Sad To See and Sad To Say, But This Isn't Over
“ICE had a busy year, but the work is just getting started.”
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The government “will not back down.”
The troublemakers are “a bunch of people incited or hired by the enemy.”
They will be shown “no leniency.”
“There is no benefit to talking to rioters. Rioters must be put in their place.”
You can be excused for thinking that these threats came from the mouth of Donald Trump. They are the kinds of things he does say. But they didn’t. With angry anti-government protests breaking out in the past two weeks in cities all over Iran, they came from the Islamic State’s Supreme National Security Council and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
So far, with government forces taking those statements as permission to respond to protests with violence, Amnesty International says, “The crackdown has resulted in the killing of at least 28 protesters and bystanders, including children.” An Iranian human rights group based in Norway says the death toll is at least 45.
It’s not that bad here. At least not yet.
But the government’s response— the U.S. government’s response— to its perception of resistance against its anti-immigration crackdowns in American cities has turned more violent. The shooting death of Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday in Minneapolis. The shootings of two people in their car on Thursday in Portland. According to a New York Times analysis, “The shooting in Portland was at least the 10th since September by federal agents who are part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — and all 10 involved people who were in their vehicles.” Two, including Good, are dead.
In a commentary yesterday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey added more context: “In mid-December, ICE agents were filmed dragging a pregnant woman through the street. Heavily armed agents have been deployed to arrest lone individuals in public libraries and malls. Even in the aftermath of this week’s shooting, ICE agents continued to spread chaos, apparently deploying chemical agents at a local public high school.”
It makes me want to scream, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? But we know what’s going on. As in Iran, protesters— and sometimes innocent bystanders— are seen as “a bunch of people incited or hired by the enemy.” In light of statements by our government’s leaders after Renee Nicole Good died, that is not a stretch. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the day Good died that this mother of three had tried to run over ICE agents in “an act of domestic terrorism.” Attorney General Pam Bondi warned protesters not to cross a “red line.” Vice President JD Vance smeared Good as a “deranged leftist.” Trump himself called her “a professional agitator” and said, “The reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis.”
How far afield is all of this from what we hear from Iran?
I’d like to think that as violence has risen and anger has escalated, federal agencies under Homeland Security like ICE and Customs and Border Protection and others would be stepping back and asking themselves, “Is something wrong here?” But that would be naive and wishful thinking. They’re not stepping back, they’re stepping up like Nazi stormtroopers and saying, in effect, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
For the past half year, ICE has ramped up its recruiting campaign for agents by posting social media messages like these.
Is it implausible that just like the government forces in Iran, any federal agent would take these entreaties to “Recapture the America your forefathers created,” and “We need YOU to get them out,” as implicit permission to use violence to accomplish their mission?
On the last day of 2025, ICE posted on X, “ICE had a busy year, but the work is just getting started.”
The day after Good’s death, an ICE spokeswoman issued a statement proving it, saying, “In the face of violent attacks, ICE law enforcement arrested pedophiles, rapists and drug traffickers in Minneapolis yesterday.” She crowed about more than 1,500 arrests in Minnesota. Vice President Vance said Good’s death was “a tragedy of her own making.”
As in Iran, the government “will not back down.”
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The issue isn’t just that federal agents have used disproportionate violence against Americans who protest our government’s policies. It is that the leaders of our government lie to protect them when they do, and if anything, egg them on.
Sad to see and sad to say, but this isn’t over.