Over the course of 2025, President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda sparked fierce backlash, including mass protests and even riots. This year is following suit, with demonstrations targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis now spreading across the nation in the wake of a fatal incident.
Democrats and pro-immigration activists have seized on the death of Renee Good after the 37-year-old was shot and killed after striking ICE agent Jonathan Ross with her car after she was confronted for obstructing federal immigration raids. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, faulted the president’s “escalation” for the events surrounding Good’s death.
“Leaving aside whatever happened in those critical seconds when Jonathan Ross shot her and killed her, the surge and escalation in the tactics directed by the president are directly responsible for the upheaval and interruption of education and the death of Renee Good,” Ellison said in an interview Friday. “The escalation, the unwarranted—I believe unconstitutional—escalation, illegal escalation, is why these tragic events are unfolding. Absent this escalation, I believe Renee Good is taking her 6-year-old to school again.”
Other Democrats have echoed similar rhetoric.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, suggested that ICE is using “unconstitutional” tactics in enforcing federal immigration law.
“You can’t come into a city and discriminate solely on the basis of ‘Are you Latino or are you Somali?’ And then randomly pick people up off the street after that,” he charged in a Sunday interview. “You can’t just detain somebody because they look like they are Somali or they look like they are Latino. To be very clear, for the whole country. That is what is happening right now.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called the ICE operations “inhumane and illegal,” characterizing the Department of Homeland Security as “the most lawless Department of Homeland Security in the history of the country.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat who has clashed with the Trump administration over his state’s “sanctuary” policies sheltering illegal immigrants, averred that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “needs to resign,” along with Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, who Pritzker smeared as “a pathological liar.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, a Democrat, outright threatened federal law enforcement forces, issuing a slang warning to stay out of Philadelphia. “You don’t want this smoke. Cuz we will bring it to you,” she said in a press conference Friday.
Bilal led audience members in chanting Good’s name before continuing, “Let’s note that law enforcement professionals—real ones, not the fake, made-up ICE, probably Trump’s new army to attack citizens of the United States, did you hear what I said?—no law enforcement officials wears [sic] a mask. None. None.” She added, “I call them made-up fake wannabe law enforcement, because what they do is not only against the legal law but the moral law.”
ICE Director Todd Lyons blasted Bilal for her rhetoric in an interview over the weekend.
“Any time you pit law enforcement officers against law enforcement officers, it makes nobody safe,” he asserted. Lyons clarified that the “political rhetoric” used by Bilal and others against ICE agents “is what’s causing the issues right now. You can’t pit a local law enforcement officer against a federal law enforcement officer. We are out there trying to do a lawful law enforcement mission, and this rhetoric right here is a pure example of what we’re facing every day.” He dared the Philadelphia sheriff, “Try it, try to arrest my folks. Let’s see what happens.”
Border czar and ICE veteran Tom Homan agreed with Lyons, warning that rhetoric vilifying ICE agents not only endangers those agents but also facilitates tragic incidents like Good’s death.
Homan castigated “false media reports” and “members of Congress” who “want to compare ICE to terrorists.” Pointing to protesters and rioters, he added, “You’re looking at media reports to say ICE is terrorist or racist or they’re the Nazis. They’re listening to people … using the term ‘disappearing people.’ ICE is doing the same thing they’ve done for 40 years.” Homan continued, “For any member of Congress to say that ICE is a Nazi or racist or secret police—Really? Because they’re enforcing laws you enacted? If they are a racist for enforcement, what does that make you, your role, the law?”
Noem likewise faulted Democrats, namely Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, for encouraging rioters to target ICE agents.
“If you look at what Governor Walz has said, if you look at what Mayor Frey has said, they’ve extremely politicized and inappropriately talked about the situation on the ground in their city. They’ve inflamed the public. They’ve encouraged the kind of destruction and violence that we’ve seen in Minneapolis those last several days,” Noem argued. “I would encourage them to grow up, get some maturity, act like people who are responsible, who want people to be safe, and the right thing be done. When you use the kind of language that you use against law enforcement officers, they lose their credibility.”
Individuals involved in protests had already become violent in Minneapolis in response to thousands of ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents carrying out enforcement actions in the city earlier this month, but in the wake of Good’s death, ICE is surging hundreds more agents to the now-embattled city.
Noem confirmed Sunday that the incoming agents will be tasked with protecting ICE and CBP personnel conducting operations on the ground in the face of violent rioters.
“If they conduct violent activities against law enforcement, if they impede our operations, that’s a crime, and we will hold them accountable to those consequences,” Noem said. According to the Daily Mail, Ross, the ICE agent involved in the altercation with Good, was escorted out of his house in Minneapolis by federal agents on Friday morning and is now reportedly in hiding.
While Walz and Frey have pledged that Minnesota law enforcement will not assist ICE in enforcing federal immigration law, rioters chased Minneapolis police officers—including Chief Brian O’Hara—through the streets on Friday night.
Video footage shows police escorting a vehicle out of a protest area when protestors became violent, pursuing officers on foot, hurling projectiles and obscenities. One of the rioters, carrying a “F— ICE” sign, can be heard screaming at officers, “Get the f— out of here!” Another repeatedly shouted, “F— you!” at officers. As the police entered their vehicle, rioters began throwing chunks of snow and ice.
Anti-ICE rioters also swarmed police in Austin, Texas, attempting to “take over” a street outside the state Capitol Building Saturday night.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers successfully pushed the rioters back and broke up the street-takeover attempt within minutes, using pepper balls and gas canisters before rushing in to tackle and arrest the unruly mob. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, alleged that Democratic politicians are responsible for inciting the riots and demonizing federal agents.
“What happened in Minnesota is the direct result of years of reckless and dangerous rhetoric from national Democratic leaders. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers have the right to defend themselves while carrying out their lawful responsibility,” he said of Good’s death, according to Breitbart News. “Using a vehicle as a weapon, threatening officers, or attempting to obstruct the enforcement of the law is dangerous and inexcusable.”
Shortly after Good’s death, a Border Patrol agent in Portland shot and wounded two individuals reportedly affiliated with the Venezuela-based criminal gang and foreign terrorist organization Tren de Aragua.
According to DHS, the two who were shot also attempted to run over the federal agent with their car.
Portland Police Chief Bob Day broke down weeping during a press conference Friday after confirming the two who were shot were, in fact, Tren de Aragua affiliates.
“What I can say is there is an association with the two folks yesterday and TdA,” Day admitted. “I hesitated to even share this information initially because I’m very aware of the historic injustice of victim-blaming oftentimes portrayed by law enforcement, including this very agency,” he added, beginning to cry. “It saddens—it saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks,” he said, further insisting that “this information [is] in no way meant to disparage or to condone or support or agree with any of the actions that occurred yesterday.”
In another incident leading up to the unrest, ICE agents shot at two individuals on Christmas Eve in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
According to local police, one individual who was injured was already in ICE custody, while the other was “operating a separate vehicle.”
According to DHS, however, the individual “operating a separate vehicle” was attempting to run over the agents after having been stopped by ICE personnel. The second individual, an illegal immigrant named Solomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, was treated for whiplash after the ICE vehicle transporting him was struck by a bullet.
Protests against ICE have spread from Minneapolis to other major American cities, including Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Omaha, Seattle, and others.
