JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A wave of outrage is spreading across the country after a Minneapolis mother, Renee Nicole Good, was shot and killed during a federal immigration operation.
The shooting of the 37-year-old has sparked protests and emergency actions nationwide, with demonstrators condemning the scale and force of recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
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Advocates say the operation in Minneapolis has intensified long-standing fear within immigrant communities and raised new questions about accountability.
“The whole nation is tired of this militarization of police and ICE and the raids, the rhetoric,” said Maria Garcia, an organizer with the Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance. “We’re just tired of it.”
Garcia, who helped organize a solidarity protest in Jacksonville, said the presence of law enforcement has increasingly been met with panic in immigrant neighborhoods.
“Anytime there are police cars, people are just afraid that means a raid,” Garcia said. “They’ll be taken off the streets and sent who knows where.”
Minneapolis city leaders have criticized ICE’s presence, saying it has created chaos and distrust in the community. For organizers, the loss of Good has also brought deep personal grief.
“I’m angry, I’m sad,” Garcia said. “She was a person. She was a mother.”
Federal officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, say Good attempted to run over an ICE agent and ram him with her vehicle before the agent fired the fatal shot.
Still, organizers say the focus should remain on the loss of life.
“It just breaks my heart. It shatters my heart,” Garcia said. “I can’t imagine what her family must be going through.”
As protests continue across the country, organizers say cities like Jacksonville are adding their voices in solidarity, calling for an end to ICE operations they describe as dangerous and dehumanizing.
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