The murder of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is generating growing outrage across the United States and around the world. The wanton, daylight execution of this mother of three encapsulates the criminality of the Trump administration and the Gestapo-style agents it has deployed in cities throughout the country.

On Thursday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, Border Patrol agents shot two people in broad daylight. While information is still coming out, according to dispatch audio obtained by local news, a caller reported that ICE agents had shot him and his wife. As in the Good killing, the Department of Homeland Security justified the attack with the stock phrase that the driver had “weaponized his vehicle” and attempted to run over agents.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security is deploying more than 100 Border Patrol agents to Minnesota, drawn from operations in Chicago and New Orleans. In one incident earlier this week in Minneapolis, following the murder of Good, DHS agents were involved in a car chase that ended with a crash outside a school just as classes were being dismissed. ICE has denied using chemical agents, but video evidence confirms the use of tear gas, and at least one teacher was detained before being released. 

The conscious and deliberate character of Good’s killing is underscored by the open and unapologetic defense of the murder by Trump administration officials. By hailing the killing, Trump and the coterie of fascists in the administration are making clear that it was an expression of official government policy. 

Everything coming out of the mouths of administration officials is a lie, and everyone knows it is a lie. On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance held a press conference in which he slandered Good and praised her killer. He called the federal agent’s actions “legitimate” and denounced the media for “talking about this guy as if he’s a murderer,” adding menacingly, “Be a little bit more careful.” 

According to Vance, “When you look at all angles of that video, it is very clear that her vehicle went right for the guy. She actually collided with him and then that’s of course when he fired his shots.”

But tens of millions of people have seen the video, which shows the exact opposite. As the New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian have all concluded, the footage shows that Good was trying to escape from a mob of federal agents when she was shot. There is no indication in the video that the ICE agent was ever in danger, let alone “rammed” by the vehicle. The car was moving away from the agent when he raised his gun and fired three rounds at close range. 

The Trump administration is seizing on the murder of Good as a pretext for a sweeping escalation in the criminalization of political opposition. Vance announced the creation of a new assistant attorney general position that will answer directly to the president. Asked about his message to “far-leftist agitators,” Vance declared: “Now they have an assistant attorney general who is going to prosecute and investigate their fraud and their violence more aggressively than it has ever been investigated.”

Vance accused “a group of left-wing radicals” of using “domestic terror techniques” to oppose the government’s immigration policies.

He never referred to Good by name, instead smearing her as “that woman,” a “deranged leftist” who was “brainwashed.” He insisted the killer was “protected by absolute immunity,” denounced the local investigation into the murder, and declared, “The unprecedented thing is the idea that a local official can actually prosecute a federal official with absolute immunity.”

Vance’s threats come amid the increasingly open assertion of dictatorial executive powers by the Trump administration. Buried in the extensive coverage of Trump’s interview with the New York Times published Thursday, Trump reiterated his willingness to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military in cities throughout the United States, including the federalization of National Guard units. “So far,” he said, “I haven’t really felt the need to do it.”

In an extraordinary statement, Trump declared that he operates outside of any legal constraint. Asked whether there were any limits on his ability to strike, invade or coerce other nations, Trump responded: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” He dismissed international law outright—“I don’t need international law”—and made clear that he would be the sole arbiter of any legal constraints: “It depends what your definition of international law is.” 

While these statements were made in the context of foreign policy, they apply equally to, and indeed are inextricably connected to, the “theory” of dictatorship within the United States itself. As the murder of Renee Nicole Good demonstrates, it is asserting that the president has power over life and death, that a US citizen can be murdered in cold blood and her killers defended and praised.

While leading Democrats have issued insincere statements in response to the killing of Good, their main concern is to contain the explosive growth of opposition within the United States.

The murder in Minneapolis follows a year in which Trump systematically advanced a conspiracy for presidential dictatorship. Throughout this process, the Democrats worked to suppress opposition. In response to the mass “No Kings” demonstrations in October, they capitulated to Trump by ending the government shutdown on his terms. Just three months ago, Bernie Sanders praised Trump’s immigration crackdown, declaring, “We should have a secure border,” and stating Trump had done a “better job” than Biden. 

At a press conference Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries were asked if they would use their budgetary powers to rein in ICE. They refused to answer. As Politico wrote, “The House and Senate are currently negotiating the bill that appropriates money to the Department of Homeland Security, which requires 60 votes. But Schumer and Jeffries did not commit to using the appropriations process as leverage.”

In fact, the Democrats will do absolutely nothing, because they represent the same class interests as Trump. Last year, they offered only token opposition to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which exploded the ICE budget to $170 billion, making it one of the largest paramilitary forces in the United States.

The trade union apparatus, for its part, has issued perfunctory statements that combine rhetorical outrage with a call for passivity. The Minnesota AFL-CIO declared it was “shocked, heartbroken and angry” by the killing of Good. But the union bureaucracy makes no call for action, instead placing its faith in the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and pleading for calm: “The Trump Administration wants to provoke Minnesotans… Do not give them the opportunity.”

Popular outrage over the ICE killing is mounting. In Minneapolis, a memorial at the site of the killing has become the epicenter of continuous vigils and demonstrations, with over 10,000 attending Wednesday night despite subzero temperatures. Protests have since spread nationwide, including in New York City, Columbus, San Antonio, Tucson, Portland and many other cities. More protests are planned in the coming days.

In opposition to the passivity and complicity of the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus, workers and youth must advance a program rooted in the strength of the working class itself. 

The demands raised by the Socialist Equality Party in its statement of January 7 outline the basis for a genuine struggle: the arrest and prosecution of her killer; the immediate withdrawal of all ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) forces from Minneapolis and every city; the abolition of these Gestapo agencies; the release of all detainees; an end to raids, renditions and deportations; and full legal rights and protections for all immigrant workers and their families.

These demands cannot be realized through appeals to the political establishment or moral outrage alone. They require mass social struggle. The logic of events is driving toward a general strike: a coordinated intervention by the working class across every industry to bring the machinery of repression and exploitation to a halt. 

To organize this, workers must build rank-and-file committees in workplaces, neighborhoods, schools and hospitals—independent of the union bureaucracies and Democratic Party operatives—capable of uniting workers across industries and borders. 

At the same time, the fight to defend democratic rights is inseparable from the fight against the capitalist oligarchy that stands behind Trump. It must be directed toward the construction of a mass socialist movement to put an end to dictatorship, repression and exploitation.