On Thursday evening, January 8, a cloudy sky and light raindrops foreshadowed the heavy rain that would whip across west Michigan that night. Around two hundred people had slowly filled Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids when the rain began. Some had their faces covered, some held candles, and signs were held aloft, all together proclaiming the same message: ICE off our streets.
The outrage itself wasn’t new, either. Some signs were old, reused from past protests, and others were simple, lacking color. The message was important.
“I would be a hypocrite to march for Patrick Lyoya, for Breonna Taylor, to show up for George Floyd, for Samuel Sterling, and then not come out here today to support you. We are all fighting for justice—for Renee Nicole Good,” said Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack.
The murder of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three shot by a masked ICE agent during a morning raid in Minneapolis on Wednesday, January 7, fueled and unleashed the accumulated outrage toward immigration agents. From that day throughout the weekend, protests led thousands to take to the streets around the country.
Several demonstrations also erupted in Michigan: Lansing, Grand Rapids, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, and Detroit witnessed the crowds. In every demonstration, speeches and signs were held since the immigrant crackdown began; however, in Detroit, the 500 protesters that gathered at Clark Park on Friday, January 9, were longing for something different. What started as a vigil led to a march along Vernor Hwy. and neighboring streets in Mexicantown.
For many, the videos that went viral worldwide in hours were more than evident: a murder perpetrated (in Minneapolis) by a federal agent in broad daylight in a residential neighborhood, in the city where George Floyd died six years ago at the hands of a local police officer. Good’s killing was preceded by the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents in the Twin Cities: Minneapolis and St. Paul, in response to allegations of tax fraud involving Somali residents in the blue state.
After the shooting, the usual polarization intensified. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he would prepare the state’s National Guard to protect the community from federal agents. Minnesota’s attorney general sued the federal government on Monday, January 12, for shutting out local officials from any follow-up investigation. Nevertheless, Washington has claimed that everything was provoked by the “radical left”; that Good was a “domestic terrorist” and that the agent responded to a lethal threat.
“Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation,” declared Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “She behaved horribly,” Trump said to New York Times reporters, referring to the victim during a meeting in the Oval Office hours after the shooting. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.” Despite reporters questioning the self-defense narrative, Trump avoided further comment, saying that “it’s a horrible video to watch.”
In Michigan, from a sandwich shop in Muskegon that has banned ICE agents to pronouncements from political leaders, the same polarization of views was also reflected.
Detroit Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero sent a memo to the city’s legal and legislative authorities encouraging them to “enact and enforce” policies to protect the community from federal agents.
In an interview with CNN regarding “abolishing ICE,” Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan, stated that we need law enforcement. “You need law enforcement, you do, I’m sorry, and whether you’re using them correctly, that’s a whole different conversation,” she responded. “I am not for abolishing law enforcement.”
State Senate Aric Nesbitt (R-MI), a GOP candidate for Michigan governor, repeatedly declared “I stand with ICE” in a series of posts on X. He also qualified Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did not make any public comments about Good’s death.
Good was not the first, and community unity is growing
By Thursday, January 8, the officer who shot Good had a face and a name: Jonathan Ross, 43, a deportation officer since 2016. The following day, the footage Ross recorded with his cell phone was released by the DHS.
“I’m not mad at you,” were Good’s last words to Ross from inside her car, during the confrontation with three ICE agents who surrounded her. The woman backed up her SUV after another agent tried to open her door, then turned the steering wheel to the right to drive away. At the same time, Ross, filming with his left hand, sprinted to the left of the vehicle and pulled his gun. He fired one shot through the windshield, right side, and two more through the side window. The car then veered erratically before crashing.
For Pauli Astudillo, a member of the Detroit People’s Assembly, Good was murdered for defending her community, something that many people also do here in Detroit. “Only united can we change our situations, whether it’s against the attacks of immigration enforcement or, more importantly, against the devastation caused by their actions,” she said during the protest in Detroit.
Good’s death was neither the first nor the second at the hands of an ICE agent. A report by The Trace, based on Gun Violence Archive data and news clips, shows that since Trump took office, ICE agents have been involved in shootings approximately 16 times. The number of civilians killed in these shootings rose to four. The report also acknowledges that this number may be undercounted, as shootings involving agents aren’t usually made public unless they are widely reported. It also added that agents are rarely prosecuted after firing their weapons.
The frustration and disappointment over the immigrant crackdown continue to be the public portrait of these protests. “The only source of power that has brought about real change, truly progressive change, movements toward democracy, equality, and justice, has been a movement of, for, and by the people,” said Nicole Conaway, 48, a member of the Coalition to Defend Immigrant Rights (BAMN). She emphasizes the need to organize general strikes to achieve solid results.
The possibility of collaboration between local authorities and the federal government is another issue that has the community more tense than ever. “Detroit must not collaborate in any way. No resources, no tax money from Detroit residents should go in any way to support the acts of terrorism that immigration enforcement is carrying out in our city,” Astudillo added.
In Detroit during the January 9 march, one person was arrested after scuffles with counter-protesters. The Detroit Police Department did not respond to the request for comments regarding the arrest.
And while Minneapolis is the current epicenter of the ICE resistance in the US and Washington D.C. prepares to increase the number of agents in Minnesota, from Grand Rapids to Detroit, immigrant advocacy groups are urging the public to volunteer in their efforts, by providing information on rights, distributing whistles, participating in ICE watch programs, and preparing for encounters with immigration authorities.
Erick Diaz Veliz is a Peruvian reporter based in Lansing, Michigan. He has documents and reports on cultural, social, and political issues in Peru and Michigan as a freelancer. Erick was born in Lima, Peru, and has been living in Lansing since 2018.
This article and photos were made possible thanks to a generous grant to EL CENTRAL Hispanic News by Press Forward, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more at www.pressforward.news.