After ICE agent shoots, kills person in Minneapolis, activists in New Orleans take to the streets

By Bobbi-Jeanne Misick
Contributing Writer

(VeriteNews.org) – Hours after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on January 7, activists from the New Orleans Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression and other groups gathered in Lafayette Square to demand ICE and other federal agencies leave the city.

Surrounding an elevated statue of Henry Clay, dozens of protesters held signs that denounced Donald Trump and federal immigration agencies such as ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, asked questions, like “what if you knew her” and harkened back to 2020 with the phrase, “I can’t breathe,” – a reference to George Floyd who was murdered by Minneapolis police officers that May.

“Justice for Renee,” Lindsay Wiggins shouted in unison with other protesters, referring to the deceased who was identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, according to Minnesota Public Radio.

Wiggins, who said she’s been outspoken against Trump and his policies since his first administration, said she was compelled by “outrage” to attend the protest.

“This is not the America we signed up for,” Wiggins told Verite News. “Slaughtering our citizens in the streets by people who are ostensibly here to protect us is an absolute abomination. It’s evil.”

The shooting happened one day after the Trump administration announced it would be sending 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis – a city whose Somali community became the target of a racist rant from the president, who said “we don’t want them in our country.”

In a statement posted on social media site X, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the ICE agent who shot Good was acting in self-defense after agents were met with “violent rioters.” McLaughlin said that Good tried to use her car in “an act of domestic terrorism” to kill the agents that approached the vehicle.

“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” McLaughlin said.

In an impassioned opening speech, Mich Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition said the Trump administration was “smear[ing] the name of our innocent dead.”

“They are the terrorists, they are the traffickers, they are the genociders,” Gonzalez said. “They’re here to violently repress the people.”

Gonzalez condemned U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino who has been leading immigration enforcement operations around the country including Midway Blitz in Chicago, Charlotte’s Web in Charlotte, North Carolina and Catahoula Crunch in southeast Louisiana and parts of Mississippi.

A video of the shooting shows ICE agents demanding that the driver of a maroon SUV get out of the vehicle. An agent attempts to open the driver’s side door as the vehicle is reversing; the car then moves forward at which point another ICE officer standing near the front driver’s side of the car points a gun and shoots. Additional video shows the vehicle veering off the road and crashing, presumably because the driver was deceased.

A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Verite News.

“We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump Administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to public safety, that someone was going to get hurt.” Minnesota governor and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said in a speech at a press conference – a clip of which he posted X. “Today that wrecklessness has cost someone their life.”

“ICE’s actions today were unconscionable and reprehensible,” Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar said in a post on X. “This administration has shown, yet again, that it does not care about the safety of Minnesotans. Instead of protecting our communities, they are unleashing violence–terrorizing neighborhoods and now killing a civilian.”

Speaker of the House of Representatives and Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson told reporters that the incident – claiming it was the “result of [a] months-long rhetoric against law enforcement and people encouraging that kind of violence.”

Similar protests and vigils took place around the country, including in Washington D.C. and Chicago, which have all seen increased immigration enforcement activity in 2025. In Minnesota, thousands came together in a vigil to honor Good, CBC reported.

The Catahoula Crunch operation was launched at the beginning of December. According to the Associated Press, DHS officials planned to arrest 5,000 immigrants as part of the operation by the end of January. However the department’s own numbers – which have not been verified – show that, as of Dec. 18, less than 400 people had been arrested.

Bovino was spotted in greater New Orleans on Tuesday (Jan. 6), according to multiple reports, including an image posted to Facebook from immigrants rights organization Union Migrante, before traveling to Minneapolis, where he was seen on last Wednesday.

This article originally published in the January 12, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.