Renee

CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire Episcopal bishop is attracting national attention after warning his clergy to finalize their wills and get their affairs in order to prepare for a “new era of martyrdom,” invoking the nonviolent resistance of the civil rights era.

Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire made his comments this month at a vigil honoring Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot on Jan. 7 behind the wheel of her vehicle by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

The Trump administration has defended the ICE officer’s actions, saying he fired in self-defense while standing near the front of Good’s vehicle as it began to move forward. That explanation has been panned by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and others based on videos of the confrontation, which show the officer shot Good several times.

Hirschfeld’s speech cited several historical clergy members who had risked their lives to protect others, including New Hampshire seminary student Jonathan Daniels, who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy in Alabama while shielding a young Black civil rights activist in 1965.

“I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,” Hirschfeld said. “And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

Hirschfeld said people of Christian faith should not fear death.

“Those of us who are ready to build a new world, we also have to be prepared,” he said. “If we truly want to live without fear, we cannot fear even death itself, my friends.”

Other religious leaders, including the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, have also called on Christians to protect the vulnerable amid the rise in aggressive and sometimes violent immigration enforcement actions under the Trump administration.

“We keep resisting, advocating, bearing witness and repairing the breach,” Rowe said during a prayer last week. “We keep sheltering and caring for those among us who are immigrants and refugees because they are beloved by God, and without them, we cannot fully be the church.”

In Minnesota, the Right Rev. Craig Loya urged people not to meet “hatred with hatred” but instead focus on love in “a world obviously not fine.”

“We are going to make like our ancient ancestors, and turn the world upside down by mobilizing for love,” he said. “We are going to disrupt with Jesus’ hope. We are going to agitate with Jesus’ love.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.

In one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes, protesters confronted federal agents and attempted to disrupt their operations by blowing car horns and whistles and banging on drums.

There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home Sunday. They later took one person away in handcuffs.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis City Council member. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring and gathering information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said Sunday that the investigation into the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during an interview with CNN dismissed complaints from Minnesota officials about local agencies being denied any participation in the investigation.

“We do work with locals when they work with us,” she said, criticizing the Minneapolis mayor and others for not assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

Frey and Noem each pointed fingers at the other for their rhetoric after Good’s killing, and each pushed their own firm conclusions about what video of the incident shows. The mayor stood by his assertions that videos show “a federal agent recklessly abusing power that ended up in somebody dying.”

“Let’s have the investigation in the hands of someone that isn’t biased,” Frey said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The killing of Good on Wednesday by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Ore., led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend, including thousands of people who rallied in Minneapolis.

Santana, Householder and Vancleave write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The killing of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer is reverberating across Capitol Hill where Democrats, and certain Republicans, are vowing an assertive response as President Trump’s aggressive deportation operations spark protests nationwide.

Lawmakers are demanding a range of actions, including a full investigation into Renee Nicole Good’s shooting death, policy changes over law enforcement raids, the defunding of ICE operations and the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in what is fast becoming an inflection point.

“The situation that took place in Minnesota is a complete and total disgrace,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said as details emerged. “And in the next few days, we will be having conversations about a strong and forceful and appropriate response by House Democrats.”

Yet there is almost no consensus among the political parties in the aftermath of the death of Good, who was behind the wheel of an SUV after dropping off her 6-year-old at school when she was shot and killed by an ICE officer.

The killing immediately drew dueling narratives. Trump and Noem said the ICE officer acted in self-defense, while Democratic officials said the Trump administration was lying and they urged the public to view the viral videos of the shooting for themselves. The videos appear to contradict at least some aspects of the Trump administration’s assertions.

Vice President JD Vance blamed Good, calling it “a tragedy of her own making,” and said the ICE officer may have been “sensitive” from having been injured during an unrelated altercation last year.

But Good’s killing, at least the fifth known death since the administration launched its mass deportation campaign, could change the political dynamic.

“The videos I’ve seen from Minneapolis yesterday are deeply disturbing,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a statement last week.

“As we mourn this loss of life, we need a thorough and objective investigation into how and why this happened,” she said. As part of the investigation, Murkowski said she is calling for policy changes, saying the situation “was devastating, and cannot happen again.”

Homeland Security funding up for debate

The push in Congress for more oversight and accountability of the administration’s immigration operations comes as lawmakers are in the midst of the annual appropriations process to fund agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, to prevent another federal government shutdown when money expires at the end of January.

As anti-ICE demonstrations erupt in the aftermath of Good’s death, as seen in many U.S. cities this weekend, Democrats have pledged to use any available legislative lever to apply pressure on the administration to change the conduct of ICE officers.

“We’ve been warning about this for an entire year,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.).

The ICE officer “needs to be held accountable,” Frost said, “but not just them, but ICE as a whole, the president and this entire administration.”

Congressional Democrats saw Good’s killing as a sign of the need for aggressive action to restrain the administration’s tactics.

Several Democrats joined calls to impeach Noem, who has been under fire from both parties for her lack of transparency at the department, though that step is highly unlikely with Republicans in control of Congress.

