In a viral post on Instagram, 5-year-old Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos smiles brightly in front of iconic Austin street art. She’s wearing purple sneakers with pink laces. In big yellow lettering, the post reads: “URGENT: 5-YEAR-OLD US CITIZEN DISAPPEARED BY ICE.”
Before dawn on Jan. 5, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Génesis and her mother, Karen, at their South Austin home. Karen had called the Austin Police Department at 4:30 a.m. for help after a man — whom she had an expired restraining order against — showed up, Chief Lisa Davis told the Austin American-Statesman. APD reported no issues at the scene when they arrived, and they turned Karen and her daughter over to ICE, the newspaper reported.
In the days that followed, their family struggled to find out where they’d been taken. The Austin-based social justice group Grassroots Leadership took an interest, sharing online pleas for help locating Génesis alongside images of her standing in her elementary school classroom on top of a colorful alphabet rug.
As their family was still searching for answers on Jan. 7, another mother on the other side of the country had just dropped her six-year-old son off at school in Minneapolis when she came upon a group of ICE agents.
Within minutes, one of them fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. Video taken by witnesses and the agent himself, and analyzed by reporters and experts, contradict the Trump administration’s subsequent messaging that the agent was acting in self defense. To many Americans, it looked a lot like murder.
Over the weekend, people across the country mobilized to protest against ICE in the name of Good and other victims of the largest Department of Homeland Security operation in recorded history. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Karen and Génesis were deported to Honduras. The news devastated the family and has left their community grieving, Grassroots Leadership said in a statement.
Last night, another man was shot by a federal agent in Minneapolis. Today President Donald Trump is threatening to use the Insurrection Act to send even more troops to the city.
It’s hard to know where to begin, how to even start parsing through the near-constant deluge of tragedy, misinformation, and violence that has become part and parcel of life under ICE. Under the banner of Trump’s sweeping anti-immigration efforts, masked officers have been deployed onto our streets in a campaign of xenophobia-fueled terror disguised as “law and order.”
Over the last year, the agency has ballooned in both budget and size — it now has the largest budget of any law enforcement agency in the country, and the federal troops on the ground in Minneapolis dwarf local police forces. Communities have seen their neighbors taken from their homes, seized while driving their kids to cancer treatments and to college, and jailed while returning from their honeymoons. They’ve seen journalists detained, priests threatened, and disabled children held for weeks. Immigration agents have used banned chokeholds — like the one that killed George Floyd in 2020 — on dozens of people.
Americans have watched as the death tolls tick higher: 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 and another four have died already in 2026.
The crackdowns have sent shockwaves throughout the country, and spurred a groundswell of resistance. A lawsuit filed by Minnesota and the Twin Cities claim the federal immigration operations are a “federal invasion” and a violation of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Communities have also used less official means. Activists, clergymen, community organizers, stay at home parents, and everyday people have become part of “rapid response” groups, mobilizing to help track sightings of ICE agents, alert people to their presence, film and monitor their interactions, disrupt their operations, and keep their neighborhoods safe.
In the midst of this patchwork of volunteers an old slogan has re-emerged: “Abolish ICE.”
Almost a decade ago, I interviewed five young activists from all over the U.S. about why they wanted to disband the agency. It was months into Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, and an ongoing wave of family separations that sparked national outrage. Each activist had their reasons for wanting to do away with ICE — one characterized the agency as inhumane, arguing that deploying ICE agents wasn’t the right way to go about immigration enforcement; others pointed to the growing immigration detention population, where reports of human rights abuses and poor conditions had been rampant; another characterized ICE as a means for the government to reassert control over a country with a growing Latino population.
For then-29-year-old activist Greisa Martinez Rosas, the reasoning was simple: “Abolishing ICE is a long-term goal that’s part of the vision we have for our community. We want people to be able to live with dignity, thrive, and be safe. We want families to be able to exist without the fear of being killed or separated.”
Though it wasn’t a new movement — calls to disband the agency have been around since the agency’s inception in 2003 — it was far from mainstream. And while a handful of progressive politicians like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Austin-area Congressman Greg Casar began their careers adopting the slogan, it was obvious after the 2020 elections that many Democrats felt the campaign had done more harm than good, treating it like a radioactive piece of rhetoric that would only alienate more voters.
