A group of about 300 or so people peacefully rallied at Orlando City Hall on Sunday (with at least a couple dozen cops on standby) to denounce the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good by a federal immigration enforcement agent last week, and to demand state and local governments end their collaboration with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.
The rally in Orlando, organized by anti-Trump group Orlando 50501, was part of a coordinated weekend of peaceful protest actions and vigils across the U.S. in protest of the Trump administration’s deadly mass deportation agenda. According to Time magazine, at least 1,000 anti-ICE demonstrations across the U.S. happened over the weekend, from Orlando to New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Tuscon and the not-exactly-bright-blue Treasure Coast city of Stuart, Florida.
Protesters in Orlando held signs and banners that read “ICE agents are paid agitators,” “Fuck ICE,” “ICE Out 4 Good” and “Public safety doesn’t require body bags.”
“When Renee Good was murdered, this was far from the only killing that ICE has done,” said Corey Hill of Orlando 50501, speaking to a crowd gathered outside of Orlando City Hall early Sunday afternoon. “Thirty-two people were killed in ICE custody last year,” he pointed out. According to The Guardian, 2025 was the deadliest year on record for ICE in decades. At least six of the deaths in ICE custody last year occurred in Florida.
“They are engaging in kidnapping and violence from coast to coast, using our money to brutalize our people,” said Hill, who encouraged attendees to get plugged into local organizing work in solidarity with immigrant communities. “This is not a moment, this is a movement … Say it loud, say it clear: Immigrants are welcome here.”
The protest Sunday was spurred by the death of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last Wednesday in Minneapolis, just about a mile from where George Floyd was murdered by police in 2020. Good was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado and an award-winning poet. Minneapolis leaders say she was serving as a legal observer of ICE activities when she encountered the agent who killed her, identified by media as Jonathan Ross.
Good had just dropped off her kid at school shortly before she was shot at multiple times by an ICE officer as she was fleeing the scene in her Honda Pilot, her dog in the backseat. The Trump administration has described her as a “domestic terrorist,” claiming she was trying to ram into agents with her car.
“We are here because our state keeps asking us to accept the unacceptable, because our leaders keep calling violence policy, because they keep saying, ‘We’re just complying,’” said Fi Gomez Jr., a LGBTQ+ immigrant justice organizer with the Apopka-based Hope CommUnity Center. “But let’s be clear: Compliance with violence is still fucking violence,” they said, earning roars of agreement from the crowd.
“Compliance with violence is still fucking violence”
“When the state cooperates with systems that cage, disappear and brutalize our people, it’s not neutrality, it’s not just the law. It’s complacency. And we are here to say no more.”
Florida reportedly leads the nation in the number of agreements that the state and local governments have signed with ICE, including Orange County and Orlando. Orange County has a controversial agreement with ICE that county leaders say is mandated under state law that allows federal immigration enforcement to detain people in the Orange County Jail temporarily before sending them to a long-term detention facility.
It’s cost the county more than $300,000 since Trump took office, so far, since the federal government has failed to fully reimburse the county for the cost of jailing people accused of being in the country illegally. The Orlando Police Department also has an agreement with ICE, allowing local police officers “limited immigration authority” alongside their normal duties.
Organizers of the rally in Orlando on Sunday are calling on state and local elected officials to end their collaboration with ICE. With the 60-day state legislative session beginning Tuesday, advocates are also calling on state lawmakers to pass legislation (SB 316) that would prohibit ICE agents and other members of law enforcement from wearing masks during public immigration enforcement activities. It would also require them to wear visible identification.
The proposal, dubbed the “VISIBLE Act,” is sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando and Jacksonville Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon.
The Immigrants Are Welcome Here coalition, made up of more than 60 Central Florida legal aid and advocacy groups, put together a petition through ActionNetwork with their call to action for elected officials to end agreements with ICE, distributed through the crowd on Sunday via a QR code.
“To the officials that can hear us today, history is watching you,” said Gomez. “Your silence is a decision, and ‘I was just following orders’ has never been an excuse that history forgives.”
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