Initially, I only saw vague references on Facebook on January 7th.  The phrase read, “This was not self-defense. This was murder.”  At the time, I had little time before I needed to leave, and I’ll hear the details later.  In that moment, I didn’t anticipate that this incident would balloon to what it became.  I left for the day and generally do not browse Facebook at work.  I did not receive the details on this discussion until the evening, and then it blew up.

Of course, the references were to the shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent.  Both the news and Facebook blew up with news and opinions about the incident.  I watched in quiet horror as video feeds from other people and different angles trickled in.  In a quiet instant, I think to myself, how much horror do we need to endure before we all become desensitized to it?

People’s opinions polarize around one key question.  Did Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent, shoot out of self-defense?  While I won’t debate that this is a key question, it’s not the only question.

The poison versus the cure

Let’s say your doctor suggests that to address your ingrown toenail, they’ll need to amputate your foot.  This certainly addresses your ingrown toenail.  Most will agree that this is excessive.  As I watch enough ads by big pharma, I listen with horror as they enumerate the list of side effects.  With any ailment, we should evaluate if the suggested remedy ends up being worse than the original condition.  Naturally, we can do that for a personal medical condition, but we can also evaluate other scenarios as well.

I’ll go ahead and hit everyone on the funny bone on the immigration issue.  Jose Antonio Ibarra brutally killed Laken Riley.  We should all mourn her death and look for reasonable means to prevent it.  However, New York City police arrested him in September 2023 but ultimately released him.  While I do not know the details of that charge, he certainly wouldn’t have killed Riley had he stayed in custody.  That said, I’ll state for the record that I do not believe that we should have people who would commit violent crimes among us.

I don’t want violent criminals among us, independent of their immigration status.  I understand the entire ‘he should not have been here in the first place’ point.  However, to fixate on this particular case and conclude that we must extricate all undocumented immigrants from the United States is a bit like amputating your foot for an ingrown toenail.

The Laken Riley Act and overreaction

As stated above, the murder of Laken Riley is tragic.  This incident led to the passing of the Laken Riley Act.  Congress overreacted to this incident and passed legislation that may be weaponized in wildly inappropriate ways.  Are you skeptical?  Let’s take the following hypothetical.

You and your friend go to the mall; you’ve known each other since you were toddlers.  You wander into a store and try on a few funny hats.  You continue to browse items in this store.  You grow bored and tell your friend that you’ll go ahead to the next store and ask them to meet you there.  You do not hear from them again.

Here’s what happened.  Your friend forgot that they were wearing that funny hat and walked out of the store with it; security stopped them for shoplifting.  The store manager decided to have them arrested for that crime.  While your friend is a legal permanent resident (entered ‘the right way’), they’re not a citizen.  Now, read the description of the Laken Riley Act carefully.  First, it applies to all non-citizens, even permanent residents who have lived here for decades.  Second, they need not be convicted of a crime; they merely need to be arrested.  In other words, they do not get due process.  Third, ICE may detain you indefinitely without bond.

Furthermore, this provision allows for detention for prior arrests and convictions.  This is precisely what happened with Lewelyn Dixon, who had been a US permanent resident for fifty years and was detained for months for a crime that had been resolved decades before.

Please explain how this makes sense.

Who was Renee Good?

When I attended middle school in Fort Lauderdale, I was bullied.  The bullies spat gum in my hair; unable (or unwilling) to extricate it from my hair, I eventually cut it out.  One day, I heard them scheming in the seat behind me.  They were to jump on me the moment the bus stopped.  They did precisely that.  They ambushed me with punches and elbows before I could escape the bus.  Some days, bullies kicked my ass on the humiliating walk home.  They knocked me on my ass on every single neighbor’s yard.

I had friends on that bus, though they barely knew me then.  They watched in quiet fascination as I endured the bullying.  I won’t tell you that they enjoyed watching my suffering; they didn’t.  I’m sure some considered speaking up or intervening, but they did not.  I’m not sure if they feared association with me or retribution from the bullies.  It takes guts; it takes trusting your moral compass.

