The killing of a woman in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation has sent a chill far beyond the United States. Reported to have been carried out by an ICE agent, the death of Renee Good has become a stark symbol of what happens when state power is weaponised against marginalised communities and stripped of accountability.
Jeremy Corbyn’s response was blunt and necessary. “This is what fascism looks like in real time,” he said, describing an administration that emboldens armed enforcement units to terrorise communities with impunity. His words cut through the euphemisms and bureaucratic language that too often obscure the reality of what Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become under Donald Trump: a militarised force operating with the mentality of a political police.
ICE raids under Trump have not been about orderly administration or public safety. They have been designed to instil fear. Heavily armed agents storm homes, workplaces and neighbourhoods, separating families, detaining people without due process, and now, allegedly, leaving bodies behind. This is not law enforcement in any democratic sense. It is collective punishment, carried out against people whose only crime is to exist without the “correct” paperwork.
The comparison to the Gestapo is not hyperbole. Like all authoritarian enforcement arms, ICE relies on intimidation, secrecy, and the dehumanisation of its targets. Migrants are reduced to “illegals”. Communities are framed as threats. Violence becomes inevitable once a government decides that entire groups of people are undeserving of rights or protection.
What makes this moment even more disturbing, as Corbyn pointed out, is how quickly this model is being admired and echoed elsewhere. Politicians in the UK and across Europe have openly praised “ICE-style raids” as a template for their own anti-migrant agendas. They speak of toughness and control, while ignoring the human cost: terrorised families, broken communities, and deaths that are written off as collateral damage.
History shows where this path leads. Fascism does not usually arrive overnight. It advances through normalisation — one raid, one killing, one exception to the rule of law at a time — until brutality becomes routine and outrage is dulled. By the time society wakes up, the machinery of repression is already embedded.
Calling for the end of ICE in its current form is not radical; it is a moral necessity. No democratic society should tolerate armed squads roaming cities to enforce political ideology under the guise of immigration control. Borders do not justify bloodshed. Sovereignty does not excuse terror.
Renee Good’s death must not be dismissed as an unfortunate incident. It must be a line in the sand. As Corbyn said, an alternative exists — one based on hope, humanity and solidarity rather than hatred, violence and fear. Building that alternative requires courage: to speak out, to reject authoritarian rhetoric, and to refuse the lie that cruelty is strength.
If we fail to do so, we will not be able to say we did not know what was happening. Fascism, as Corbyn warned, is no longer theoretical. It is unfolding in real time.
