Minneapolis woman killed by US ICE agents called a ‘domestic terrorist’ — Why is the label controversial | Today News

United States Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has described the actions of Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, as ‘domestic terrorism’.

Noem, speaking at a news conference in new York on Thursday, said that Good refused to obey orders to get out of her car, ‘weaponised her vehicle’ and ‘attempted to run’ over an officer. Many officials in Minnesota and beyond have disputed Noem citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.

Good was a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to Minneapolis, the city in Minnesota located along the Mississippi River in mid western United States.

Good was a prize-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, who city leaders have said was there as a legal observer of ICE activities, according to a report in BBC.

Her death on 7 January has sparked protests across the country, with many people holding signs that read ‘Justice for Renee’.

President Donald Trump-led US administration has used the ‘domestic’ terrorist phrase often in recent months, including in an October immigration enforcement-related shooting.

In September 2025, Trump administration issued a memo calling on law enforcement to prioritise threats including ‘violent efforts to shut down immigration enforcement,’ saying domestic terrorists were using violence to advance ‘extreme views in favour of mass migration and open borders,’ according to a PBS report.

‘Domestic’ terrorism refers to acts that are dangerous to people or property and aim at intimidating civilians or influencing the government.

US dederal agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security have different legal definitions of domestic terrorism or DT.

The FBI, citing a specific section of the US code, defines domestic terrorism as acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state criminal laws and appear intended to intimidate or coerce civilians, influence government policy by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping, according to a 2020 memo cited by PBS.

Homeland Security, on the other hand, uses a similar definition, but cites a different statute that defines domestic terrorism as dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources.

"Unlike foreign terrorism, the federal government does not have a mechanism to formally charge an individual with domestic terrorism, which sometimes makes it difficult (and occasionally controversial) to formally characterise someone as a domestic terrorist," reads the 2023 note by US Congress titled ‘Understanding and Conceptualizing Domestic Terrorism: Issues for Congress.’

The US federal government periodically revises how it describes threats. For example, in 2025, federal officials sometimes used the term "nihilistic violent extremists" to describe perpetrators who don't subscribe to one ideology but appear to be motivated by a desire to, as one expert put it, "gamify" real life violence.

Good lived in the Minneapolis and was a United States citizen and had no criminal background, The Associated Press reported. Good's ex-husband told the AP that she wasn't an activist and he hadn't known her to participate in protests. Good had dropped off her 6-year-old son at school and was driving home when she encountered ICE.

Donal Trump administration has ramped up Minneapolis immigration enforcement in recent weeks, following news reports about fraud in the Somali community.

Good’s death echoes Marimar Martinez did case of October 2025. Marinez survived after being shot multiple times by a US. Customs and Border Protection agent during an incident in Chicago in October 2025

US Department of Homeland Security or the DHS used domestic terrorism for "Operation Midway Blitz during which Martinez was shot.

A DHS press release described Martinez as a "domestic terrorist" and accused her of ramming her vehicle into the Border Patrol agent's car.

However in November, a federal judge granted prosecutors' motion to dismiss federal charges against Martinez. "Ultimately, there was a determination when everything was evaluated that there were serious questions about the officers' narratives," legal analyst Joey Jackson told CNN.

The Trump administration has used ‘domestic terrorism’ for cases which do not relate to immigration and Homeland Security.

In September 2025, after conservative activist Charlie Kirk's murder, President Trump issued a memo ordering the attorney general to expand domestic terrorism priorities to include "politically motivated terrorist acts such as organised doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder."

Trump signed an executive order a few days before designating antifa, a broad, loosely affiliated coalition of left-wing activists, as a domestic terrorist organisation.

Experts have Experts raised questions about Noem's 'domestic terrorism' label for Good.

Information is still surfacing about what transpired before Good was fatally shot. However, frame-by-frame analyses of video footage by The New York Times and The Washington Post found Good's vehicle moved toward an ICE agent, but the agent was able to move out of the way and fire at least two of the three shots from his gun from the side of the car as Good veered away.

Thomas E Brzozowski, former Justice Department Counsel for Domestic Terrorism told PolitiFact that since Good was trying to drive away to "characterize that as domestic terrorism I think is a stretch."

"Essentially within hours of the incident occurring labelling this activity as domestic terrorism, what that does is effectively strip domestic terrorism of its significance," he said, calling it a "blatantly partisan effort to label it as domestic terrorism."