Renee Good stood up for the immigrants who were bullied.  She decided not to stand idly by as ICE agents abused the residents of Minneapolis.  ICE agents invaded schools and sprayed students with tear gas.  They arrested US citizens at a local target.  ICE agents broke into people’s homes without judicial warrants.  Her moral compass screamed “Enough!”  She stood in solidarity with her neighbors.

Did you find that standing up to teenage boys was unsettling?  How about adult men wearing masks with firearms pointed at you?  That was Renee Nicole Good.

“We’re getting rid of the criminals.”

To use a common expression, you’re ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’.  To cross the border without authorization is a misdemeanor.  To stay in the country past the expiration of your visa is not even considered a crime.  Immigrants, in general, are considerably less likely to commit crimes than US-born citizens; the gap is even greater for undocumented immigrants.  Statistically, immigrants are your best-behaved neighbors; this is especially true about undocumented immigrants.

Should we prevent violent criminals from entering the country?  Absolutely, established violent criminals should not be granted entry into the United States.  The vast majority of immigrants are not violent criminals.  It doesn’t matter how much some people may call them rapists.  Or allege that immigrants eat dogs or cats.  In many cases, the misdemeanor of crossing the border is the only crime they have committed.

Mass deportation hurts our country.  Undocumented immigrants pay $100 billion in taxes, and they do not collect from social security.  They are consumers (buy groceries, cars, etc.) and producers.  Even if all you do is deport all the undocumented immigrants, you’d hurt our country.  It costs taxpayer dollars to deport these immigrants for committing a misdemeanor.  What’s next?  Beheadings for jaywalking?!

Can we at least talk about mass amnesty?  Let’s give law-abiding (other than crossing the border, that is) undocumented immigrants an honest path to legal residency and eventually citizenship.  It’s the best path forward for both them and us.

Why object to mass deportation?

Are we deporting some dangerous people?  Absolutely.  I’m sure that we are deporting some dangerous people; in fact, we may have already deported the next Jose Antonio Ibarra (Laken Riley’s killer).  I have no objections to convicting (and then even deporting) violent criminals.  If the administration can surgically locate just them and remove them from society, then they have my support.  However, that’s not what they’re doing; they’re inflicting a lot of collateral damage as ICE agents roam our streets:

• Non-violent undocumented immigrants are similarly snarled in the mix.  Yes, you’d argue that they’re criminals by virtue of committing a misdemeanor.
• They detain legal permanent residents because they have a resolved criminal charge from decades ago.

You can heartlessly claim that you don’t care, that the life of a US citizen has infinitely more value than that of an immigrant (even a legal permanent resident).  That in some way, you will justify all these abuses of immigrants to avoid even a paper cut to Laken Riley.

Then they detain a US veteran and citizen for looking Latino.  Do you not care about this particular US citizen?  Maybe they weren’t qwhite the type of US citizen that you care about.

The last rationalization

Some will maintain that it’s worth the cost.  You will memorize the name of Laken Riley and assert that averting the next Jose Antonio Ibarra is worth the price of violating the humanity and rights of all these people.  You will argue that Laken Riley would still be alive had Ibarra not entered the country, and you’ll tolerate hundreds of thousands of immigrants abused to save the life of that sole American woman.  Why do we care about them?!  They’re not our people.  For this, we should tolerate all the ICE agents on the streets of our cities.  You weep for Riley and condemn any circumstance that led to her death.

The logic that eludes you is that you claim to value the life of that sole American woman.  You may convince yourself that Renee Good attacked that ICE agent, though the evidence is lacking.  What you cannot deny is that, had ICE agents not been deployed to Minneapolis, Renee Good would still be alive today.  Do you similarly weep for Good and condemn any circumstance that led to her death?  If so, this includes the brutal deployment of ICE agents in the city.  If you don’t object to that, then at least own your hypocrisy.

Or perhaps the truth is more starkly unsettling.  Your weeping for Riley permits the abuse of people of color; it doesn’t matter if they’re immigrants (undocumented, legal, or even permanent) or even US citizens.  Conversely, weeping for Good forces us to re-evaluate how ICE agents conduct themselves.  It was never about immigration; it was about racism.