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AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at growing resistance to the Trump administration’s mass immigration raids and federal agents’ escalating violence nationwide. Protests are continuing over ICE agent Jonathan Ross’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother of three, poet Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. On Monday, dozens of federal agents wearing tactical gear and masks fired pepper balls and tear gas at a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis who shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “Get the f— out!” at the agents.
This comes as the state of Minnesota has sued the Trump administration in an effort to block the crackdown and the surge of agents coming into the state. The cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul are also part of the lawsuit. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the legal challenge Monday as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vowed to deploy hundreds more agents this week.
ATTORNEY GENERAL KEITH ELLISON: Deployment of thousands of armed, masked DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and it must stop. DHS agents have sown chaos and terror across the metropolitan area and in cities across the state of Minnesota.
AMY GOODMAN: Minnesota’s lawsuit was filed shortly after Illinois and the city of Chicago also sued the Trump administration, accusing DHS of terrorizing its residents in a, quote, “organized bombardment,” unquote.
Federal immigration agents have terrorized communities across Minnesota, carrying out hundreds of arrests. Last week, Border Patrol deployed chemical weapons, tackled people and handcuffed two staff members at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.
In another case, just days ago, a DoorDash delivery driver sprinted into a home where she was delivering a food order as she attempted to take shelter from ICE agents who chased her and sought to detain her. The woman is seen crying in video footage as the homeowners, also in panic, ultimately tell her to please surrender to ICE custody, as they feared the agents would break into their home without a warrant.
HOMEOWNER 1: Come on.
HOMEOWNER 2: I can’t. I have family.
HOMEOWNER 1: Come on.
HOMEOWNER 2: I’m sorry.
HOMEOWNER 1: Come on. You need to come with me, ma’am. Come on.
HOMEOWNER 2: There’s nothing we can do.
HOMEOWNER 1: Come on. Come on.
HOMEOWNER 2: There’s nothing we can do.
HOMEOWNER 1: Come on. Just come on.
DELIVERY DRIVER: [inaudible]
HOMEOWNER 1: I — ma’am, I am so sorry. I don’t want to do this. … And I’m Native American. This is against everything I stand for.
AMY GOODMAN: In another incident, armed federal immigration agents broke down the door of a home in north Minneapolis Sunday without a warrant. The agents used a battering ram to get inside the house in an attempt to arrest a Liberian man. Occupants inside the home included the man’s 9-year-old daughter.
Meanwhile, on Monday, agents rammed the car of a Latino man in south Minneapolis, then questioned his immigration status. Christian Molina said he was pulled over and only let go after he told agents he was a U.S. citizen.
CHRISTIAN MOLINA: It’s not safe out here. It’s not safe, you know? People aren’t safe. So, just, I mean, I’m glad they didn’t shoot me or something, because, you know, what if they start shooting me? You know what I mean? They have guns.
AMY GOODMAN: The man was leaning against his car. The back of it was smashed in. He said an ICE agent bashed in his car.
This all comes as activists in Los Angeles are demanding justice for Keith Porter Jr., an African American 43-year-old father of two who was fatally shot by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve. His family is urging transparency in the investigation into his killing. Porter’s mother, Franceola Armstrong, spoke at a vigil this weekend.
FRANCEOLA ARMSTRONG: From day one that he was born, I knew he was my joy. … When he came around, people looked for him. He was a joy to be around. My son, the biggest heart, sympathetic, appreciative, so much gratitude.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Keith Porter Jr.’s fatal shooting New Year’s Eve, we’re joined by two guests. In Compton, California, Jsané Tyler is the cousin of Keith Porter Jr. She is the parent and family organizer for Students Deserve, and she’s a Black Lives Matter Los Angeles member. And in Los Angeles, we’re joined by Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. She organizes globally with Black Lives Matter Grassroots, also a professor of pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Melina Abdullah, let’s begin with you. What do you understand happened on New Year’s Eve when Porter was killed by an off-duty ICE officer with his ICE weapon?
MELINA ABDULLAH: Yes, thanks for covering this, Amy. It’s really important to understand that as people are righteously and rightfully enraged and mourning the murder of Renee Good, that we also lift up Keith Porter Jr. Keith Porter Jr. was a 43-year-old Black father of two girls.
On New Year’s Eve, he was celebrating in his own home, and like thousands around the country, we understand that he may have stepped outside of his home and fired a celebratory shot in the air, which many, many people do and which is widely acknowledged by city officials. His apartment complex is fairly large. And an ICE agent lived in that complex, who went inside, put on his tactical gear, came back outside and shot Keith Porter dead in front of his own home on New Year’s Eve.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Melina, the LAPD and the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office have said they’re investigating the incident. What do you know about their investigation? And, of course, this could take quite a bit of time to resolve.
MELINA ABDULLAH: Yeah, what we know is nothing is happening, and the community has been told nothing. The family has been told nothing. There’s not been a word uttered by the mayor of the city. Almost no elected official here has said anything. We know that we’ve been demanding the name of the ICE agent who killed Keith Porter. We’ve gotten nothing. We’ve demanded an arrest. An arrest has not been made. We’ve made demands of the district attorney that charges be filed. He basically said he doesn’t intend to do anything.
And so, the community is going to have to mobilize. We’ve been mobilized since day one, but we’re going to have to add increased pressure on our elected officials.
We have an absolutely terrible chief of police, Jim McDonnell, who was collaborating with ICE when he was sheriff of the county, who is refusing to really do anything to honor Keith Porter. Instead, early reports, when they did — were asked for comment, early reports hailed the gunman, hailed the killer, as a, quote-unquote, “hero” and called the victim, who was Keith Porter — Keith Porter is a victim — called him a suspect and an active shooter. And so, it’s disgusting.
