We Aren’t Doing Enough: ICE in the USA
With all these things happening in Lexi’s community, she has one clear message to give: “Whatever people think is going on in Minneapolis, in reality, it's just worse.”
Part 1: What’s Going On Right Now
On January 7th, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Renee Nicole Good was shot in the head, chest and arm by a federal ICE agent. Only seven days into the new year, an innocent citizen was killed. Her death sparked outrage in many people’s eyes. President Trump tweeted that Renee was “a professional agitator” and she “violently, willfully, and viciously” was trying to run over the ICE agent. Trump justified the ICE agent's actions in killing Renee Good as an act of “self-defense.” Recently, it was revealed that Renee Good's father was actually a Trump supporter. This new piece of information might have been the reason Trump went from calling Renee “a professional agitator” to calling her death as a “Tragedy.” He even said he hopes her father is still a “fan” of his even after the agent he defended killed his daughter.
This was just the start of ICE’s awful actions. There have been more and more tragic events following Renee's death that are just heartbreaking to various communities. We can’t go in depth on every single individual impacted by the actions of ICE, but here is just a small sampling of their violence:
16 year old Arnold Bazan and his father were detained. They were thrown to the ground while ICE agents held their knees to Arnold’s neck. ICE agents stole Arnold's phone and sold it.
Brandon Siguenza was detained by ICE and placed in a federal building. He posted his experience on social media where he stated that many were crying for help and basic rights weren’t being given.
Arlette Maria Martinez was detained while her son (15 years old) was dying of cancer. Trump's DHS refused to let her see her son.
21 year old Kaden Rumbler was blinded in his left eye after an ICE agent shot him with a projectile.
5 year old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were taken away by ICE while returning from school.
37 year old Alex Pretti was shot 10 times by ICE agents and died. Videos show him trying to help a woman out. He was thrown to the ground with around 6 ICE agents on him and soon shot to death.
43 year old Keith Porter Jr. was killed by an off-duty ICE agent. This agent shot Keith for firing shots in the air in celebration of the New Year.
Despite the amount of people we have listed, there are still more victims and more unnamed individuals who haven’t had their justice. Children are coming home and not being able to find their parents. Workers are being taken from their jobs sites. Women are getting SA’d by these ICE agents, and families everywhere are being separated. These aren’t the “criminals” that ICE is supposed to target; these are just innocent people trying to give themselves and their family a better life.
Recently, we sat down with a student from a Minneapolis high school, who we will call Lexi for the sake of anonymity. She told us, in depth, about the situation in Minneapolis. She spoke about how people there always need to stay aware of their surroundings, since they never know when ICE will show up.
ICE has shown up at her school waiting outside for students to leave, so they need to stay inside longer until ICE leaves. Not only that, but ICE has been crashing into people's vehicles in the most dangerous ways to stop them. ICE's intense actions to confront people means that passports need to be carried at all times to ensure there is proof of citizenship. Lexi told us that everyone has been on high alert.
For Lexi, she has needed to step up as a parental figure for her younger brother since her parents need to stay home. They can’t leave their home for safety reasons, which forces Lexi to run errands on her own. Lexi’s school has recognized the struggle their students face, so they've been providing groceries to those in need. Many students have also been working for their parents since their parents can’t, so the school also provided assistance in paying their rent. Protests in Minneapolis have also increased, and many high school students are participating. For Lexi, she hasn’t participated, since it is unsafe, but it makes her happy to “notice that people are supporting us and we’re not alone.”
With all these things happening in Lexi’s community, she has one clear message to give: “Whatever people think is going on in Minneapolis, in reality, it's just worse.”
Part 2: CSH Now
We spoke with Mr. Sturdy (10th grade English teacher) about the actions taking place in Minneapolis. What some of you may not know is Mr. Sturdy actually worked in Minneapolis, so this topic connects deeply to him. When we asked him about what was going on, he said he was “incredibly heartbroken” and that he had received “multiple texts” about the situation. Ever since everything was going on in Minneapolis, Mr. Sturdy said “I sort of put on my face” each day going to work because out of school he feels “pretty broken.”
Mr. Sturdy has been having these moments of “falling into these ruts of… sometimes despair” but, still “try to practice radical hope” because “it’s not easy right now with how things are going back home.” Looking at our classroom as we write this, there are 20 students in class, but in places like Minneapolis, there are only 4-5 students per class. Following what Lexi said about her school helping out families with money, people like Mr. Sturdy have also donated money and food to the school.
