The Latest ICE Surge Is Political Violence

During that federal immigration surge, officers killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti, both United States citizens. Federal officials quickly cast the victims as aggressors as they had and have done in other incidents around the country. Video and local accounts raised serious questions. Minnesota has sued for access to evidence, alleging federal agencies have obstructed state investigators. That moves the issue beyond anything resembling immigration status. It became about who is allowed to challenge federally implemented political violence and what happens when they do.

The tragic developments in Houston, Texas this week brought federally endorsed political violence into another community. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the person ICE agents were seeking when they stopped his van. DHS says he tried to use the vehicle as a weapon. We’ve heard this story many times before. In violent ICE encounters occurring in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Portland we heard the same explanation from federal officials, including the White House. And once again. Family and witnesses dispute the federal account. The agents were not wearing body cameras, and investigations “continue.” We should leave unsettled facts unsettled while recognizing the civic reality: an unmarked federal operation stopped the wrong man, ended his life and controlled the first public account.

One encounter may be misconduct. Repetition built through deployment, masking, secrecy, official messaging and resistance to scrutiny becomes the method of governing. The state is the main actor here, and non-state actors tell us just how much the main actor’s actions have been normalized.  On July 4, hundreds of masked paramilitary members of Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization, marched through Washington, D.C. Their appearance does not establish likely government coordination even with the current White House refusing to condemn their appearance. It does reveal what organized paramilitary organizations believe the present climate permits.

This matters because immigration sits at the center of modern white nationalist politics. The antisemitic Great Replacement theory first developed in white nationalist circles and later adopted in part as White House policy casts immigrants as invaders and demographic weapons, while claiming Jews or “hidden elites” are orchestrating the country’s destruction. That conspiracy binds anti-immigrant hatred to antisemitism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and attacks on other minoritized racial, ethnic and religious communities. 

People who care about racial justice have to care about what ICE is doing because the machinery normalized against immigrants rarely stays confined to immigrants. When public authority makes masked force and collective suspicion ordinary, paramilitary organizations and lone- wolf attackers come to believe that intimidation has become acceptable political language. 

Local culture-makers, public employees, labor leaders, clergy, civil libertarians, business owners and elected officials don’t have to agree on one theory of policing, borders or public safety. They can still form a popular front around a concrete refusal: arbitrary detention, masked federal enforcement, hidden evidence and retaliation against lawful dissent and non-violent civil disobedience can no longer become routine government regardless of which party is in power.

Local government workers can choose to stand where federal power meets daily life. They preserve records, document, protect resident data, maintain language access, administer benefits and decide whether a frightened person meets a public servant or a closed door. Administrative integrity can interrupt repression. Agencies should once again clarify legal authority now, document unusual directives, protect staff from retaliation and build trusted channels with community organizations before the federal crisis arrives, or worse, returns. Local and regionally based philanthropy have a different responsibility. It must fund readiness before the harm normalizes into spectacle. United Philanthropy Forum’s Advocacy, Awareness, & Action campaign helps the field respond to political pressure with coordination. 

Funders for Justice’s Safety and Security Pledge calls for sustained, flexible support for racial justice movements and campaigns facing escalating threats. Legal defense, security planning, rapid response, documentation and long-term organizing are critical democratic infrastructure. Local dependable, durable and diverse infrastructure is what turns a frightening incident into a documented pattern, a legal challenge, a public narrative and a coordinated response; without it, each community is left to discover the same danger alone.

For months and possibly years to come. The Trump administration will continue to shape the antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy into tangible and actualized federal policy. Neighbors and neighborhoods will continue to carry the cost.

The invitation now is not to join one organization or adopt one vocabulary. It is to choose a role before the next surge, the next indictment, the next official lie, the next demand that neighbors stand alone. That’s because our answer to enforced silence must come through neighbors who notice, public workers who hold their offices to their purpose, funders who move before absolute certainty arrives and organizations that reverse engineer fear into joyful and brave coordinated action. 

Those roles matter because political repression works by making people freeze into inaction before it tries to make them silent.

A real inclusive democracy emerges when we refuse.