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On New Year’s Eve, American citizen Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two girls, was shot and killed in front of his apartment door by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Los Angeles. Although the Los Angeles Police Department claimed to be investigating the accident, Porter’s family and the wider LA community have been met with silence. Few locally elected officials have spoken out, no arrest has been made and the state attorney general insinuated he doesn’t plan to take action.

On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a mother of three, was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent in Minnesota while calmly trying to turn away in her vehicle. Vice President JD Vance defended the agent, incorrectly claiming the Department of Homeland Security backed an entitlement to “absolute immunity.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused Good of engaging in “domestic terrorism,” seemingly excusing her murder.

On Jan. 13, in Houston, ICE violently placed 10th grader Arnoldo Bazan, a U.S. citizen, in a chokehold. The agent also took his phone, which was later found sold to a used electronic vending machine near a detention facility. Houston police haven’t interviewed the agents, telling Bazan’s sister they can’t help.

On Jan. 14, ICE agents racially profiled a disabled woman, smashed her car window, cut her seatbelt and violently pulled her from her vehicle as she shouted that she was disabled in Minneapolis. As 2,000 federal agents flood the area in the “largest immigration operation ever,” school districts in Minnesota have had to cancel school for tens of thousands of students to ensure safety.

I hope that violence doesn’t epitomize what the new year has in store for us, but it’s hard not to when violent power breaches are synonymous with our current regime. BIPOC communities........

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