This is what students at our school need to hear more about. We need to focus and understand how different students are experiencing life in Minneapolis then in NYC at the moment. Students and their families fear going outside is costing their education and work status. Students like us, both younger and older, are struggling in ways we may not know.
With all of this happening in the world, it is the perspective of members of the CSH community that we are not doing enough to address this. This is especially true given the identities of our students, many of whom are feeling fear and anxiety due to ICE. We asked 30 fellow CSH members a simple question: does our school talk enough about ICE. All of them said no. 25 out of the 30 were students and the rest were teachers. Many students made the same comment: “We do talk about ICE, but it is only briefly during advisory.”
To get more in depth about how our community is feeling, we interviewed four teachers: Mr. Ryan (12th grade history teacher), Mr. Reardon (11th and 12th grade history teacher), Ms. Gonzalez (10th grade history teacher) and Mr. Thevenin. We spoke to them about if they believe our school is speaking enough about ICE and if they have any additional comments about the situation at hand.
All teachers said no to some extent—that we do not talk about ICE enough in Comp Sci High, though some think we have been talking about it more lately. When we asked Mr. Ryan what he thinks we should talk about more in CSH, he said that we need to talk more about the “drastic changes” that are happening in our government “in front of our faces.” We asked the same question to Mr. Reardon, and he said, “at the beginning we did address it” by making “lessons” which only lived in advisory, but he didn't know if every advisory was doing the same thing. He believes that “we haven't done enough to make sure people know their rights,” and that if, god forbid, “someone is arrested by ICE and someone is deported,” they wouldn’t know what to do.
Ms. Gonzalez followed what Mr. Reardon said, saying, “At the beginning of the year, we did advisory lessons” but she has said, “we don’t talk about any current events at all.” Either way she does have respect for the school trying to “balance this feeling like a safe space and focusing on something that is so upsetting.”
Lastly, Mr. Thevenin agrees that lately “the school is trying their best to address the heightened situation of ICE.” They started speaking about the issue of ICE to their students, “but prior to now it wasn’t a thing”.
The teachers still had more to say when we asked for their additional thoughts on the topic. Mr. Ryan recognizes that “this has happened under as many presidents as I’ve been alive for.” However he knows that this time, it is different. So he believes that “we owe it to our community to talk about those differences.” Not only does Mr. Ryan see this change from past presidents, he also thinks that “it represents a fascist approach to government.”
Mr. Ryan wasn’t the only one to see the difference in our country; Mr. Reardon sees differences as well. He notices that immigration enforcement is acting differently the way it used to be. In the past “there was sort of a priority on people who had violent criminal offenses or at least like a jail-able criminal offense,” but now “it's like they really are looking for anyone.” Immigration enforcement now has a new “amount of funding and is hiring all these new people with very low qualifications.” Mr. Thevenin and his wife sense the “fear of walking or being taken out of your house because you don’t have the necessary paperwork”.
This is a fear that no one should be feeling in the land that is considered the land of the free.
Teachers and students both recognize what we have done regarding ICE in the US. We recognize the change in our society and how we need to learn more of what is going on. Comp Sci High needs to do more to make students realize that they are there for support and assistance when needed.
Part 3: What Can We Do?
As a school, we believe that Comp Sci High can do more to speak about the impact of ICE. Although ICE hasn’t fully mobilized their actions in NYC like they did in Minneapolis, we can still educate our students the best we can. Our teachers had various thoughts about how to proceed with ICE. Mr. Ryan said that he thinks “we need to talk about what we can do,” especially “when we see our civil liberties and our constitutional rights become eroded.” He stated that this was an “obligation” for our school. In a similar way, Ms. Gonzalez said we should pose this question: “Are students interested in finding community and being educated in protest or resistance action?”
Mr. Reardon made the moral argument that we need to make the following clear as a school: “We are undeniably saying this is not okay, that we are undeniably saying this is not normal.”
Even if it's short lessons in advisory and class or short updates being given, we hope more students are better educated on what ICE is doing to the U.S.A. We also hope that every student is safe. If anyone decides to protest, we hope they do it safely. Our rights are being violated and that's not okay. Everything our country has fought for is going to waste in a matter of one year. We still have three more years of this madness and who knows if it will extend beyond that. Everyone deserves to be protected under the same rights no matter where they are from. Immigrants built this country and we still are building it till this day.