I decided a month ago to write about ICE’s abhorrent actions after one of its agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. It was particularly egregious when Kristi Noem called Good a “domestic terrorist,” followed by Vice President JD Vance calling Good a “deranged leftist.” Good’s death was the ninth ICE-related shooting since September.
I’m not interested in engaging with politics or the administration’s narrative defending why Good needed—or perhaps deserved—to be shot and killed on that day. It’s not an argument worth legitimizing. We all know what we saw that day.
A couple of weeks later, during ICE’s now-concluded immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, agents detained 5-year-old Liam Ramos while Liam was on his way home from school and transported him and his father to a Texas detention center. Allegations of inhumane treatment have swirled at these facilities, and showing no quarter to young children when it comes to immigration enforcement has been a bipartisan effort, though the Trump administration has demonstrated a unique cruelty. Liam and his father have been released, but who knows what long-term effects such treatment will have on him.
Two days after Liam was detained, ICE agents shot another protester: 37-year-old Alex Pretti. Bystander video shows Pretti coming to the aid of a woman after an ICE agent shoved her. Several other agents then tackled and swarmed Pretti, who was holding a cell-phone camera in his hand. They brought him to the ground and struck him several times. Bystander video showed one agent removing a legally registered firearm from Pretti’s waistband. A shot went off and then two ICE agents drew their weapons and fired numerous shots at Pretti, killing him.
As with the killing of Renee Good, the Trump administration circled the wagons in an attempt to defame Pretti and blame him for his own death. Secretary Noem accused Pretti of coming to the scene to “inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”
Debates are ongoing about what to do about ICE and its home agency, the Department of Homeland Security. Some Democrats have called for ICE reform, as if you can legislate the intent out of the agency.
One of the best sayings I’ve heard is, “It is the nature of a thing that matters, not its form.” ICE has disrupted communities, terrorized neighborhoods and shown through its own actions to be a danger to public safety. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025. Eight people have died in ICE-related incidents this year. The list of other alleged offenses is a mile long. And though the administration claims to be targeting criminal activity, as of late January, around 75% of those in ICE custody had no criminal conviction on record.
The amount of trouble ICE agents have caused should concern every American. All the while, the administration seems to have very little interest in enforcing guardrails and accountability. Actions speak louder than words, and the aggressive actions of ICE as an institution indicate a wanton disregard for human life.
The Nature of ICE
President Donald Trump campaigned on a massive deportation effort and bragged about taking whatever steps necessary to accomplish his goals. The Trump administration committed $170 billion to immigration enforcement through last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including $75 billion for ICE enforcement resources and detention centers. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said last year he wanted 3,000 arrests per day. ICE had detained more than 68,000 people as of December. Officials are practically giving away money in an attempt to recruit agents, slashing hiring standards and dramatically lowering agent quality.
The administration claims that ICE is making communities safer. That apparently means that communities now need hordes of masked, heavily armed agents patrolling neighborhoods enforcing no-knock warrants. It means that ICE is partnering with Palantir, a data analytics company, to use sensitive data to create maps to locate ICE’s next potential arrest. It means school districts may need to offer remote learning because ICE operations have made it dangerous for children to travel to school. It means the administration is absolutely ready to blame a protester for whatever consequences may come their way.
It is the nature of a thing that matters, not its form. The assumption seems to be that ICE’s actions are bugs and not features of the agency’s design; that issues would be resolved if we simply required the armed agents patrolling neighborhoods to wear body cameras.
The militarization of ICE is a serious concern. And America’s history has shown that you can’t make a kinder, gentler form of militarized immigration enforcement any more than you can make a bomb safer once it’s dropped.
A Recognizable Pattern
The United States has a long history of racial justifying injustice through the law. Slavery and Jim Crow need no introduction. But there are other actions of note as well. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was one example of several laws designed to restrict Chinese immigration and citizenship. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt’s special government agency, the War Relocation Authority, rounded up Japanese Americans, forcing them into concentration camps because they were deemed disloyal simply because of their ancestry. And now, we see that arrests of Latinos have spiked in the last year thanks to ICE.
Generation after generation of Americans have been told by their government that inhumane treatment of a certain race or ethnicity—whether it be by oppression, detention or deportation—is necessary to maintain the safety of the republic.
No American is better off because ICE detained Luis Ramos. We are not safer because ICE agents have rounded up people and transported them to detention centers with inhumane conditions. It’s nothing but hurting people under the guise of law enforcement.
There’s also the practical effects. Population growth is at its lowest point since the pandemic, with immigration cratering—a fact the administration has bragged about. At a time where American birth rates are falling and the population is aging, immigration has been able to delay the consequences of those demographic changes. Countries like South Korea and Japan are facing catastrophic population outcomes due to declining birth rates. Neither has strong immigration trends to fall back on.
Again, it is the nature of a thing that matters, not its form.
Should Democrats recapture political power in the upcoming midterm or the 2028 presidential election, they must decide whether ICE is an institution worth preserving. Immigration reform has been a can kicked down the road for 40 years. Immigration makes the United States unique. The United States should be welcoming to those who want to contribute to our society.
As of now, the Department of Homeland Security is partially shut down, with Democrats demanding conditions on reining in the agency.
Recently, signals suggested that ICE had interest in a large warehouse facility in Byhalia, Mississippi, and though ICE denied any such plans, the rumors were credible enough for Sen. Roger Wicker to issue a public rebuke of the suggestion. Shortly thereafter, any plans to open the facility were quashed. Two cases of measles have been reported at a Texas detention facility, which has numerous allegations of poor conditions for children. DHS has filed a motion seeking to end asylum protections for Liam Ramos and his family.
A civilization is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. The administration says ICE is here to protect us. But it is the nature of ICE, not its form, that makes the biggest impact.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.