Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero is seeking a legal path to ban or limit federal immigration operations in Detroit after an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman this week.
Santiago-Romero said the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was a “terrorist attack” from a “lawless” agency. Santiago-Romero submitted a memo to the council’s Legislative Policy Division during a Thursday committee hearing that would define the city’s ability to keep federal agents away from “sensitive areas” like clinics, schools, places of worship or city property.
“We need to ensure that does not happen here in Detroit,” she said Thursday. “We do hear often that people, as they’re picking up their children, as they’re going to a mosque, they’re getting picked up by ICE. Let’s have these conversations. Let’s do some work because we are in a very different place right now.”
The shooting happened less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered while being detained by Minneapolis police.
Santiago-Romero also submitted questions to the Detroit Police Department regarding its relationship with ICE. She asked for the number of times ICE requested assistance during enforcement actions, how many ICE warrants have been shared with DPD, any instances where ICE used city lots to park vehicles and details on how DPD responds to requests to detain undocumented immigrants.
Santiago-Romero said she’s requested a sit-down with Mayor Mary Sheffield to understand her plan to protect residents. She said recommended actions could come in the form of new ordinances or executive orders. As a candidate, Sheffield said she does not support police department resources going to immigration efforts.
“It’s not just immigrants, it’s every person here,” Santiago-Romero said. “The ideas are out there, let’s do best practices and see what we can do, now that I believe we have a mayor that is willing to go above and beyond the basics.”
Council President Pro Tem Coleman Young II said he’s concerned about Detroit’s Hispanic and Latino residents. Young said he’s seen a “hostile anti-immigrant sentiment” result in violence, calling the Minneapolis shooting a “brutal unnecessary execution.”
“We have to do all we can to make sure that doesn’t happen here,” Young said.
Federal oversight agencies determined ICE has long failed to properly track use-of-force incidents. An independent investigation by The Trace, which covers gun violence, found ICE agents were responsible for 59 shootings that killed 23 people from 2015 to 2021. None of the agents involved faced charges.
Good was shot and killed Wednesday by a masked U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement officer when agents ordered her to exit her car during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis. Footage captured by witnesses appears to show Good drove forward when she was shot in the head at close range.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey demanded ICE “get the f*** out” of the city in a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Frey disputed claims by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the shooting was in self-defense. The incident remains under investigation.
Minneapolis Public Schools canceled classes after the incident due to safety concerns.
In a statement posted to social media, Santiago-Romero said Good’s death “was preventable and a direct result of the Trump administration’s nationalist agenda.” Democratic lawmakers across the state expressed similar outrage with the Trump administration’s defense of the shooting, while Republicans denounced attacks on law enforcement.
Santiago-Romero represents a multi-ethnic community in District 6 that’s experienced an increased ICE presence during the last year. She said federal spending on “the immigration detention machine” hasn’t made communities safer.
“Until our priorities shift word care, no one is safe from the dangers of this lawless administration, she said in the statement.
Community groups organized protests in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s shooting. Asamblea Popular Detroit, an independent group building local resistance to ICE and tracking immigration enforcement activity, noted Good’s killing came after ICE fatally shot Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez in Illinois last fall.
“Despite the fear, many are willing to offer their time and risk their safety so that all our neighbors can live and work in peace,” Asamblea Popular wrote on instagram.
A vigil and rally is planned for 6 p.m. Friday in Clark Park.