“Among party strategists, the ‘Abolish ICE’ debate is remembered as an early mistake by the the first anti-Trump resistance, a slogan that Republicans used to portray Democrats as the ‘open borders’ party,” Semafor politics reporter David Weigel wrote in April.
The last year, however, has begun to shake the table.
Large-scale ICE operations across the country have given Americans an up-close view of exactly what it takes to fulfill Trump’s promise of the “largest deportation” in U.S. history. The promise to deport “dangerous criminals” has played out as a wide-scale effort to target protestors and dissenters, increase surveillance through constitutionally dubious methods, and deport as many people as possible, regardless of their citizenship or lack of criminal records.
A review by The Intercept of more than a dozen of these operations also revealed a disturbing pattern of violence.
“Agents have aimed firearms and sprayed chemical irritants at onlookers and protesters. They have launched tear gas and flash bang grenades into crowds. They have beaten the people they detain, struck them with batons, and restrained them face down in a prone position, pressing them into the pavement and restricting their abilities to breathe.”
In Chicago, a wave of lawsuits and lasting paranoia followed an immigration crackdown that resulted in a militarized raid of an apartment complex in which naked children were zip-tied, the deployment of tear gas at a children’s Halloween parade, and two shootings. This week, the city of Chicago joined Illinois in a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration’s actions in the area.
“Border Patrol agents and ICE officers have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law,” said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “They randomly, and often violently, question residents. Without warrants or probable cause, they brutally detain citizens and non-citizens alike. They use tear gas and other chemical weapons against bystanders, injuring dozens, including children, the elderly and local police officers.”
And in Austin, Karen and Génesis’ family members have experienced firsthand how difficult it is to navigate the system after a loved one is apprehended by ICE.
“It has been two days and we don’t have any information. We are so worried, especially about my little niece,” said Germán, Génesis’ uncle and a U.S. citizen, in an interview with Fox 7 Austin on January 7. “We want to know where she is and whether she’s alone or with her mom.”
“It’s a feeling of anguish and powerlessness that I wouldn’t wish on anybody,” he added.
Following days of community pressure organized by Grassroots, Karen was allowed to call her brother, but “was instructed not to share their location with anyone in order to avoid alerting community and media outlets,” Grassroots said in a statement.
Even Joe Rogan, the uncritical thinker and podcast host who endorsed Trump in 2024, compared ICE to “the Gestapo” in a recent episode.
Though legal experts have questioned whether Austin police were required to cooperate with ICE in this case, the city’s police chief, Lisa Davis, told KUT News she would create new department “general orders” that explicitly explain their policy: “Officers may but are not required to call ICE.”
The story prompted immediate, fiery responses from Austin’s city leadership.
Though Grassroots called her detainment and deportation a “blatant violation of Génesis’ constitutional rights,” it’s hard to imagine any justice for her now.
With a historic number of detainees, it’s become increasingly common for individuals to “disappear” within the system. Over the last year, families and legal advocates have reported a number of roadblocks in locating their loved ones, including sudden transfers to other facilities, as well as delays and inaccuracies in the agency’s online tracker. Until someone is located, legal advocates aren’t able to assist them, and as a result, people can be deported before anyone outside the agency can confirm where they are.
Last year, two Louisiana mothers who were deported to Honduras with their children filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration arguing that they were denied due process as well as the opportunity, per ICE’s own policies, to decide whether they would be deported with their children or remain in the U.S. with family. Three of their children, including a 4-year-old with stage-four kidney cancer, are U.S. citizens.
This flagrant pattern of abuse and human rights violations has emboldened more and more people to call these operations out for what they really are: a threat to democracy. As Elie Mystal argued in The Nation this week, “Every authoritarian regime throughout history has employed a roving band of armed thugs who operate outside the law to enforce its strongman’s will. Caesar had his Praetorian Guard, Francios Duvalier had his Tonton Macoutes, Hitler had his Gestapo. Donald Trump has ICE.”
