The Existentialist Republic

01/22/2026

Two weeks ago, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good through her windshield in Minneapolis. She was a 37-year-old mother who had stopped two blocks from her home to support her neighbors during an immigration raid. Masked men surrounded her car. One screamed “get the fuck out of the car” while yanking on her door handle.¹ She tried to drive away. Ross shot her through the windshield. Video shows her saying “I’m not mad at you” to Ross moments before he fired. Witnesses called 911 saying she was shot because she would not open her car door. A physician tried to approach her vehicle to help and was told by federal agents, “I don’t care.”² After Ross shot her, his body camera captured him saying “fucking bitch” as her SUV crashed into a pole.³ He then fled the scene. The Department of Homeland Security called her a domestic terrorist.⁴ The Hennepin County Attorney who has the power to issue an arrest warrant says she cannot make any decision without more evidence submitted to her office.⁵ If you removed the letters ICE from this story, you would be reading about a carjacking that ended in murder.

This was the ninth time ICE agents had opened fire on people since September 2025.⁶ On New Year’s Eve, an off-duty ICE agent killed Keith Porter in Los Angeles.⁷ 2025 was the deadliest year on record in ICE custody, with over thirty deaths including seven in December alone.⁸

Two weeks have passed. Jonathan Ross has not been arrested. If anyone else in America shot a woman in the face on video, called her a “fucking bitch” as her car crashed, fled the scene while a physician begged to help and was told “I don’t care,” that person would already be in custody. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Attorney General Keith Ellison have the power to issue an arrest warrant. They have not done so. Instead, they set up a portal asking residents to submit videos and photos.⁹ The murder is on video. The witnesses number in the dozens. The evidence is the man fleeing the scene of the killing he just committed. An arrest warrant is the starting point for justice, not the conclusion. This community deserves that starting point.

The administration claims its agents have absolute immunity. Vice President Vance said it. Secretary Noem said it. Stephen Miller said it.¹⁰ They are lying. Federal agents who commit crimes in a state can be prosecuted under state law, and no presidential pardon can reach a state conviction. This has been true since 1787. States are separate sovereigns.¹¹

Every state attorney general in the country has this power. Twelve states have enacted laws refusing to assist federal agents who claim immigration authority while committing crimes.¹² Federal courts have upheld these refusals against every challenge the administration has mounted.¹³ The Roberts Court spent years making it functionally legal to bribe federal officials, but state prosecutors can still charge corruption under state law where federal immunity and federal pardons do not apply.¹⁴ Model legislation already exists. You can download it free at buymeacoffee.com/theer/e/496684 and send it to your state legislators today.¹⁵

Every one of these policies can pass in the sixteen states that currently have Democratic trifectas: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington. We have not yet made elected officials feel that their political futures depend on acting.

So we make them feel it. Show up at their offices. Show up every day. Renee Good’s neighbors have been in the streets of Minneapolis for two weeks. They are not waiting for permission. They are not asking politely. They are demanding that their elected officials use the power they already have to hold her killer accountable.¹⁶

We do not need a national organization to tell us when to start. Ten people in a legislative district who decide to maintain pressure on their representative change the political calculus. Ten people who recruit ten more change it further.