Trump and ICE Want You to Think Renee Nicole Good Deserved It

What
we saw in the ICE officer’s video should be understood alongside the intense
attacks on women and LGBTQ people under this administration. Her killing takes place
against the backdrop of everyday oppression that, for so many of us, long
preceded Trump. Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, author of the recent book Man Up:
The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism and a professor at
American University, told me she saw the video and surrounding rhetoric as
attempts at what she describes as “containment”—a set of strategies that prop
up patriarchal power by policing its dissenters, actual or perceived.

Misogynistic
rhetoric can be so ordinary as to escape mention; The New York Times did not quote the “fucking bitch” statement
in its coverage of the video, nor even describe
it, as if the merging of pathetic name-calling with state violence was not
notable. Denying the misogyny in the killing also reinforces its effect. “The
misogyny delegitimizes, it demobilizes, it normalizes violence,” Miller-Idriss
explained when we spoke on Monday. The language in the video, underlining the
violence, serves as a warning to any other people who dare follow Good’s
example and excuses any violence waged against them. “It’s especially
horrifying to see that kind of violence against women and LGBTQ folks be just
celebrated,” she said, “as if this woman was put in her place—fucking bitch,
right?”

The
staggering truth is, this was not even the first time, since ICE’s siege began
in 2025, that an immigration enforcemen officer shot a woman in her car and
called her a bitch. In October, a Border Patrol agent named Charles Exum shot
five times at a woman who had been following ICE just as Good had. (This was,
according to The Trace, one of 16 incidents in which immigration
enforcement officers opened fire since these sieges began in 2025, along with
another 15 incidents in which they held someone at gunpoint. A Wall Street
Journal investigation has found 13 incidents where ICE shot at someone in their
vehicle.) The victim in October, Marimar Martinez, lived. The Department of
Justice charged her with attempted murder. It claimed she had rammed her car
into the immigration officers’ car. In court, however, the woman’s attorney said that the agent’s own bodycam video
showed him telling her, before opening fire, “Do something, bitch.” Later, he
texted a group chat involving other agents something that may have led to the
charges being dropped. The Border Patrol agent boasted, “I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7
holes. Put that in your book boys.”