ICE Has Gone Too Far

ICE, otherwise known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was established to protect communities. That purpose has been catastrophically abandoned. In recent months, ICE has not simply been detaining undocumented immigrants. It has been abusing detainees, separating children from their families, shooting innocent bystanders, and setting records for deaths in custody.

This is not enforcement. It is terror.

A Pattern of Violence

In October 2025, ICE shot U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez five times while she sat in her car. In January of this year, two more Americans were killed. Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a registered nurse with the Department of Veterans Affairs, were shot and killed while exercising their First Amendment rights. These are the most documented cases; others remain underreported.

A week before Pretti's killing, ICE detained a five-year-old Minnesotan boy named Liam Conejo Ramos as he returned home from preschool. He and his father were held at a South Texas family detention center for two weeks. The family had come to America legally. Zena Stenvik, the school district superintendent, described the aftermath plainly: children in her community were traumatized, and the sense of safety around their schools had been shaken.

What ICE Was Supposed to Be

ICE was created in 2003 in the aftermath of 9/11, with a mandate to oversee immigration and customs enforcement for the sake of national security. In that context, the rationale was clear. Two decades later, that mandate has metastasized into something unrecognizable.

The Fear Is Everywhere

Defenders of ICE will argue the agency is doing necessary work. There is a version of immigration enforcement that is consistent with civil society. Recent events have made clear that this is not that version.

The fear is not limited to undocumented immigrants. A Reddit user described accompanying her husband, a Mexican national, on daily errands alone, because they could no longer be certain he would not be picked up regardless of his documentation. Another user, a white legal immigrant, said she was worried about entering and exiting the country. The anxiety has spread far beyond any single community.

Backlash, Rebranding, Resistance

Due to sustained backlash, ICE has begun pulling back from some of its most aggressive community operations, particularly in Minneapolis, where Operation Metro Surge led to multiple fatal shootings. The retreat is partial and conditional. Communities are still being warned of nearby agents, casualties are still being reported, and fear has not lifted.

In a move that captured the absurdity of the moment, President Trump recently endorsed rebranding ICE as NICE, after conservative influencer Alyssa Marie suggested the name change in March. The logic, apparently, was that news media would be forced to refer to the agency's agents as NICE agents. It has not landed.

Americans have never waited quietly when the government turns on its own people. Frida Kahlo once observed that we are capable of enduring far more than we think. That endurance has always been most powerful when it is organized, loud, and refusing to stop. The demand is clear: ICE must stop terrorizing families. Until it does, the resistance will continue.