When the era of MAGA power finally ends, there will be voices urging the nation to move on.
They will argue that pursuing accountability for those who enabled Trumpism is petty, vindictive, and divisive.
This argument has been made before—after Watergate, after the Civil War—and it was wrong then. It will be wrong again.
The Case for Accountability
Those who perpetrated the reign of terror—from ICE officers in the field to the bureaucrats who drafted legal justifications—must face consequences.
Their immunity from prosecution and civil suits must be eliminated retroactively. They must be investigated, tried, fined, and ostracized from public life.
ICE itself must be abolished. Mere reform would be a betrayal of democratic values.
But abolishing the agency is not enough; the individuals responsible for its atrocities must be held personally accountable.
Recent Killings Highlight Urgency
Two recent deaths underscore the need for justice.
On a Tuesday in Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three and business owner, was shot dead in his car by an ICE agent while driving to work.
He had immigrated from Mexico 35 years ago. Three coworkers survived the shooting but were taken into ICE custody.
The agents had been looking for someone else.
Days later, in Biddeford, Maine, 25-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed by ICE.
Born in Colombia, he had a work permit and held two jobs to support his wife and three-year-old daughter.
Witnesses say his daughter, still in her Bluey pajamas, watched as agents rammed her father's car and shot him.
Senator Angus King was told ICE was looking for someone else in that case too.
ICE claimed Salgado tried to run them over—a statement witnesses dispute.
The same excuse was used after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year, video disproved that account.
The pattern suggests ICE agents are reckless and trigger-happy, terrorizing communities and targeting people based on race.
These deaths follow the killings of two U. S.
citizens in Minneapolis: Good and nurse Alex Pretti. Protests erupted, and some high-profile officials lost their jobs.
But after a brief de-escalation, ICE has resumed raids with renewed cruelty.
“ICE hunts us like animals,” said Maria Cervantes, a Mexican immigrant in Houston. “Who’s next?
Am I going to get a bullet to the head for being brown?”
To rebuild America as a free and pluralistic democracy, we must ensure no one has to ask that question again.
Moving on requires forgetting the victims—Salgado, Durán, Good, Pretti, and others. We must refuse to forget.
