Renee Good was 'beautiful American,' 'unapologetically hopeful,' brothers tell Congress

Renee Nicole Good’s brothers remembered her as a “beautiful American” and “unapologetically hopeful” at a congressional forum Tuesday.

The forum was convened by two Democrats, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of California and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and featured other people who had been unjustly targeted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in the Trump administration’s brutal crackdown on immigrants and anyone seeking to assist them. Several other members of Congress, all Democrats, spoke as well. No Republicans attended.

Luke and Brent Ganger spoke about Good, their sister who was shot and killed by an ICE agent January 7 as she was driving through a part of Minneapolis where ICE was conducting operations. Good was a queer woman, a poet, a wife, and a mother of three.

Related: Who was Renee Nicole Good? Remembering the Minneapolis poet and mother killed by ICE

“The scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. The ICE actions are changing lives and changing the community, he said, adding that Good’s killing was not due to “a bad day or a rough week or isolated incident.”

“I still don’t know how to explain to my 4-year-old what these agents are doing,” he noted. When he told his daughter that Good had been attacked by bad people, she told him there were no bad people. He has trouble believing that.

“The most important thing we can do today is help this panel understand who Renee is and what a beautiful American we have lost,” he added.

Brent Ganger read from the eulogy he delivered for his sister, often choking back tears. She was “unapologetically hopeful,” like a dandelion that pushes through a crack in concrete, he said.

“Her children were and are her heart,” he added, and she “made sure they felt safe, valued, and loved.”

“She believed tomorrow could be better than today, and she believed that kindness matters,” he went on. He said Good “had a way of making you feel understood” and “helped us grow … helped us believe in ourselves.”

Before Good’s brothers spoke, Blumenthal said Good and Alex Pretti, killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis just weeks later, were at the forum in spirit. They “should be here in person … but they were murdered,” he said. No members of Pretti’s family appeared at the forum.

Several others testified, however, including Antonio Romanucci, the lawyer representing Good’s family; Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and professor at the University of South Carolina; and three people who had been attacked by federal agents, Marimar Martinez, Aliya Rahman, and Martin Daniel Gascon.

Related: Your rights, explained: What to do if you encounter ICE or DHS agents

Martinez, a teacher from Chicago and third-generation Mexican American, testified that on October 4, a Saturday, she was on her way to donate clothes and shoes at her church when she saw several Border Patrol vehicles. She followed them, honking to warn residents. After an agent hit her car and she changed lanes, he got out of his vehicle and started shooting at her. Five bullets pierced her body, leaving seven holes. She managed to drive to another location and call 911.

After treatment at a hospital, she was released into FBI custody. The agents agreed to take her to another hospital for further care, but then she was taken to a federal detention center.

On Friday she was teaching at a Montessori school, on Saturday she was being called a domestic terrorist, and the following Monday, in court, federal agents called her a danger to the community, she said. She was charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers, with the federal government claiming she had rammed agent Charles Exum’s car and that he acted in self-defense.

But the government eventually reversed itself, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois moving for dismissal of the charges. A federal judge dismissed them in November.

Martinez called Exum “my intended executioner” and noted that he had sent text messages bragging about shooting her. Blumenthal said he would say to Exum, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, have you no sense of shame?” That echoed Army lawyer Joseph Welch’s 1954 comment to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, effectively ending McCarthy’s crusade against supposed communists.

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California said Exum should be arrested and prosecuted, while U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois called Martinez “El Milagro,” a miracle. Khanna asked Martinez what she wanted the government to do to apologize to her.

She wants to hear “I’m sorry. You’re not a domestic terrorist,” she said. “That’s it. For them to admit that they were wrong about everything that they said about me. I just want accountability.”

Border Patrol and ICE are not going after the worst of the worst, she added, but are targeting people based on their identity — skin color, accent, and other factors.

Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi American tech professional from Minneapolis, talked about being dragged from her car by ICE agents when she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment January 13. She had come across on area where multiple agents were present and was told to move her car, but she said she received conflicting directives. She is autistic and recovering from a traumatic brain injury, so she sometimes has difficulty processing what she hears. The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and Border Patrol, claimed she “ignored multiple commands.” The ICE officers carried her out of her car and took her to the Whipple Federal Building, their headquarters in Minneapolis.

There, she developed a severe headache and eventually passed out. “The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cellmate banging on the door, pleading for a medic and a voice outside saying, ‘We don’t want to step on ICE’s toes,’” she said. She woke up in a hospital, where doctors told her she had a concussion. Although detained by ICE, she was not arrested or charged with any crime. But she remains traumatized by the incident.

Martin Daniel Gascon of San Bernardino, California, testified about being shot at by ICE officers last August in a truck where he was riding with two family members. No one was injured, but his father-in-law, Francisco Longoria, who was driving, was charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer because he drove away; Longoria said he feared for his safety. The charge was dropped at the request of federal government lawyers.

Romanucci, Stoughton, and several of the lawmakers talked about the need to hold DHS accountable. Some lambasted JD Vance for saying federal agents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for doing their jobs, something legal experts say is not true.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity,” said Romanucci, who also represented the family of George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. “That perception leads agents to behave with absolute impunity.”

Some of the legislators called for defunding dismantling ICE, saying reform is not enough. U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico said the misdeeds of ICE don’t stem from a lack of training but from “the policy of the United States government.”

Several also urged amending the law to make it simpler to sue federal officers. The Civil Rights Act of 1871 allows for civil suits against state and local law enforcement officers but not federal ones. The Supreme Court has created a narrow alternative path, but it’s “an uphill climb,” Romanucci said.

Some lawmakers said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be removed and Greg Bovino, recently demoted from his post as commander at large of Border Patrol, should be fired. They further called for Vance and Donald Trump to be held accountable.

“The administration has a lack of respect for human life, the Constitution, and the rule of law,” said U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio.