The shooting in Minneapolis involving an officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reported by CNN, has sparked intense public debate in the United States. The article describes the killing of Renee Good during an ICE operation and raises questions about the use of force, accountability, and enforcement practices.
The report is available here:
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/10/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-renee-good
This piece does not address individual criminal responsibility, which must be assessed by the competent U.S. authorities. The focus here is different and more structural: what function is the State exercising when it deploys an immigration police force on the territory.
In the United States, this function is clear and explicit. ICE agents operate on the ground, verify immigration status, and, where legal requirements are not met, proceed with detention and removal. This is not an abstract power or a theoretical competence. It is a concrete, visible function of the State: status verification and enforcement.
This clarity stands in sharp contrast with what is happening in many European countries. To understand why this matters beyond the American context, it is useful to look at a recent and apparently unrelated episode in Rome. On January 11, 2026, two violent assaults occurred within one hour at Termini railway station, one of the main transportation hubs in Italy’s capital. One man was left in critical condition after a beating, and a food delivery rider was seriously injured shortly afterward. The facts were reported by Corriere della Sera at the following link:
https://roma.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/26_gennaio_11/roma-doppia-aggressione-alla-stazione-termini-un-uomo-in-fin-di-vita-dopo-un-pestaggio-un-rider-ferito-un-ora-dopo-7313a7a7-9a86-42ed-8449-55cef8d50xlk.shtml
Again, the criminal responsibility for those attacks is not the issue here. The relevant question is why places like Rome’s Termini station have, for years, become areas of chronic disorder, marginalization, and insecurity.
The answer is uncomfortable but straightforward: in Italy—and more broadly in Europe—the State largely refuses to exercise systematic, on-the-ground control of immigration status. Deportation orders exist on paper, but real-time verification and enforcement are rare. The result is a legal fiction: everyone knows that large numbers of people remain on the territory without a valid right to stay, yet the system is built on not seeing them.
In the United States, by contrast, the State does see. ICE agents stop people, check documents, and act when legal status is lacking. This does not make the system immune from error or abuse, but it does make one thing undeniable: immigration control is treated as an ordinary function of sovereignty.
From a European perspective, and within the paradigm I define as “ReImmigration,” this comparison is crucial. ReImmigration does not mean indiscriminate repression or permanent emergency. It means something more basic: integration is an obligation, not an assumption; the right to remain must be verified over time; and when legal conditions are no longer met, return is the logical outcome.
Seen from this angle, it is legitimate to state that if a dedicated immigration police function had existed around Rome’s Termini station, the conditions that allowed those violent episodes to occur would likely not have been present. Not because policing eliminates all crime, but because persistent irregularity and lack of status control create environments where violence and exploitation thrive.
The Minneapolis case and the Rome assaults point, in different ways, to the same structural truth: immigration control is not neutral. Where it exists, it produces visible effects and public debate. Where it is absent, the costs are paid indirectly, through insecurity, social conflict, and periodic outbreaks of violence—followed by ritual indignation and no structural change.
Refusing to discuss an immigration police function does not make societies more humane. It simply means that the consequences of unmanaged irregularity are displaced elsewhere. A serious State does not govern through denial. It governs by exercising its functions openly, lawfully, and responsibly.
Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Lawyer and Lobbyist
Registered in the EU Transparency Register
ID 280782895721-36
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