And we have several demands that we’re making, that the agent who — the murderer who killed Keith Porter be named, arrested and charged, as well as they stop with the character assassination of this Black father, worker, loved by his community, and the only child of his mother. And so, we’re creating the pressure, because, ultimately, it’s going to be the community that steps up for Keith Porter.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring in Jsané Tyler into the conversation, as well, the cousin of Keith Porter Jr. Our deepest condolences on your cousin’s killing. Could you tell us a little bit about him and how your family learned of what happened?
JSANÉ TYLER: Oh my goodness. First of all, I want to say thank you to you guys, and thank you to Dr. Melina, because she just centered everything that we’re asking for as a family.
Keith was an amazing human being. He was a girl dad. I keep saying that, because the most important thing to him was his children and his family. He loved on everyone around him. He was always the life of the room, you know, not just a party, but in any room. You know, when he walked in, he brought joy. He always had a laugh, a joke, a smile. He was the one that uplifted others, you know? And unfortunately, he’s been stolen from us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what information — what information has your family received since the killing?
JSANÉ TYLER: None, none whatsoever. We’ve not received any information in regards to whether there will be a full investigation or not. Again, like Dr. Abdullah said, they’ve not named the suspect. They’ve not arrested the suspect.
What we do know is, that night, procedure was not followed, you know, even after the ICE agent finally went ahead and called 911. I had to sit and watch video, that was shared privately by a neighbor, of them calling for him to surrender or shelter in place, which is an oxymoron. You can’t do both. And as it stands, he was already presumably dead. There was no medical aid or emergency services on site that could have maybe saved his life.
And so, we know, that night, Keith was celebrating. He was waiting for, you know, company to come, his girlfriend, the young lady that he’s been dating for a long time now, the reason that he moved to the valley. He moved out there for love, to be close to her. And, you know, he sent her for the food pickup that evening. And she got a call — excuse me, when the place wasn’t open, where they decided their New Year’s Eve meal was going to be from, she tried to call Keith. And when he didn’t answer, she immediately returned home. And by the time — just that quick — that she had left and come back, unfortunately, he had already been stolen from us. He had already been murdered.
And so, what we do know is that everyone in that complex has said that they loved him, that he was, you know, even amazing towards them. He had only been there for 11 months, and they knew everything about Keith. But they knew nothing about his murderer.
What we know is that there was no sobriety check — a sobriety test given for this officer. We don’t know what state of mind he was in. We don’t know what he was in his home doing as he was celebrating New Year’s Eve. He could have been on drugs. He could have been under, you know, five bottles of vodka. We have no clarity in where this man’s state of mind was.
What we do know is that with this mass call for ICE agents with no experience, the people who seem to have shown up to take these positions, a majority — well, majority of them are people that now feel like they have a right to consider us not valuable enough for them to follow procedure. You know, these are people who have had G.I. Joe dreams, I call them, you know, for a long time. And they’re conducting themselves as vigilantes, and it seems that they’re causing more harm to American citizens. They stole Keith from us. Make no mistake: As far as the family is concerned, this man is a murderer. And we want justice for Keith.
AMY GOODMAN: Jsané, our deepest condolences to you and your family. And, Professor Abdullah, two quick questions as we wrap up. One, in Minnesota, the federal government is refusing to cooperate with the state and the city in investigating the death of Renee Good. And I’m wondering how it’s playing out in California right now with the investigation of Mr. Porter’s death. And also, this connection between the Abolish ICE movement, you know, around the country, with that play on words, ”ICE out for Good,” referring to Renee Good, and the Black Lives Matter movement? Of course, she was killed just blocks from where George Floyd was killed five years ago. Professor Abdullah?
MELINA ABDULLAH: Yeah, I think that when we talk about abolishing ICE, it’s really, really important, and we’re grateful to Keith’s family for saying that this is systemic, that they stand with abolishing ICE. And we also have to remember that what we’ve seen in Minneapolis, with at least local officials stepping up and being outraged by the murder of Renee Good, we have not seen in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles leadership, with exception of City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, has not said anything, has not made any demands of federal government around Keith Porter’s murder. And we need to see that. We need to see leadership. So, the conflict, really, that we see is the people versus ICE, and the people versus the police, with very little support from local elected officials and local government.
AMY GOODMAN: And that connection with the Black Lives Matter movement all over the country right now?
MELINA ABDULLAH: Absolutely. So, from day one, as soon as Trump took office, Black Lives Matter Grassroots put out a statement about ICE. When ICE invaded Los Angeles, we put out another statement. We said this is bad for Black people. And we hate that it was shown to be true so clearly.
In our statement, one of the things that we said is never in the history of this country has more police been good for Black people. And we said — we foretold the murder of Keith Porter, that when you have ICE agents, who are police on steroids, living in community, plaguing community, claiming — our community is under siege — Black people are going to catch the brunt of it. And that’s what’s happening with Keith Porter.
One, if there’s a silver lining, it’s the solidarity. And so, we’re really, really grateful that Black community and Brown community, as well as visionary and progressive and courageous white allies and allies of color, have stepped up. And we’ve all said ”ICE out of L.A.” and ”ICE out of everywhere,” as well as an end to policing that steals the lives of our people.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Professor Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, teaches pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles. And thank you so much to Jsané Tyler, joining us from Compton, California, cousin of Keith Porter Jr., killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve with his ICE weapon.
As Iran continues its bloody crackdown, President Trump announces a 25% tariff on countries doing business with Iran. We’ll speak with Johns Hopkins professor Vali Nasr, author of Iran’s Grand Strategy. He says this time is different for Iran. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Cryin’ in the Streets,” performed by Zeshan B in our Democracy Now! studio.
