Local communities rally for change following the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
Cars lined the side of Pacific Highway near a Ferndale Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, Jan. 9, as dozens of protesters mourned the death of Renee Good and others who have died during ICE actions in the past year. On Saturday, a peaceful protest at the Federal Building in downtown Bellingham, organized by the local Indivisible chapter, attracted hundreds. The protest was followed with a march through downtown.
Indivisible also hosted a vigil in Friday Harbor on Friday as well as a protest Sunday on the San Juan County District Court lawn. In downtown Mount Vernon on Saturday, 560 people gathered for a rally organized by local activist organizations Rogues on the Rocks, Anacortes Stands Up and Indivisible Skagit.
On Thursday, Jan 15, at 6 p.m., Honey Moon Mead and Cider in Bellingham will host an open mic poetry reading in honor of Good.
“I’m here because I’m heartbroken and ashamed of my country,” said Shelley Weisberg, a retired botanist from Bellingham who attended the Ferndale protest and vigil. “We’re killing (people) and there doesn’t seem to be any recourse. Nothing’s stopping it. I think we have to raise our voices as much as we can, however we can.”
Rallies and vigils
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American citizen, was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 7. Videos show Ross shooting Good through the window of an SUV. The shooting occurred after 2,000 ICE agents were sent to Minneapolis in what Homeland Security called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever.
The Trump administration defended Ross, accusing Good — an award-winning poet and mother of three — of “domestic terrorism,” and claiming that she had attempted to run over Ross with her car. A video analysis from The New York Times contradicts that account, showing that Good had turned the car away from Ross and he was standing to the left of the vehicle when he fired three shots at close range. After the shooting, other ICE agents allowed Ross to leave the scene with his gun, complicating an investigation.
In cities across the United States, protesters quickly organized to call for accountability in the wake of the shooting and demand ICE leave their communities, with some calling for an end to the agency altogether.
Brooke Eolande has been holding weekly protests in front of the ICE facility in Ferndale since August. On Wednesday, after news of Good’s death spread, a handful of people stood on the side of Pacific Highway to protest.
Two days later, a larger group gathered at the regular weekly meeting time for a protest and vigil in honor of Good as well as Robert Carlos Montanya Valdez, Silverio Villegas González, Josué Castro Rivera and Jaime Alanís García, all of whom were killed during ICE operations.
Protesters remained on the edge of the highway from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., as passing cars and trucks honked in support. Organizers provided snacks, handwarmers and thermoses of hot water and set up a memorial for the five people being honored.
Roger Ellingson, an attorney from Bellingham, has been coming to the protests in Ferndale for a few months.
“ICE, their behavior, their masking and their firearms — they look like criminals. And now they’re acting more and more like criminals,” he said. “It’s all based on a lie about immigrants — that they’re all scoundrels — and they aren’t. The administration is actually revoking their legal permits to remain in the country. They’re destroying families. It’s bullshit.”
Michael Colfer, a military veteran who belongs to the organization Veterans for Peace, said he felt “rage” when he heard the news about Good’s death.
“I put my life on the line for this country and it was a good place to be,” Colfer said. “I’m so angry. I’m angry at what my country has been doing, and I’m mostly angry at the whole fascist regime we’ve got at the moment. I love this country, I always have. It’s a different world than the one I grew up in and a different country”
The following day in Bellingham, crowds occupied four street corners at the intersection of Cornwall Avenue and East Magnolia Street for the ICE Out For Good rally. The rally was part of a national day of action that included over 1,000 events across the United States.
Protesters chanted, “Say it once, say it twice, we will not put up with ICE,” and “What do we want? ICE out! When do we want it? Now!”
“It’s happening here”
Liz Darrow, Participatory Democracy Coordinator at Community to Community Development, said she first learned about the ICE facility in Ferndale after 16 workers were taken by ICE during a raid at Granite Precast in 2018. The nondescript facility, located next to a building supply store, isn’t visible from the highway where protesters gathered.
“What happened in Minnesota was awful,” Darrow said on Friday. “Feeling sad and outraged about what happened to Renee Good is important.”
But she said she also hopes that people pay attention to ICE actions locally: “It’s not somewhere else. It’s happening here.”
“In our community, workers and family members are detained by ICE, held in inhumane conditions and deported,” Darrow said, speaking to the crowd. “Countless members of our community have been held right here, at this facility in Ferndale, before being disappeared without their families knowing where they are or how to get them back.”
The largest ICE detention center in the Pacific Northwest is the for-profit Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, run by the multibillion-dollar prison company GEO Group. The facility is the site of regular protests and has come under fire for unsanitary conditions and paying detainees one dollar per day to do maintenance work.
“It’s so traumatic,” Darrow said in an interview, referring to the killing of Good. “I understand that people are like, ‘I just don’t know what to do.’ The best thing we can do is talk to each other and really stand firm. We do not consent to our government’s behavior.”
— By Christy Carley
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Despite the rain, this is what democracy looks like,” Oct. 20, 2025
• “Award honors community organizer, rights advocate,” Sept. 19, 2025
• “‘No Kings’ protests call for upholding the Constitution,” June 16, 2025
• “Community stands in solidarity with immigration advocate detained by ICE,” March 27, 2025
• “Regional, state leaders push back against immigration enforcement,” Jan. 31, 2025