‘This Could Happen to Anyone’: Noah Rothman and Julie Roginsky Debate the ICE Threat to Civilian Life

In a typically lively panel segment on CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip, I sparred with Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky about the circumstances of the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Not only was Good’s death a tragedy — an uncontroversial supposition — Roginsky stipulated that it was an act of malice akin to “murder,” and something that could happen to any one of us.

I disagree.

A plurality of Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2024 knowing full well that he planned to implement what he said would amount to the “largest deportation” initiative in U.S. history. That was always going to be a fraught project that would involve onboarding a lot of new personnel (though not in this particular case) and applying a variety of new tactics. No one who supported that initiative should be surprised that the process cannot be sanitized for public consumption.

The agent involved in this incident should at least face an internal investigation. And the Trump administration officials who prejudged the circumstances of this shooting, potentially prejudicing that investigation, have done the public discourse a disservice. As I said last night, in this country, we do not adjudicate situations like these in the court of public opinion on the basis of fragmentary evidence.

And yet, we should also spare a moment to consider the many other factors that contributed to this tragedy. Among them, the influx of millions of illegal migrants into the United States in the Biden years — a condition that convinced millions of Americans that mass deportations were the only proper remedy. In addition, the network of activists who egg on anti-ICE protesters to put themselves in positions of peril deserves far more censure than they’ve so far received.

This apparatus “trains,” supports, and cajoles activists to confront federal law enforcement with the explicit aim of preventing them from carrying out their directives. It’s never a good idea to put yourself, your compatriots, and even your loved ones between an armed officer of the law and a target of arrest.

Good was not shot in the natural course of executing the apprehension of a deportation target. She was not an ICE target at all, nor was she an unsuspecting bystander. She was an active participant in the confrontation that ended so terribly, and she was engaging in dangerous behaviors that are on the rise and of which federal law enforcement is duly wary.

So, no, I do not believe that Americans looked on this tragedy and universally concluded that “this could be them.” Good did not deserve to lose her life, but neither did she suddenly find herself in a dangerous situation owing entirely to happenstance. She made choices — choices I wouldn’t make and which I would advise against. Preferably, progressives would do the same.