By Latiffe Amado

We stand here today because people are dying at the hands of ICE — in cages, in transit, and in the streets — and we refuse to let their deaths be renamed, minimized or explained away.

Because that’s always the first move: rename the violence so the public can swallow it.

Call raids “operations.”

Call cages “facilities.”

Call deportation “removal.”

Call death “an incident.”

And it only works if we’re trained to doubt or ignore what we can plainly see and what our bodies already know and feel.

I know you feel it; you’re here today.

“Reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears.”

We won’t.

We will not look away. We will not be trained into silence.

ICE is not just “immigration enforcement.” It is a growing, armed force built on the backs of immigrants — and immigrants are the test case. Our rights are the first denied. The government learns what it can get away with. And once a system learns it can disappear people without consequence, it doesn’t stop. It expands.

That’s why they’ve been trying to do something else, too: desensitize us. From Sandy Hook, to Gaza, to ICE kidnapping our neighbors at dawn. They keep flooding us with violence until we go numb, until we scroll past it, until our hearts learn to shut down as a survival skill.

Don’t let them.

Feel it. Let it land in your chest. Because something is profoundly wrong. Because these have been testing grounds for how much we will tolerate. And now it’s clear: this system doesn’t stay contained. No one is exempt.

So how do we meet this moment?

We meet it with courage.

I am a legal observer too, like Renee Nicole Good.

On Nov. 5, at 6:33 am, I was the first legal observer on site after ICE kidnapped nine people in Cottage Grove. It was early, it was cold, and I was alone. I was scared. I was shaking from fear and from rage.

I was afraid, but stayed anyway. Because somebody had to witness. Somebody had to document. Somebody had to make it harder for lies to become the official story.

On that day, their attorney arrived, well before transport to Tacoma. They still denied access.

Then, when more legal observers and protesters arrived and the attention grew, ICE tried to sneak them out so they could later claim it was “too late.” Too late for counsel.

It was a lie. And I said so — loudly to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. And in that moment, they treated me like the threat: They racially profiled me, threatened arrest, followed me and photographed me.

I carried that fear for days afterward. But you know what? I still show up — not because I’m fearless, but because truth still needs witnesses. And legal observers know that bearing witness matters.

I also want to speak directly to white folks who are grieving right now. For some of you, maybe for the first time in this way, because it’s the first time you’ve watched someone you see as “one of your own” be killed in broad daylight and then heard it justified as “public safety.”

I truly empathize with that grief.

And I want to name something gently: Black and brown communities have carried this kind of grief for centuries. We have been told, again and again, that our losses are acceptable collateral in the name of “public safety” or “self-defense.”

So if you’re feeling it now, don’t shut it down. Don’t turn away. Use this grief as a portal. Let it open your heart — and move your feet. Stand in solidarity. Commit to not abandoning one another.

Today, we tell the truth out loud. Today, we mourn real people.

We mourn Renee Nicole Good — a 37-year-old mother killed in Minneapolis during an ICE attack. A human being is gone. A child lost a parent. A community lost someone they loved.

And we mourn the people who never made it out of ICE detention — the people who died behind locked cages, and the people who died running for their lives.

Since Donald Trump took office, 34 people died in ICE custody in 2025 and 2026, three died fleeing from ICE, and five were shot by ICE. But because we have courage, we will keep organizing — until detention ends, until families are safe, until no one is hunted.

If you’re scared, that’s real. But courage is what you do while the fear is still in your body. So today, let your heart stay open. Let your eyes stay honest. And let your courage be contagious.

And we are not going anywhere. Chinga la Migra.

Latiffe Amado is a Eugene resident and legal observer who spoke at the demonstration on Jan. 8 after the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent.

We say their names because we refuse to let the system erase them.

Killed in ICE custody in 2025 and 2026

Genry Ruiz Guillén

Serawit Gezahegn Dejene

Maksym Chernyak

Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez

Brayan Garzón-Rayo

Nhon Ngoc Nguyen

Marie Ange Blaise

Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado

Jesus Molina-Veya

Johnny Noviello

Isidro Pérez

Tien Xuan Phan

Chaofeng Ge

Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas

Oscar Rascon Duarte

Santos Banegas Reyes

Ismael Ayala-Uribe

Huabing Xie

Leo Cruz-Silva

Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh

Gabriel Garcia Aviles

Kai Yin Wong

Francisco Gaspar-Andrés

Pete Sumalo Montejo

Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani

Jean Wilson Brutus

Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir

Delvin Francisco Rodriguez

Nenko Stanev Gantchev

Geraldo Lunas Campos

Luis Beltran Yanez–Cruz

Killed fleeing ICE

Jaime Alanís Garcia

Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez

Josué Castro Rivera

Shot and killed by ICE

Silverio Villegas González

Norlan Guzmán-Fuentes

Miguel Ángel García-Hernández

Keith Porter Jr.

Renee Nicole Good