January 31, 2026
Dear Friends,
This week, just days after the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen at the hands of immigration officers, I called for ICE to be abolished. You can read my full op-ed on this HERE and below.
Like so many of you, I was stunned and horrified this week to watch yet another video of a person being killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
This time, the victim was Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who served our veterans at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Earlier this month, it was Renee Nicole Good, a writer, poet and mother of three. Both were U.S. citizens; both were shot multiple times by federal agents.
The shocking brutality we’ve seen in Minnesota draws eerie parallels to the acts of violence inflicted upon my late colleague and dear friend, John Lewis, and the hundreds of unarmed, peaceful civil rights protesters he led across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 before being beaten by police and locally deputized civilians armed with billy clubs, tear gas and whips.
No matter which side of the political aisle you stand on, the horror of these events should be self-evident. The stark and devastating reality is that two people who should be in the arms of their families today have instead been killed in the street.
How many more innocent lives must be taken before this ends?
For me the answer is clear: not one more.
This agency, as it exists and operates, cannot continue. ICE needs to be abolished.
Though necessary, it is not enough to oppose continued funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It is not enough to conduct a full federal investigation into the killings of both Alex and Renee. It is not enough to impeach DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. These actions, though necessary, are not enough.
In order to ensure public safety, trust and credibility need to be there. ICE has destroyed that trust. What we have seen in Minnesota and beyond is an agency operating completely outside the law and without oversight.
Peaceful legal observers have been tear-gassed, beaten, shoved into unmarked cars and held for days by masked agents. Children have been grabbed on their way to and from school, including 5-year-old Liam Ramos, who is now separated from his father in a Texas detention camp. Last week, whistleblowers exposed a secret memo asserting that ICE agents can forcibly enter the homes of suspected undocumented people without so much as a judicial warrant.
I still believe that we need a system to responsibly enforce our nation’s immigration laws. But ICE, under this administration, has strayed far from that mission.
Abolishing ICE is simply a recognition that the agency, as currently constituted, has lost all public trust and legitimacy. It does not mean we will abandon all attempts to enforce our nation's immigration laws, just that ICE cannot be trusted to carry out that mission.
Prior to ICE's creation in 2003, we had other agencies enforcing our immigration laws that were focused on actual criminal threats rather than fulfilling arbitrary quotas that are causing the terror and chaos we are seeing in our streets. We should return to this model, because what ICE is doing is not enforcing the law; it is imposing terror, with deadly consequences.
The horror of the brutal crackdown against peaceful protesters at Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the unwavering conviction of Brother John and countless civil right advocates, marked a turning point in the civil rights movement and spurred the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
No one should be beaten and shot in the street for exercising their First Amendment rights. Not in 1965 and not in 2026. I’ll continue standing for the ideals of peace and justice that Brother John stood and bled for, and I hope you’ll do the same.
As always, thank you for reading.
Your friend,
DID YOU KNOW?
My office and I are working to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates, announcements, and recommendations from governments and agencies. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:
