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ICE Protests Rage at Foley Square for Second Night After Minneapolis Shooting

“I’m fed up with it. We are fed up with it,” a Navy veteran said after two more people were shot by an ICE agent in Portland, Oregon on Thursday. “It’s already one too many.”

Lyna Bentahar Jan 9

Several protests have converged on Foley Square since Wednesday, after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman, in Minneapolis, and as tensions mount over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in major cities.

It was the ninth time federal agents have shot people inside their vehicles since September, according to The New York Times. And indeed, an agent in Portland, Ore., shot two more people Thursday afternoon.

“I’m fed up with it. We are fed up with it,” Daniel R., a Navy veteran, said. “It’s already one too many.”

During the latest demonstration Thursday night, organizers called for the abolition of ICE, which was established 22 years ago in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Helicopters and drones hovered above the crowd.

“People fear going to school, they fear going to work, they fear going to restaurants, sidewalks and even their own porches,” said Zaara, a member of the Students for a Democratic Society at New York University who only went by her first name. “That is not safety. That is terror.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference Thursday in New York at the World Trade Center to defend the shooting and the immigration crackdown. She defended the agent, instead accusing Good of maliciously attacking him by using her car “as a weapon.“

The inconsistency between the defense of the agent and the video of the shooting that had spread online was striking for one protester, William Sterling, who said it reminded him of the dystopian novel 1984.

“It’s just trying to stake your own truth, make up your own truth,” Sterling said.

ICE activity in major cities like Minneapolis and New York have sowed tension and distrust among locals and federal law enforcement, including Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, who declared to immigration officials during a press conference: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

Minnesota officials said they were blocked from investigating the killing, while Noem claimed the state lacked the jurisdiction. She and other Trump administration officials have defended the ICE agent’s actions as lawful.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune identified the agent as Jonathan Ross, who was dragged and injured by a fleeing driver in a separate incident in June.

The protest was overwhelmingly peaceful, with organizers encouraging protesters not to speak with the police. But early in the evening, police detained a man who spat at the demonstrators, inciting an uproar. Deputy Chief Timothy Beaudette said he would be charged with harassment.

There was only one arrest on Thursday, a police spokesperson said. The demonstration marched from Foley Square and snaked through Lower Manhattan before coming to an end at Washington Square Park, where a few dozen people continued to march on. They added a new name to their chants: Keith Porter Jr., a father whom an ICE agent killed on New Year’s Eve.

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