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ICE is not the victim
ICE is not the victim
MAGA lies can’t hide the real damage done to people like Renee Nicole Good
By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published January 9, 2026 6:45AM (EST)
(Salon) In the days before an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent, named by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune as Jonathan Ross, shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in the Twin Cities, MAGA world was consumed with yet another fake outrage. This time, they were pretending to be mad about the alleged victimization of the deportation forces that have been bombarding Minnesota communities. To hear the right’s version of the story, no one has ever been more victimized than these beleagured ICE agents, who were subject to the unspeakable horror of temporarily being denied lodging. A single Hilton-affiliated hotel in the Minneapolis area canceled the reservations of agents, who were in town to intimidate and arrest local residents suspected of being immigrants. Even though Hilton immediately cut ties with the hotel and apologized in an embarrassing manner to the Trump administration, ICE and the White House were not going to pass up the opportunity to once again play the victim.
....(snip)....
This attitude has been endemic with ICE and their supporters since Donald Trump took office. The agency’s recruiting materials lure would-be agents with heavy-handed language; agents are “brave” and “resolute” men fighting “criminals and predators.” (And in case they were worried, the top of the page reassures applicants, “You do not need an undergraduate degree.”) When interfacing with the public, however, ICE and their supporters inevitably come across as whiny babies playing dress-up.
....(snip)....
Border czar Tom Homan claims that agents need to wear masks because they don’t want to be “doxxed on social media” — in other words, have their identity known to the people they’re supposedly serving. Videos of ICE arrests spread rapidly on social media, showing that the “criminals and predators” are instead unarmed health care workers, day care workers tending small children and a 71-year-old citizen accused of pushing an agent. Only the weakest people on earth could be afraid of these arrestees, but ICE agents come at them in huge numbers, like they’re trying to take down an NFL player hopped up on PCP. The agency’s pity party has grown so ridiculous that Fox News ran multiple outraged segments because a Boston-area church displayed an anti-ICE nativity scene. One host, Harris Faulkner, insisted that merely posting an anti-ICE sign at a church is “cruel rhetoric” that “helps to endanger” the “agents on the ground.”
Heaven forbid any of these people stub a toe. We’ll never stop hearing about how it was like their entire leg was amputated.
....(snip)....
The ICE victim complex goes deep. As Good’s killing showed, it’s deadly. By relentlessly and falsely portraying agents as a beleaguered group terrorized by day care workers, nativity scenes and hotel employees, MAGA has preemptively justified violence against unarmed civilians as an act of self-defense. Barely minutes after her death, a tidal way of disinformation painting ICE as the real victims came pouring out of the Trump administration and their legions of self-appointed propagandists. .............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/01/09/ice-is-not-the-victim/
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