Dehumanization, inhumane conditions, and abuse of power are the policies that ICE strives for. Countless people and detainees are currently being physically, mentally, and verbally abused. According to the Guardian, 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in 2 decades, with 32 people dying at the hands of ICE agents. What people should be asking is why so many people have died in the custody of ICE?
According to the Guardian, 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in 2 decades, with 32 people dying at the hands of ICE agents. What people should be asking is why so many people have died in the custody of ICE? According to the American Immigration Council, people being held at ICE facilities have been more likely to die this year than it was for them to be held during the peak of COVID-19. This goes to show the danger people face when detained by ICE. There have been countless videos of people being abused, harmed, and even killed by ICE agents because they needed to boost their ego. A recent incident that occurred was the murder of Renee Good. Renee Good was a 37-year-old mother and wife who ICE agent Jonathan Ross wrongfully killed. On January 7th, Good was shot 3 times in the head after trying to leave the scene. The officers were trying to argue that she was attempting to hit the officer with her car. In all the footage released from the incident, there is never a time when Good and Ross were perpendicular to each other, meaning there was no possible way for him to get hit.
Nurse Alex Pretti was also recently a victim of ICE. On January 26th, Pretti went to one of the Minneapolis protests, showing his disdain for ICE and the government. Pretti was legally allowed to hold and openly carry his firearm. He was brutally beaten, detained, and then shot by a group of officers. With Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez being the ones who were accused of the crime. As of February 2026, none of the ICE agents responsible for the death of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are being charged with anything.
In January of this year, while out with friends and driving on the highway. In front of us, about 150 feet away, a man is spinning out in his car after his tires had popped. Finally, the man stops, and my friends and I go to check on the man. He was frazzled, and we couldn’t really understand him at first. We call 911 and talk to an operator to see what we should try to do next. That’s when he comes to the car and asks us not to get the police involved. At first, we were puzzled, since the man didn’t look much older than us, and didn’t do anything wrong. The operator asks if we need any further assistance, like an ambulance, and following his request, we tell them no. There was no visible damage to him, and only to the car. As we returned to the man, he finally explained to us why he didn’t want us to get the police involved. His sole reasoning destroyed car or not, was that he didn’t want to see his parents in the custody of ICE. This changed everything. We then realized that all of the frantic actions and emotions weren’t caused by the damage to the car or to himself, but the fear that potentially his parents, who came to America to give their family a better chance at life, would be arrested and put into the custody of ICE. This was heartshattering; Imimigrants being legal or illegal shouldn’t matter. Humanity is the only thing we have to live for, and if we don’t have that, then we have nothing at all. Because of things like this, ICE should be abolished, not for the fact that the president attempts to make America “great again,” butfor the fact that humans should never be put in a position where their lives are at stake for trying to improve their living conditions and habits.
ICE started as a way to better protect and control the national security of the US, but in all honesty, it should be apparent that the creation of ICE in 2003 was and still is inherently racist and xenophobic [dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries]. ICE was originally formed under the presidency of George W. Bush. ICE was put in place to allow people to be racially profiled to better “protect this country”. This comes after the 9/11 attacks, where US citizens were scared of anyone who was even the tiniest bit different. To most people, this should sound like another group of people that the United States did nothing about. This is the issue with America, and especially our government. We have continued to put people through so much pain and suffering because our president wants a fascist regime. All ICE has done is stereotype innocent people and harm the people of the United States.
What people are doing right now is what needs to continue happening. Protesting and voicing your opinions are the only ways for our voices to be heard. Go out, protest, stand up for what you believe in, and abolish ICE.