On January 24, 2026, there was a group of US citizens peacefully protesting the shooting of Renée Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Among the protestors was thirty-seven year old Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
ICE agents were harassing a group of protesters, including a woman who had not made any physical or violent advance towards them and was not fighting back. They pushed the woman into a snow bank. Pretti stepped between the officers and this woman to keep her from harm. The officers involved pulled out pepper spray and began to spray Pretti in the face. He made another movement towards the woman in an attempt to help her, and a group of three officers pushed him to the ground, kicking and beating him as he was pinned to the street.
At the time Pretti was carrying a concealed, legally-purchased hand gun which was fully within his rights to carry. An officer saw the pistol and shouted, “He has a gun.” Another officer grabbed Pretti’s gun and ran across the street. At this point in time, the protester was unarmed, laying on the ground, being beaten by federal officers, and still not fighting back. After Pretti’s gun was brought across the street, an officer pulled out a gun and fired at Pretti. Within seconds more officers had pulled out guns. He was shot a total of ten times.
Some say the world has turned upside down since January of 2025. Though that is extreme, so much has changed since the beginning of this presidential term. One of the most widely known changes is in the policies of the ICE. If this is your first time hearing the story of Alex Pretti, you might be thinking that this was awful, but it was only one incident, right? Sadly, that is not the case. An article by Jennifer Mascia for The Trace states, “The Trace has identified twenty-two incidents in which immigration agents shot at people since Trump’s operations began last year. We have found another forty-three incidents in which agents held bystanders, protesters, or other people at gunpoint under questionable circumstances. Six people—including Pretti—were killed in these incidents. Another eleven people were injured.” Though some argue that the agency is saving the country by deporting mass amounts of people, ICE should never be able to get away with the illegal public torment and murder of innocent people. They are ruining the lives of millions of people and not even deporting a higher total number of people than previous less violent administrations.
On the other hand, some people argue that the violent policies are strategic and the goal is to scare immigrants from coming into the country in the first place. Immigration rates have dropped significantly, from 2.8 million people in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025 including both legal and illegal immigration. However, that does not explain why ICE agents are also murdering citizens of the United States who were born in the country and have never been considered immigrants. Another argument for the effectiveness of ICE’s recent policies—as stated on the official Homeland Security Webpage—is that they have led to 2.2 million “self-deportations” since Trump came into office. This is an inaccurate statistic which has been corrected in numerous articles, studies, and surveys. Some say that the problematic strategies are justified by the country’s “record breaking” number of deportations, but the numbers are far from record breaking.
Since the very beginning of this presidential term, it has been clear that ICE policies are violating rights. The number of innocent people that have been killed without sufficient repercussions is astonishing, but that is only a small fraction of the deep harm the federal force has caused the nation. From the beginning of the crackdown, masked, ununiformed officers have pulled people off the streets into unmarked vehicles. In many such cases, the only “infringement” of those arrested was legal, non-violent protesting or journalism, and there was no warrant for their arrest. That is one of many examples of the extraordinary lack of professionalism shown by this federal organization. The miniscule amount of required training for these armed agents is profoundly apparent in even brief interactions with them. Officers can be seen using inappropriate language and cursing at people every day in cities including Minneapolis, Washington DC, and more. One of many examples of this caught on video was when thirty-year-old Mariem Martinez was observing ICE agents from her car. A group of agents started walking towards her car. One shouted “do something, bitch,” before immediately opening fire. Later, the agent that shot her bragged to his friends over text: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
Once people are brought into custody, the violations of their rights only continue. People are being deported and sent to detention centers without due process, prevented from contact with family and lawyers, confined in brutal conditions, and treated inhumanely. Given all of this information, some still believe that the ends justify the means and even if the policies are problematic, as long as they are successful at deporting “illegal aliens,” they are worthwhile.
The Trump administration has not accomplished its goal of a record breaking number of deportations since his return to office. The Obama administration is known to have deported around 962 thousand people in fiscal year 2009. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that during 2025 it deported 675 thousand illegal immigrants thanks to the Trump administration. Even ignoring the questionable accuracy of recent DHS statistics, this is still significantly less deportations than those of the former president. Obama managed to accomplish these numbers without using the violent, disruptive strategies that have been put to use since Trump’s return to office. This shows that successful border control is not created through violence and fear. It is created through strategic planning and expertise. Though Trump’s strategies have not accomplished his goals, they have made a difference.
The violent crackdown has created an environment of mistrust across the country which is likely to have significant longer-term effects. Recent violence and false information have resulted in countless non-citizens hiding from the government. One important consequence of this is apparent in the decennial census. The decennial census is a count of every resident in the nation. It is mandated by the constitution and conducted in ten year intervals. The census is used to allocate political power and as much as 2.24 trillion dollars in national funding each year. A team of Census Bureau researchers did an analysis suggesting that the 2020 Census already seriously undercounted non-citizens. Immigrants make up a large fraction of residents, so if they go largely uncounted because they are forced to hide from governmental organizations, it will lead to significant misallocation of funding. One estimate for the 2030 census states that California alone could lose five billion dollars a year in federal funding, adding to around fifty billion dollars lost in the decade. This is only one of the many long-term systematic issues that have resulted from ICE’s recent actions.
Another example which has received a large amount of press is the agency’s increasing noncompliance with judicial orders. There are countless instances of the government ignoring judges’ rulings and in doing so directly challenging the rule of law. These issues may not seem all that important right now, but this is only the beginning.
The actions of ICE under the Trump administration have been unprofessional and out of control. If there is any hope of avoiding long-term systematic issues across the country, we must take immediate action. The agents need to be better trained and prepared for real world situations before they are armed and let loose on the public. Their strategies need to become less violent, and we must uphold the principle that no person—civilians, immigrants, and federal officers—is above the law.
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