ICE Protests Continue Throughout Texas

In the week since Renee Nicole Good was killed in Minneapolis after being shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, protests and demonstrations have continued in the country and all throughout Texas. And while many Texans are calling to abolish ICE, just a few officials in the state are taking that same position.

The protests that have taken place in Texas have been held in all corners of the state, from Austin to Dallas to Galveston and San Marcos. The organization Indivisible shows several more protests against ICE happening this upcoming weekend, many of them at bridges on prominent Texas highways.

The events that transpired in Minneapolis have reverberated on the campaign trail in Texas as candidates race to the primary election on March 3. The day after the shooting, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is running in the Democratic Senate primary, was attending a hearing at the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. She became emotional as she implored her Republican colleagues to have a “little bit of courage and humility” to condemn what happened.

Crockett’s fellow Senate candidate James Talarico has been addressing the shooting, and immigration enforcement as he continues campaigning. At a town hall in Plano on January 12, Talarico fielded a question from a nine-year-old who wanted to know “what we can do to stop ICE.” Talarico thanked the young man, named Ryan, for his interest in politics and said that the shooting represented a “moral outrage.” Talarico then called for full investigations and that laws should be passed to stop agents from wearing masks or “kidnapping people without a warrant.” He stopped short of calling for ICE to be abolished.

In October, Crockett co-sponsored the ICE Oversight and Reform Resolution, a six-point bill that would overhaul immigration enforcement that would require ICE and CBP officers to wear body cameras, display identification, and forbid the concealing of identity unless imminent safety was threatened. Like Talarico, Crockett has also not called for ICE to be abolished.

But there are some prominent Democratic politicians who would like to go further when it comes to ICE. Speaking to Zeteo, Congressman Joaquin Castro, who opted not to run for statewide office, told journalist Medhi Hasan that ICE under the Trump administration had been a “rogue organization” that should be disbanded.

Castro’s colleague in Congress ,Greg Casar, who previously supported abolishing ICE as an Austin city council member, spoke at an anti-ICE protest in Austin last Saturday, and led chants of “ICE OUT” to the crowd. Casar is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which recently announced their group would be opposing any new funding for immigration enforcement until significant changes are made.

New polling from CNN shows broad dissatisfaction with ICE and immigration enforcement in general. The poll administered by SSRS finds that 56 percent of Americans believed Good’s shooting was an “Inappropriate use of force.” Overall, 51 percent of Americans reported that the incident in Minneapolis “reflects bigger problems with the way ICE is operating.”

Texas Republicans have been overwhelmingly supportive of ICE, including the actions of the man who shot Good in Minneapolis. Congressman Wesley Hunt, who is running for Texas Attorney General in the Republican primary, has argued Good was responsible for what transpired, and that immigration enforcement officials have a “constitutional authority to enforce the law.”   

On Thursday, President Trump said on Truth Social that he would be prepared to use the Insurrection Act in Minnesota, after a night of protests and a federal agent shot a man. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has previously shown full support for the president on deploying troops like the Texas National Guard, authorizing their use in Illinois in October 2025.