Renee Nicole Good should be alive today, and we are grieving her loss.
She was a mother in Minneapolis whose life was taken by an ICE officer just blocks from where she lived, a parent to her six-year-old, a wife, a poet, and someone known for her kindness. [1]
In the aftermath of this violence, small details carry enormous weight. The sight of toys inside her glove compartment tells a painful truth about the life she was nurturing and the family she was protecting. Our hearts are with her family, especially her child, who should never have had to carry this grief.
This tragedy did not happen in isolation. It is the foreseeable result of deliberate policy choices by Trump and Republican leaders in Congress designed to sow fear and division. Granting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security massive funding and unchecked authority, without meaningful oversight, as Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have done; made this outcome not only possible, but predictable.
In recent weeks, human rights abuses in the name of enforcement actions in Minneapolis have sharply escalated, with immigrant communities, particularly Somali families, bearing the brunt. [2] In this context, the administration announced the deployment of roughly 2,000 ICE agents to carry out what it called the “largest immigration operation ever” in the state. [3] This show of force was unnecessary, cruel, and destabilizing.
Tell Congress: Rein In ICE and Use our Tax Dollars for Healthcare and Not Harm
The killing of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, is a devastating consequence of this escalation.
The Administration has already directed $45 billion to ICE to expand immigration detention over the next four years through the 2025 budget reconciliation bill, fueling widespread due process violations, deadlier practices, inhumane conditions, and terrifying communities. Now some Members of Congress are trying to give even more of our tax dollars to ICE in the FY26 funding bill while also arguing that there is not enough money to extend tax credits that help over 20 million families buy health insurance. This is not the priority of America’s moms and families.
Instead of funding lawlessness and cruelty, moms across this country want Congress to invest in what actually keeps communities safe: childcare, healthcare, housing, and access to healthy food.
And as we grieve for Renee, we grieve for the countless others this administration has terrified, injured, abducted, and traumatized in ICE custody. The reality is stark: 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. [4]
American moms know this truth: Safety does not come from terrifying families. It’s built through care, dignity, and accountability. Join us to call on Congress to exert real oversight, demand a full investigation, including the release of all information, including the body camera footage from federal agents, and to stop cutting our healthcare and other programs for families in order to fund the growing lawlessness of ICE.
Our nation needs a safe and orderly immigration process that balances compassion and security, not cuts to healthcare and not cruelty and violence.
To everyone who is showing support for your immigrant neighbors and for your communities: thank you. As a mother and as an immigrant, these moments feel heavy and unsettling, but we keep going by looking to the helpers. As Mr. Rogers reminded us, “Always look for the helpers. And you will always find people who are helping.”
Thank you for being among the helpers, the leaders, and the community we need right now.
Linda, Xochitl, Jenny, Catalina, Felicia, Donna, Kristin, and the whole MomsRising team.
References:
[1] ‘Poet, writer, wife, mom’: who was Renee Nicole Macklin Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent?, The Guardian
[2] Minnesota Somali community bears brunt of Trump administration policies, NPR
[4] 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 32 people who died in custody, The Guardian
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