ICE

Diya Ravi

January 9, 2026

A 37-year-old mother, poet, caregiver, and US citizen was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis while sitting in her car. She was not a criminal; she was a woman placed in a terrifying situation, surrounded by masked men with their hands on their guns, yelling at her. Any woman in that position would panic. Trying to escape a dangerous situation is not, in any case, terrorism. Instead of blaming the victim, it should not be ICE’s first instinct to shoot someone in the head multiple times.  De-escalation exists, shooting a tire exists. Restraint exists, and killing should not be the default response. 

A day later in Portland, Oregon, two more people were shot during an encounter with federal agents. Different city, different circumstances, but the same pattern. Armed immigration enforcement operating within communities, bullets fired, investigations promised after the fact, and no repercussions to these officers. 

Students are taught in school that America is the land of opportunity. We are taught about the American Dream. America is a sanctuary and a home for those fleeing tyranny, poverty, and violence. That promise is the reason people came here in the first place. English settlers migrated to escape oppressive rule in Britain. Families crossed oceans with nothing but hope. 

So why is that same pursuit of a better life now treated as a crime? 

There is also a truth we need to confront, but people often avoid. This land was not originally ours. Indigenous peoples lived here for thousands of years before the US existed. This country was built through land theft, broken promises, forced removals, and mass violence against Native Americans. Everyone in this country (except Native Americans) descends from migration. So why are only certain racial and ethnic groups targeted? 

Mexicans and other immigrants are working harder than anyone else to provide for their families. They pay taxes, they sustain entire industries, and they take jobs many Americans refuse to do. In no way are they “stealing opportunity”; they are participating in an economy that depends on labor while denying their dignity. 

What is truly dangerous is not immigration, but fear. Fear that justifies militarization. Fear that excuses violence. Fear that turns neighbors into enemies and bullets into policy.

America cannot celebrate its immigrant past while criminalizing immigrants in the present. It cannot claim moral authority while enforcing borders with guns. And it cannot honor the American Dream while punishing those who still believe in it.

Renee Good’s death and the shootings in Portland force us to ask an uncomfortable question: What kind of country are we becoming? A nation built on the promise of refuge should not respond to fear with force. Compassion is not weakness. Humanity is not optional.

This is not the America we were promised, and it should not have to be the America we accept.