What We Lose When We Wait to Fight Injustice

The pains and struggles of “othered” people have often failed to penetrate the American consciousness — from displaced indigenous tribes and enslaved Black ancestors to Japanese and Muslim neighbors who were labeled enemies in times of war. Today, though people have spent the last year gravely concerned by how the Trump administration has attacked and vilified immigrants, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis have finally created a moment of true national reckoning. But why now? Why hadn’t the murders of, and assaults on, innocents in months past led to nationwide uproar? And what do we lose when we wait to fight back against injustice?

During the second Trump administration, but before the horrifying murders of Good and Pretti, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were already behaving in autocratic and cruel ways that suggested the horrors to come. Here are just some examples:

March 2025

• ICE agents followed Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil into university housing and abducted him, even though he presented a valid green card. Khalil, who was targeted for his involvement in “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protests on campus, was held in ICE detention for 104 days in Louisiana, and the Trump administration continues its attempts to deport him.
• The Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act, a 227-year-old wartime law, in an operation that sent more than 280 young men to an El Salvadorian jail notorious for human rights abuses. The men could not send notice to their loved ones or attorneys. Some, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, were unlawfully deported in violation of court orders.
• Masked federal agents abducted Tufts University PhD student and Fulbright scholar Rümeysa Öztürk in Massachusetts and detained her in faraway Louisiana. Öztürk was detained for co-writing a Tufts Daily op-ed with other members of Graduate Students for Palestine. Her case was dismissed in February 2026.

September 2025

• Federal agents descended on Hyundai’s electric vehicle production site near Savannah, Georgia and arrested hundreds of professionals from South Korea, many of whom were brought in for specialized engineering, sales, or installation skills. The South Korean government launched a human rights investigation into the “bewildering” raid.
• An ICE agent in Chicago killed Silverio Villegas González, an immigrant from Mexico allegedly attempting to flee a traffic stop. The New York Times later wrote that video evidence contradicted the agent’s description of events, in which he claimed he had experienced severe threats and injury prior to the murder.
• Federal agents targeted a Chicago apartment building in a chaotic midnight raid involving helicopters, zip-ties, and aggressive police dogs. Later reporting suggests the apartment’s landlord called for the raid in retaliation against tenants he considered difficult.

October 2025

• An ICE agent in Chicago shot American citizen Marimar Martinez five times when their vehicles collided. DHS charged Martinez with assault, labeling her a “domestic terrorist” and accusing her of attempting to ambush federal agents.  Though the case against her was dismissed, the investigation revealed that federal agents, including the leader of ICE operations in Chicago, celebrated the shooting.

December 2025

• An off-duty DHS agent killed Keith Porter, a 43-year-old Black American father of two in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. The Trump administration labeled Porter an “active shooter,” although the Los Angeles Police Department stated that he was “firing shots in the air” to celebrate the new year. Although this common form of celebration is illegal and highly discouraged, it was not, as suggested by DHS, an attack on the community.

It is not simple to explain why a well of national pain spills over. This is soul-searching in a moment of opportunity, not score-keeping. Our fear or distrust of “others” can make violence and persecution driven by racism and xenophobia seem understandable, if not justifiable. In this context, it is important to recognize that it was the murders of “good,” “real,” or “everyday” Americans — Good, a wife and mother; Pretti, an ICU nurse; both white, cisgender, and able-bodied — that have finally shocked this country to its core, almost a year after a reign of terror against immigrants took hold.

Of course, we know from experience — from the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath— that explosive national furor does not always lead to meaningful change. It often fades, or returns to a low-lying, conversational concern. But the outcry in Minnesota is still resonating, and we have the opportunity to keep this momentum going.

As we look ahead with urgency, we must maintain the ability to look back with thoughtfulness and clarity. In a January 30 op-ed for TIME Magazine, NILC president Kica Matos wrote: “This is how democracies slide into authoritarianism — not all at once, but through a series of brazen and unconstitutional actions, carried out by the government, that accumulate until they become irreversible.”

If Khalil and Öztürk can be kidnapped without public objection for exercising First Amendment rights, the next victim of authoritarian overreach becomes easier to kidnap. If Porter and González can be killed and the facts related to their killings muddied by authorities without pushback, such blatant lies and human rights violations will become normalized.

We can’t wait to join the fight against the things that threaten all of us only after they invade our individual spaces of comfort. When we wait, we give those threats power. But when we act swiftly in the face of oppression, our own power grows.