The fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old US citizen and mother, by an Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis earlier this month challenged the belief that federal immigration enforcement only threatens undocumented immigrants.
Good’s death sent shockwaves across the country, serving as a stark warning: no one is exempt from state violence. Regardless of race, gender, or immigration status, Black lives – citizen or migrant - are rendered disposable when the state justifies force.
ICE’s expanding presence under Donald Trump intensified collaboration between federal agents and local police departments.Local law enforcement now provides ICE with intelligence, mapping tools, and access to neighborhoods, effectively turning cities into enforcement zones. Homes, workplaces, schools, and hospitals have become sites of capture.
ICE also deploys surveillance technologies to track people’s digital footprints at scale, ofen without warrants or judicial oversight.Federal agents - frequently lacking community policing training – conduct traffic stops and routine encounters that escalate into interrogation, harassment, detention, and increasing violence, even against US citizens and permanent residents.
This mass deployment of federal agents has deepened mistrust, confirming what Black communities have long known: immigration enforcement operates through surveillance, intimidation, and impunity. The same systems that historically over-police Black Americans are now reinforced through federal immigration power.This convergence is especially dangerous for Black migrants – especially African, Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx communities – exposing them to multiple armed agencies, escalating everyday encounters, and dramatically increasing the risk of violence in already marginalized neighborhoods.
Black migrants are routinely erased from mainstream immigration narratives that center non-Black Latinx experiences. Statistically, Black immigrants are more likely to face deportation for even minor offenses.
