MINNEAPOLIS — Following the Jan. 7 confrontation between Renee Good and her wife Rebecca with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that led to Good being shot, daily protests and vigils have been carried out on the block where it happened, across the city and the country.
And it’s provoked a needed debate on the way forward.
Renee Good and her partner were activists in one of the anti-ICE networks in the city, ICE Watch, which trains people to “monitor and resist” ICE activities. Good had parked her car to block the street as ICE vehicles approached. After failing to move, and an exchange with agents that included taunts by Good’s partner, she was ordered to get out of the car.
Instead, Renee Good tried to drive off and in a video widely played by the media appears to graze one of the agents. The agent, who had taken his own phone video that showed more of the exchange, responded by shooting Renee Good three times. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Since Dec. 1 over 2,000 ICE agents have been deployed to the Twin Cities, with more on the way, following the exposé of a wide-reaching fraud for profit scam based in the city’s Somali community. In what the government calls “Operation Metro Surge,” authorities have harassed immigrant workers and say they have arrested over 2,400 who they claim “have criminal records.”
Minneapolis Public Schools canceled classes district-wide for the remainder of the week Jan. 7, citing “safety concerns.” The move came after officials at Roosevelt High School said armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property in pursuit of an employee. In the process they handcuffed two staff members and sprayed chemicals on bystanders.
Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis is home to many immigrant-owned restaurants shops and eateries. This is also where the Socialist Workers Party has its Minnesota headquarters. Luis Puma is the manager at Chulla Vida, an Ecuadorian restaurant. “People are scared, And they’re not coming to work or coming out to eat or get takeout,” Puma told the Militant. “It has helped that more Americans have been coming here lately to eat.”
Some liberal media, Democratic Party politicians and radical-left outfits say the shooting was a “second George Floyd event” by a second Trump administration. Stalinist and ultraleft forces have called night-time actions, looking for confrontations.
For months, groups like ICE Watch have tracked ICE agents, tried to block their movements and blown loud whistles seeking to alert any immigrants in the area to hide out.
Democratic Farmer Labor Mayor Jacob Frey held a news conference telling ICE: “Get the f–k out of Minneapolis!” This has become a slogan on placards at protests now.
Frey also penned a New York Times article Jan. 8 titled, “I’m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump is Lying to You.” Like all the radical and liberal media, he didn’t mention that Good’s companion had been there, helping her block the street and deriding the ICE agents.
Similarly, these forces at first covered up the fact that Renee and Rebecca Good were regular activists in provocative actions against ICE. Instead, they printed quotes from neighbors saying they weren’t political.
Gov. Tim Walz threatened “war with the federal government,” ordering the Minnesota National Guard to be on alert.
Workers look for ways to protest
SWP members in Minneapolis, including this reporter, have participated in a number of evening vigils as well as daytime protest marches, speaking out against attacks on immigrant workers. Candles and flowers are piled up at the location where Renee Good died. Activists have shut the block down and hundreds of students and working people of all nationalities visit there every night.
Skeeter Hitchcock, 51, drove from Arcadia, Wisconsin, where she works in a feed mill, to join the protests. She told the Militant, “I had to be here. I think ICE is overstepping. The U.S. is built on immigrants.”
Still others are attracted to the actions organized by the ultralefts, saying they are looking to “get some action going” against ICE agents. One eyewitness to such an exchange told the Militant that several in the crowd shouted “No!” to any such suggestion.
Many here remember the destruction left after the George Floyd protests, which ultraleft groups and Black Lives Matter turned into confrontations and rioting, leaving many blocks of stores burned down.
At a Jan. 10 march of thousands at Powderhorn Park in south Minneapolis, SWP members carried signs pointing a working-class road forward to defend the rights of immigrant workers and unify the working class. Their demands included “Amnesty for all undocumented workers,” “Immigrant rights is a union fight” and “Drop the charges against Ábrego García.”
We met with a good response and real interest in discussing what working people can do to defend immigrants’ rights. This was in sharp contrast to many signs simply using curse words against ICE and Trump. Several participants picked up copies of the Militant and two bought subscriptions.
The fight to build a mass working-class movement to win amnesty, to allow workers without papers to live and work openly without fear, is counterposed to using whistles to tell immigrants to hide out or joining in provocative confrontations with ICE agents or other cops.
At a Jan. 9 Militant Labor Forum on Venezuela, SWP speaker Edwin Fruit explained the party’s call for amnesty for all undocumented workers, and fighting for the rights of immigrant workers like Ábrego García, is a life-and-death question for the labor movement.
Disciplined, union-led marches are needed to demand foreign-born workers not be targeted simply for trying to make a living in this country. He pointed to the example of the Dec. 20 march here, which was co-sponsored by the state AFL-CIO. Union members helped marshal it, to protect it and assure its character was true to its intent.
Fruit said that the SWP does not support or advocate the provocative and ineffective actions of those who follow ICE agents with cameras, block their vehicles, throw snowballs at their cars or otherwise attempt to endanger and impede ICE operations.
He explained that even the perception of interfering with the work of police or federal agents can lead to arrest or worse if the cops feel their lives are in danger.
“The way forward is for the working class to build a movement capable of taking political power out of the hands of the capitalist class,” he said. “Only the Socialist Workers Party is explaining this. Join with us!”