Other Democrats want to restrict the funding for her department, whose budget was vastly increased as part of Republicans’ sweeping tax and spending bill passed last summer.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the subcommittee that handles Homeland Security funding, plans to introduce legislation to rein in the agency with constraints on federal agents’ authority, including a requirement that the Border Patrol stick to the border and that Homeland Security enforcement officers be unmasked.

“More Democrats are saying today the thing that a number of us have been saying since April and May: Kristi Noem is dangerous. She should not be in office, and she should be impeached,” said Democratic Rep. Delia C. Ramirez, who represents parts of Chicago where ICE launched an enhanced immigration enforcement action last year that resulted in two deaths.

Immigration debates have long divided Congress and the parties. Democrats splinter between more liberal and stricter attitudes toward newcomers to the United States. Republicans have embraced Trump’s hard-line approach in trying to portray Democrats as radicals.

The Republican administration had launched the enforcement operation in Minnesota in response to an investigation of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said the organization was at the center of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scams, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.

Heading into the November midterm election, which Democrats believe will hinge on issues such as affordability and healthcare, national outcry over ICE’s conduct has pressured lawmakers to speak out.

“I’m not completely against deportations, but the way they’re handling it is a real disgrace,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), who represents a district along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Right now, you’re seeing humans treated like animals,” he said.

Other ICE shootings have rattled lawmakers

In September, a federal immigration enforcement agent in Chicago fatally shot Silverio Villegas Gonzalez during a brief altercation after Gonzalez had dropped off his children at school.

In October, a Customs and Border Protection agent also in Chicago shot Marimar Martinez, a teacher and U.S. citizen, five times during a dispute with officers. The charges the administration had brought against Martinez were dismissed by a federal judge.

To Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.), Good’s death “brought back heart-wrenching memories of those two shootings in my district.”

“It looks like the fact that a U.S. citizen, who is a white woman, may be opening the eyes of the American public, certainly of members of Congress, that what’s going on is out of control,” he said, “that this isn’t about apprehending or pursuing the most dangerous immigrants.”

Republicans expressed some concern at the shooting but most stood by the administration’s policy, defended the officer’s actions and largely blamed Good for the altercation.

“Nobody wants to see people get shot,” said Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.).

“Let’s do the right thing and just be reasonable. And the reasonable thing is not to obstruct ICE officers and then accelerate while they’re standing in front of your car,” he said. “She made a mistake. I’m sure she didn’t mean for that to happen, nor did he mean for that to happen.”

Brown and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democrat Renee Hardman was elected to the Iowa state Senate on Tuesday in a year-end special election, denying Republicans from reclaiming two-thirds control of the chamber.

Hardman bested Republican Lucas Loftin by an overwhelming margin to win a seat representing parts of the Des Moines suburbs. The seat became vacant after the Oct. 6 death of state Sen. Claire Celsi, a Democrat.

Hardman, the CEO of nonprofit Lutheran Services of Iowa and a member of the West Des Moines City Council, becomes the first Black woman elected to the 50-member Senate.

“I want to recognize that while my name was the one on the ballot, this race was never just about me,” Hardman told a room of supporters in West Des Moines after declaring victory.

With 99% of votes counted, Hardman led by about 43 percentage points.

Her win is latest in a string of special election victories for Iowa Democrats, who flipped two Senate seats this year to break up a supermajority that had allowed Republicans to easily confirm GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds’ appointments to state agencies and commissions.

Democrat Mike Zimmer first flipped a seat in January, winning a district that had strongly favored Republican President Trump in the 2024 election. In August, Democrat Catelin Drey handily defeated her GOP opponent in the Republican stronghold of northwestern Iowa, giving Democrats 17 seats to Republicans’ 33. Celsi’s death brought that down to 16.

Republicans would have regained two-thirds control with a Loftin victory Tuesday. Without a supermajority, the party will need to get support from at least one Democrat to approve Reynolds’ nominees. The GOP still has significant majorities in both legislative chambers.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, called Hardman’s victory “a major check on Republican power.”

“With the last special election of the year now decided, one thing is clear: 2025 was the year of Democratic victories and overperformance, and Democrats are on track for big midterm elections,” Martin said.

In November the party dominated the first major Election Day since Trump returned to the White House, notably winning governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey. Democrats held onto a Kentucky state Senate seat this month in a special election. And while Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee special election for a U.S. House seat, the relatively slim margin of victory gave Democrats hope for next year’s midterms. The party must net three House seats in 2026 to reclaim the majority and impede Trump’s agenda.

Loftin, a tree trimmer turned data manager, congratulated Hardman and told the Associated Press he’s praying for her as she embarks on this important chapter.

Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann applauded Loftin and his supporters for putting up a fight in what he described as “a very tough district.” Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 3,300 voters, or 37% to 30%.

“Although we fell short this time, the Republican Party of Iowa remains laser-focused on expanding our majorities in the Iowa Legislature and keeping Iowa ruby-red,” Kaufmann said.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee pledged Tuesday to help defend the party’s gains in Iowa and prevent the return of a GOP supermajority next year.

Schoenbaum and Fingerhut write for the Associated Press. Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.