones we know about. And the general public does not even know their names.  Assumptions by many is that these people represent the “worst of the worse” Trump so fondly refers to in his rants about immigration.

Keith Porter, a black 43-year-old father of two was shot by an off-duty U.S. ICE agent in California on New Year’s Eve. He was not the “perfect victim” whose killing raises red flags for your average white Americans. Porter fired his gun in the air in celebration of New Year’s Eve according to his family. This tradition began in early U.S. history as a symbol of celebration and renewal, and it is occasionally still practiced in some Southern regions.  His actions were illegal but did not warrant a death sentence. And ICE agents are not police. But the media attention focused on him for a moment and then moved on.

They aimed a bright light on the murder of both Renee Good and Keith Pretti who had every right to protest. They had every right to record the violence being inflicted upon the citizens of Minneapolis. They had every right to offer a hand to a citizen violently pushed to the ground and then pepper sprayed.

Their murders were atrocious, gut wrenching, unthinkable. But so are the assaults on people who may or may not have committed a crime. So are the assaults on children, women, the elderly, the sick, many of whom have fallen victim to an overly aggressive, paramilitary force released on the streets of our cities.

No matter the circumstance, no matter what the crime, everyone residing within our borders has the right to face justice based on due process. No one deserves to be summarily executed in the streets of America, to be detained without warrant or to be expelled without adjudication of their case.

If we are going to wake up…let’s wake ALL the way up.