And public opinion isn’t far behind. In February of 2025, just after Trump took office, polling from YouGov/The Economist showed public opinion of ICE at +16 overall. A more recent poll conducted just last week shows their approval has soured, plunging to -13 since last year. Fifty percent of American women support abolishing ICE now. Even Joe Rogan, the uncritical thinker and podcast host who endorsed Trump in 2024, compared ICE to “the Gestapo” in a recent episode.
This much is clear: Our rights do not matter. Our citizenship does not matter. Our lives do not matter. And how do we contend with that?
“You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said.
In the days since Good’s death, more politicians have echoed calls to hold ICE accountable. At a crowded town hall in Plano this week, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico reaffirmed his pledge to launch a “full investigation” into ICE before Congress if he won. His primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, filed legislation with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna to increase oversight of the agency by requiring body cameras and visible identification, along with banning masks.
“Kristi Noem has been a complete and total failure at her job,” Crockett posted to Blue Sky on Wednesday. “She has violated her oath and has allowed ICE agents to terrorize our communities. That’s why I’m joining @robinkelly.house.gov in calling for her impeachment.”
This week, several of Congress’ more progressive Democrats have called for the party to withhold DHS funding in response to the shooting. And several states like California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts have begun putting forward legislation that attempt to put guardrails up on ICE operations.
But these are bandaids over bullet holes.
As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told The Bulwark, “Can our cops arrest ICE agents? Legally? Yes. Practically? It gets kind of hard when they outnumber us and have bigger guns than we do.”
Good’s death and the immediate aftermath have made it crystal clear that we are expendable to the Trump Administration. Their agents are not.
Less than two hours after the incident, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was calling Renee Good’s attempt to flee an “act of domestic terrorism.” Less than five hours after Good was shot, the president was already running cover for the agent, saying he “seems to have shot her in self defense.” In the aftermath, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned over the Justice Department’s push to investigate Good’s widow — and reluctance to investigate the shooter, The New York Times reported.
This much is clear: Our rights do not matter. Our citizenship does not matter. Our lives do not matter. And how do we contend with that? How do we live alongside a violent, paranoid agency that sees everyday people as a threat, under an administration that will tell us not to believe what we see when they step out of line?
“In the eyes of the state and its agents, all of the rest of us are walking around with a standing presumption, not just of guilt, but of murderous intent,” wrote Albert Burneko in Defector. “Anything but total and immediate submission is domestic terrorism. It’s punishable by whatever the masked and unidentified government agent pointing a gun at your face decides to dish out.”
Journalist and author Spencer Ackerman wrote an opinion piece this week called, “Either ICE is abolished or it will kill many more Renee Goods.” Similar sentiments have recently been expressed by everyone from gun-violence prevention advocate Cameron Kasky and neo-conservative Never Trumper Bill Kristol — who served in senior positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations — to BuzzFeed. Celebrities at the Golden Globes wore “ICE OUT” pins on their extravagant gowns and accessories, which In Style magazine championed on Threads.
But not everyone is ready to go so far as sunsetting the agency. In a recent memo to Democrats, Third Way, a centrist think tank, advised the party to resist emotional impulses about adopting the slogan, arguing that it would risk “squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to secure meaningful reform” and hand Republicans “exactly the fight they want.”
For too long now, Democrats have allowed Republicans to run the show on immigration. They’ve caved to Republican-led moral panics about “invasions” and “open borders,” and as a result, everyone is less safe.
But as New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argues, while the country may need some form of immigration enforcement, it doesn’t need ICE.
“It doesn’t need an agency whose institutional identity is wedded to wanton cruelty and the apparent hair-trigger use of lethal force,” Bouie writes. “It doesn’t need an agency that has been transformed into a paramilitary enforcer of despotic rule. It doesn’t need roving bands of masked thugs shooting and killing ordinary people under the cover of law.”
A decade ago, an election ago, one year ago, even one week ago, abolishing ICE may have seemed out of the question.
But today, we have to ask ourselves: What more does ICE have to do? How many more lives have to be ended or put in danger until we make the right call?