SOCIAL JUSTICE CREATIONS

Within 24 hours, federal immigration agents shot three people in American cities, killing one, Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, shot in the head by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7. The next day, Border Patrol agents shot and wounded a married couple in Portland. In both cases, federal officials claimed "self-defense," alleging drivers "weaponized" vehicles, claims contradicted by video evidence showing agents had clear escape routes and shot people attempting to flee. This is not law enforcement. This is state terror with devastating mental health implications for targeted communities.

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The tactics, surrounding vehicles, issuing conflicting orders, shooting people attempting to leave, then blaming victims, deliberately mirror authoritarian playbooks. When Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey watched video of Good's killing and told ICE to "get the fuck out," he recognized what mental health professionals must name: gestapo tactics designed to terrorize communities into submission (Herman, 1992). The goal is not public safety but fear so pervasive that targeted populations abandon resistance and accept perpetual vulnerability to state violence.

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The psychological impact on immigrant and Latino communities is severe. When federal agents can shoot people, including U.S. citizens, with impunity, when officials lie about circumstances, when the President defends killings before investigations complete, this produces collective trauma characteristic of populations under occupation (Martín-Baró, 1994). Parents fear taking children to school. Families avoid healthcare. Communities experience chronic hypervigilance, knowing any encounter with federal agents could prove fatal and officials will blame victims regardless of evidence.

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Renee Good was part of an "ICE Watch" team monitoring enforcement operations—protected First Amendment activity. That she was shot while engaged in legal advocacy sends a chilling message: witnessing federal actions is dangerous, resistance is deadly. This represents precisely the intimidation tactics authoritarian regimes employ to eliminate oversight (Lifton, 2017). When DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good's activism "domestic terrorism" while defending the agent who killed her, this inverted reality transforms victims into perpetrators and state violence into self-defense—the psychological warfare authoritarian governments use to justify oppression.

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The Portland shooting followed an identical pattern. Agents shot a married couple during a "traffic stop," claimed the driver tried to run them over, despite the wounded victims driving over two miles to seek help. If agents truly feared for their lives, why did victims survive to flee? The narrative collapses under scrutiny, yet federal officials repeat it reflexively, training public to accept state violence as legitimate regardless of evidence (Arendt, 1963).

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Counselor educators, practitioners, students and other allied professionals face ethical obligations to name these dynamics. When government agents employ terror tactics, kill people and fabricate justifications, defend violence before investigations occur, professional silence becomes complicity. The ACA and APA must issue immediate statements: condemning lethal force against people fleeing, documenting collective trauma these shootings produce, demanding independent investigations, and opposing normalization of state violence (D'Andrea, 2024).

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These shootings represent systematic attacks on communities Trump has dehumanized—the same populations he calls "vermin" and "poison." The connection is direct: dehumanizing rhetoric creates psychological conditions where killing becomes acceptable (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). Federal agents internalize this dehumanization, seeing targeted populations as threats to eliminate rather than people to protect.

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Counselors and other allied mental health professionals must act. Provide expanded services to traumatized communities. Document mental health impacts. Support community organizing and resistance, recognizing collective action constitutes mental health intervention when government systematically traumatizes populations. Refuse to pathologize fear that represents rational response to dangerous conditions. Demand accountability from professional organizations remaining silent while clients experience state violence.

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​Renee Good was a poet, writer, mother of three, U.S. citizen engaged in legal advocacy. She was shot in the head for witnessing government actions. The Portland couple were shot for attempting to leave a traffic stop. These are not isolated incidents but systematic state terror designed to eliminate resistance and produce collective submission. Mental health professionals who remain silent as gestapo tactics terrorize communities abandon ethical obligations and enable conditions destroying both democracy and mental health. The terror is deliberate. The silence is complicity. The choice is ours.

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