From Civil Rights To ICE Raids: Trump’s Unchecked Power, Policies Put Every U.S. Community At Risk

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Donald Trump’s presidency has long carried a familiar weight for Black America. What feels different now is that the force once aimed primarily at Black and brown communities is no longer contained there. With two separate fatal shootings of white civilians by ICE agents in Minneapolis, the unchecked power of the federal government has moved into spaces many Americans once believed were insulated.

On January 24, 2026, Alex Jeffrey Pretti,[1] a 37-year-old American intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, was shot and killed by United States Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. This occurred amid widespread protests against a federal immigration crackdown. It followed the January 7 killing of Renée Good, also by federal officers.

Good, a 37-year-old white mother of three, was killed during an immigration operation after her vehicle moved forward as agents blocked a roadway.

Federal officials quickly labeled both shootings self-defense and branded Good and Pretti as  “domestic terrorists,” even as video and eyewitness accounts raised questions and Minnesota officials accused the Trump administration of weaponizing immigration enforcement. Protests spread across the state, and Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St. Paul sued the federal government, calling the deployment of immigration agents a “federal invasion.”

After Good’s killing, Trump responded with a Truth Social post aimed at Minnesotans that read less like a call for calm and more like a threat. He warned that a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING,” while painting entire communities as overrun by criminals and praising ICE for removing “thousands of criminals,” claims local leaders sharply disputed.

For many Black Americans, the moment felt grimly familiar.

“This is what unchecked power looks like,” said Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network. “Donald Trump sent up his latest test balloon for erasing Black history with his twisted, alarming claims that white Americans were discriminated against from the civil rights protections that many fought, bled, and in many cases died for.”

Sharpton’s remarks came after Trump told The New York Times that white people were “very badly treated” by laws adopted during the Civil Rights Movement. The president framed civil rights protections as a form of “reverse discrimination,” echoing a broader administration effort to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government.

“The facts simply don’t match up to the reality Donald Trump has chosen to live in,” Sharpton said. “Even more than 60 years after the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act, many Black Americans continue to lack access to equitable education, capital dollars, or even their right to exercise democracy.”

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Under Trump, those disparities have widened. His administration has eliminated DEI programs, curtailed civil rights enforcement, and backed legal efforts that have weakened affirmative action and pushed the Voting Rights Act closer to irrelevance. Civil rights leaders say the policies are not abstract. They translate into lost jobs, closed pathways, and communities left unprotected.

The timing of Trump’s comments struck another nerve.

“That he made these statements on the eve of the King federal holiday is perhaps the most telling,” Sharpton said. “The Trump administration has already made attempts to minimize this holiday, as well as Juneteenth, while propping up his own birthday.”

At the same time Trump has elevated claims of discrimination against white Americans, his administration has expanded aggressive immigration enforcement that critics say operates with little transparency or accountability. 

Investigations have documented immigration agents using banned chokeholds, detaining U.S. citizens, and conducting masked operations that leave communities fearful of leaving their homes.

The consequences now extend beyond immigrant communities. The killings of Good and Pretti  have jolted Americans who once viewed federal force as distant or theoretical.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus say the pattern is unmistakable. In a separate statement, caucus leaders condemned Trump for bypassing Congress to carry out an unauthorized military operation in Venezuela, calling it a grave abuse of power and warning that the president is increasingly willing to act without legal restraint, whether abroad or at home.

“While Nicolбs Maduro is, in fact, an illegitimate leader, the deployment of U.S. military power to impose political change in a sovereign nation without the consent of Congress threatens to draw the United States into an indefinite conflict,” the caucus said in its statement.

For Black institutions, the pressure has been economic as well as political. The Black Press of America, founded nearly two centuries ago to give voice to people denied access to mainstream media, has seen corporate advertisers and sponsors retreat under the Trump era’s hostility toward racial equity. Newsrooms have shrunk. Resources have dried up. The mission has grown harder just as the stakes have risen.

What Black America has warned about for years is now playing out in real time. A presidency that treats civil rights as disposable, dissent as criminal, and federal power as personal authority does not stop at one community.

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NOTE: The New Journal and Guide updated the original story to include the killing of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.