The Goal Posts Keep Shifting

Erick Erickson on Jan 16, 2026

Renee Good should be alive. The activist, killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, met her end in tragedy. What has happened since, predictably, saw people rush to their tribal corners. ICE "murdered" Good. Good was the villain. Your politics positioned your stance. What got left behind were the facts and a press corps that proved again it cannot be trusted.

On the day of Good's death, those who took ICE's side claimed Good hit the ICE agent with her car. Others denied it. Some insisted ICE agents were sending mixed signals, some telling her to drive off and others telling her to get out of her car. Democrat politicians insisted Good had just been dropping her son off at school. The New York Times compiled a compilation of the videos from the scene and concluded that Good had not hit the ICE officer.

Here is what we now know. Good had been harassing ICE agents much of the day. In one video filmed from a cell phone, Good continuously blared her car's horn for more than three minutes as she attempted to block ICE agents. Good had been involved in a progressive activist group called ICE Watch that encouraged not just obstruction of ICE, but also something they call "de-arrest," which means helping detained illegal immigrants escape.

We also know ICE agents did not send mixed signals. The person yelling for Good to drive off was her lesbian partner, who participated in the effort to stymie ICE. As ICE agents at Good's car told her to park and get out, her partner yelled, "Drive, baby, drive." Good turned her wheel to avoid the ICE agent who had walked around her car and, at that point, was in front of her. She accelerated on an icy road and did, in fact, hit the ICE agent. We now have his medical records. He was injured.

The New York Times and other media outlets seeded lots of conjecture claiming Good was an innocent bystander and also that the agent was not hit. The initial press coverage turned out to be wrong. The New York Times was wrong, but it was relied on by numerous people to claim ICE was lying.

Now, with the agent's medical records public, the goal posts have moved from "he was not hit" to "it is just a bruise" and also, "well, the president said he was run over." The president also says he wants to invade Greenland. He says things. Many more said the agent was hit by the car and the New York Times insisted it was not so.

None of this is to say Good deserved this. It was a tragedy, but the agent does have a plausible claim of self-defense. Beyond the tragedy of a press we can no longer trust for truth, there is another tragedy. A large portion of the nation would rather protect illegal aliens from deportation than cooperate with the federal government.

ICE agents are swarming Minneapolis because the local and state governments have not just refused to cooperate with federal deportation efforts, but have provided safe havens for illegal aliens. According to the federal government, over 75% of those deported have existing criminal records. In Minneapolis alone, the federal government has rounded up illegal aliens from Mexico, Laos, Burma, Somalia and elsewhere who were charged with rape, child abuse, manslaughter, murder and other crimes. The local government refused to hand over even those people.

These scenes are not happening in Texas, Georgia, Florida and other red states. ICE is in those states and deporting people, but those states are cooperating with ICE. Partisans in blue states have decided it is virtuous to protect illegal aliens, regardless of the length of their rap sheets. Believing the cause righteous and herself virtuous, Renee Good entered the fight to stymie ICE. After her death, her partner screamed out, "You used real bullets?"

The answer is because the deportations are not a game or virtue signaling. ICE has detained and deported dangerous criminals who shoot guns at law enforcement agents and, tragically, because President Donald Trump is president, Renee Good decided to defend those illegal aliens against her own government and died.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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