The shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent sparked protests across the country, including one in Boston on Thursday, and more scheduled for this weekend.
Local ICE watchers said Good’s death is a reminder of why citizens need to keep an eye on Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Volunteers with the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, who keep tabs on ICE arrests around the state, said they’re on edge after seeing video of the fatal shooting, but they won’t back down.
“I haven’t seen anyone saying, ‘Hey, this is too much for me,’ ” said Jillian Phillips, who leads a hub of LUCE volunteers in Worcester. “If anything, I’ve seen a push for ‘This is the time for us to continue to push back.’ ”
Phillips said LUCE volunteers are trained to document ICE arrests without interfering. She said that’s helped keep people safe amid tense encounters between protestors and agents over the past year.
Now, the guidance to keep a distance from federal agents is more vital than ever.
“Our goal is not to impede or interrupt or stop it if they’re involved in an active arrest,” she said. “It’s going to be more harmful to get involved.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday blamed Democrats for the events that led to Good’s death, claiming the incident was the result of a “larger, sinister left wing movement that has spread across our country.”
Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem blamed protesters.
“These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in, they were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law,” she said. “And when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not.”
But former immigration Judge George Pappas said video of an ICE agent shooting Good through her car window shows she was not trying to injure the officer who fired on her. He said the White House is gaslighting the American people by mischaracterizing the events.
“ That gaslighting is the crime,” Pappas said, “It feeds into a discourse that tries to depict U.S. citizens who are observing activities in their neighborhood as terrorists. That is a violent act.”
Pappas was fired as an immigration judge in Chelmsford last year, one of a slew of similar terminations by the Trump administration. Now he’s back working as an immigration attorney.
Pappas said ICE watchers should continue to do their work — just as neighborhood watch groups operate throughout the United States — but they need to be careful under an administration that’s looking for reasons to mobilize the military domestically.
“ Stay nonviolent; observe from a distance; and do your best to not fall for the bait to create any kind of violent reaction,” Pappas said.
In his view, ICE watchers don’t have the right to attack ICE officers. And likewise, he said, ICE officers do not have the right to attack people observing them.
