The Trump administration has just sent a frightening message to everyone in this country. The message is simple and chilling: if federal agents can kill a woman in public and face no real accountability, then the same thing could happen to anyone.
A 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, was killed in broad daylight. Video footage shows that she was trying to move out of the way of federal agents, not attacking them. Yet Trump, his vice president, and the secretary of homeland security all insist that she was trying to kill an agent and that the shooting was self-defense. They say this despite what the videos show. If they can tell that story about her, they can tell the same story about you.
Trump has called her a “professional agitator.” His allies have labeled her a “domestic terrorist.” These words are powerful, and they are dangerous. They can be used against anyone. It does not matter whether you are actually violent or law-abiding. It does not matter whether you are politically active or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you are left-wing, outspoken, or involved in protests, the danger is even greater.
We are told to trust the FBI investigation into her death. But how can we trust it when the FBI now works under Trump’s control, is led by his loyalists, and is reportedly looking into her political connections instead of focusing on the killing itself? How can we trust federal officials who are actively blocking state and local investigators from seeing evidence or reviewing what really happened?
The risk is not hypothetical. Trump’s attorney general has expanded the definition of “domestic terrorism” to include “impeding law enforcement.” That could mean almost anything. What if you are standing in the way without realizing it? What if you are participating in peaceful civil disobedience? What if you are just nearby when something goes wrong?
This already happened to Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen in Chicago. She was in her car and trying to warn people about ICE activity. Her car collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Federal officials say she deliberately rammed the vehicle. Her lawyers say she was sideswiped. An agent got out of his car and shot her five times. She lived. Instead of being protected as a citizen who survived being shot, she was charged by the Justice Department with assaulting a federal officer.
This is the pattern. Ordinary people, obeying the law, are being treated as enemies. Some are being shot. Some are being killed. Others are being arrested and imprisoned.
The Trump administration has also been taking people from their homes who are legally in the United States, including people with green cards, not just temporary visas. These people are being detained and sent to prison not because they committed crimes, but because they expressed political views the administration does not like.
This is what happened to Mahmoud Khalil. He graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He has a green card. His wife is an American citizen. Plainclothes ICE agents showed up at his apartment building on March 8 and took him away without charges. He was held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana for three and a half months. During that time, he missed his graduation and the birth of his first child.
The government is still trying to deport him. A federal court heard arguments months ago and still has not ruled. Khalil has never been charged with a crime. He was in the country legally. He protested peacefully. He did not threaten anyone. He did exactly what people are supposed to be allowed to do in a democracy: express political opinions without violence.
Trump himself admitted the real reason Khalil was arrested. On Truth Social, Trump wrote that Khalil was taken because of his political beliefs and warned that this was only the beginning. He openly threatened that more students and activists would be arrested for views the administration labels “anti-American.”
If the government can do this to Khalil, it can do it to others. It could target permanent residents who speak up for transgender rights, diversity programs, racial justice, or anything else Trump and his allies decide is unacceptable. Once the government claims the power to punish people for speech, there is no clear limit.
What is to stop the administration from arresting people for advocating political change? What is to stop it from labeling calls to vote Republicans out of Congress or to elect a Democrat in the next presidential election as threats to the country?
Renee Nicole Good is dead. Marimar Martinez was shot and survived. Mahmoud Khalil was jailed and now faces deportation. There are many others whose stories are less visible. This is not abstract. This is not about politics in theory. This is about real people losing their lives, their freedom, and their families.
The next person could be you. It could be someone you love.
What is at stake is not only democracy as an idea. It is personal safety. It is whether you can speak freely, protest peacefully, or simply exist without fear of being labeled an enemy and punished by the state.
A dictatorship does not stop once it starts. It always looks for new targets.
If this country is going to survive as a free society, people must commit to resisting this peacefully and lawfully. That means organizing, voting, and working to remove those in power who are abusing it. It means ending Republican control of Congress in 2026 and removing Trump and his allies from power in 2028, assuming people still have the freedom to do so.
This is no longer theoretical. It is already happening. And it affects all of us.
