On Wednesday, Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Minn., Renee Nicole Good was killed by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Last Saturday (Jan. 10), Indivisible Phenix City organized a candlelit vigil to both celebrate Good’s life and peacefully protest the presence of ICE within Columbus and Phenix City. Their goal was to “raise awareness about how immigration policies are impacting the Chattahoochee Valley” as stated by organizer Amy Bruce.

Crowds gathered along the sidewalk of Manchester Expressway. Protestors held signs and candles, sang songs, and waved at passing drivers who honked in support. Indivisible partnered with the Columbus Police Department to ensure all attendees were safely able to express their freedom of speech. While much of the focus of the gathering centered Good, this was an opportunity to also honor the lives of others who have been killed by ICE.

“Stewart Detention center, which is down in Lumpkin, Georgia is one of the largest immigration centers in the country.” said Bruce of Columbus’s proximity to ongoing ICE operations. She mentioned the use of the Columbus airport for ICE flights, pointing out that detainees are arriving shackled and treated as inmates.

“I think people need to be treated with compassion. And I think there does need to be a legal system that supports immigration in a fair and equitable manner,” Bruce said regarding how immigration should be treated in this country. “There are common sense reforms that we can implement to be able to give people the dignity that coming to our country use to stand for.”

Protesters were mournful and outraged by Good’s shooting in Minneapolis. Anne Curtis and Douglas McCloud spoke about their feelings regarding how ICE officers handled the situation. “They killed her,” Anne stated. McCloud echoed the sentiment, stating that “[The ICE agent] could have shot the tire and stopped the car … they didn’t have to kill the woman.”

The Rainbow Rights Report, a group of independent journalists, were in attendance passing out water bottles. “[ICE] is definitely targeting Hispanic areas like La Nacional and Las Americas,” stated reporter Kana Nagisawa when asked about ICE’s presence in Columbus. “Because of that I’ve been constantly in those different areas giving out red cards to alert those people to avoid them or to know their rights in dealing with ICE so we don’t have more deaths.” Those red cards provided explanations of these rights in Spanish, as well as key English phrases to employ when accosted or detained by ICE agents.

“Right now, especially since this is a time where fascist violence is escalating and [ICE] is getting more and more emboldened and more ruthless, I think we as individuals and a collective need to be focused on keeping each other safe and building some kind of counter-power to this awful system we have,” stated Riley with Food Not Bombs, a non-profit organization focused on food distribution who also attended the vigil. Riley echoed other attendees focus on local political engagement, stating they were there to “out here to just make connections, show solidarity, and figure out how we can build more community.”