Get angry, grieve, then organize locally: How we can best resist ICE in Grand Rapids

The ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning should enrage us all. Good was acting as a legal observer and work with the local Rapid Response group that attempts to intervene when ICE seeks to adduct people and provide Mutual Aid to immigrants families that have already been traumatized by ICE.

There was a vigil last night in Grand Rapids for Renee Nicole Good. For those who attended I hope they were able to grieve in community.

Renee Nicole Good is not the first person killed by ICE, as several others have died attempting to flee ICE, along with the dozens of immigrants that have died in ICE detention centers across the country in 2025.

Right now I am feeling disgusted, but I am also feeling conflicted over the fact that the community outcry over the death of Renee Nicole Good might dissipate in the coming days and weeks. I have seen this pattern over the past 45 years of doing organizing work. And yet, it never has to come to this.

ICE is and has always been a repressive apparatus of the state, ever since it was created in 2003. ICE has always abducted immigrants, caused fear and trauma, has sent millions to detention centers and eventually deportation. The difference right now is that ICE has a vastly larger budget, an administration that doesn’t care about optics and a base of supporters that are overtly xenophobic and simply want blood.

So what are we going to do about ICE? Ultimately, ICE needs to be abolished……period. There is no argument that can be made for a kinder, gentler form of state repression. However, both the Republicans and Democrats will never agree to abolish ICE. So what do we do……we organize and resist ICE.

I urge you to challenge the rage that you have right now over the murder of Renee Nicole Good into the most effective way to resist ICE in Grand Rapids, which is to be part of the work that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE. Both of these groups, which have worked in tandem since 2017, are doing the important work of resisting ICE in this community. Here is how you can be part of that work:

• Attend a GR Rapid Response to ICE training, which are monthly. Just go to their Facebook page to find the next training dates.
• Once you take a training you can directly respond to calls from the immigrant community to directly intervene and stop ICE from apprehending people. The hotline number is 616-238-0081.
• Be part of the daily patrols that GR Rapid Response to ICE does throughout the city.
• You can respond to the requests for accompaniment, where immigrants have appointments to check in with ICE or for immigration court dates.
• Be part of our efforts to monitor and document the activity of ICE in Grand Rapids, with teams that monitor the 517 Ottawa office.
• Join the GR Rapid Response to ICE Mutual Aid teams that offer transportation, material resources and can connect immigrants to legal assistance. Since September the Mutual Aid team has raised roughly $40,000 to support immigrant families who have had a family member taken, are in detention or have already been deported.
• Join the Sanctuary team that is working hard to get various institutions, non-profits, businesses and faith communities to become sanctuary spaces. In addition, we are working to create more safe houses for immigrants who no longer feel safe where they live.
• Be part of the Cosecha efforts to get the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County to adopt the 6 sanctuary policies that will prevent the city or the country from cooperating and collaborating with ICE to inflict harm on immigrants.
• Join the Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE boycott of Mayor LaGrand’s businesses, since he has been unwilling to adopt the 6 sanctuary policies for Grand Rapids. The Mayor of Minneapolis said on Wednesday that he wants “ICE to get the fuck out of his city.” This is the kind of Mayor we want to see in Grand Rapids.
• GR Rapid Response to ICE members have been working with No Detention Centers in Michigan to assist individuals who are being released from the detention facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
• Get trained in Civil Disobedience so when Cosecha asks allies to use that tactic for escalated actions and risk arrests, they will have an unlimited number of people that will disrupt business as usual and amplify the resistance to ICE in this city.
• Lastly, you can help spread the word by distributing the cards below, in Spanish and English, with tips on what to do if ICE shows up, which also has their hotline number.

Let’s channel the rage and energy we all have because of the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good by joining the work of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE. That is the most effective way to resist ICE in Grand Rapids and Kent County, and it will be what is needed to get us closer to abolishing ICE once and for all.