On Jan. 11, Quinnipiac Black, Indigenous and people of color Caucus posted a statement on social media in response to the killing of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
In 2025, a group of Student Government Association senators came together to form the QU BIPOC after sharing their concerns about the lack of representation on campus.
The caucus posted the statement “condemning ICE violence and affirming support for all students.”
ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good after he alleged that she tried to run him over with her vehicle, claiming self-defense.
In response to the killing of Good, the caucus described its reaction as “horrified” and that it condemns “this violence and the systems that enable it. Silence, from any institution or organization regarding an attack on our communities make students feel unsafe.”
Good’s killing “reveals a(n) escalation in the federal immigration enforcement, revealing that the boundary between targeting “violent criminals” and exerting coercive power over the general public has collided,” wrote Kiera Baxter, sophomore political science and economics QU BIPOC Caucus Member, special representation chair and athlete senator for the SGA in an email to The Chronicle.
Law enforcement officers may only use deadly force “when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Caucus members don’t agree that this was a case where deadly force was appropriate.
“(T)he Good case is part of a structural pattern where federal agencies normalize lethal force in ambiguous situations, and insulate themselves from accountability, creating a scary effect on political participation that is especially relevant to students, who are historically central to protest, documentation and political mobilization, yet now face a reality in which even passive presence can be considered as obstruction or danger,” Baxter wrote.
Good was an American citizen, but the caucus says it doesn’t matter to ICE anymore.
“(T)he Renee Good case just exposed a deeper crisis of democratic legitimacy in which the citizen/non-citizen distinction no longer functions as a safeguard, state violence increasingly resembles political domination rather than law enforcement, and students must recognize that what appears to be an immigration issue is in fact a warning about the future trajectory of state power, civil liberties and the fragility of democratic constraints in the United States,” Baxter wrote.
“ICE is simply fueled by hate and being against ‘violent criminals’ was a ploy for
something deeper,” junior film, television and media arts major, SGA sophomore class President and QU BIPOC member JJ Saunders, wrote.
Fifteen days after the caucus posted the statement of Good’s death, a 37-year-old Intensive Care Unit nurse at the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Alex Pretti, was killed by Border Patrol agents.
The death of Good and Pretti shows that “White people can be a victim too, just look at Renee, and just recently this past weekend, Alex Pretti, who was an ICU nurse. In both cases, this administration had labeled them as domestic terrorists or agitators, when they were clearly not doing anything and using their constitutional rights. In Pretti’s case, they disarmed him and they still fired a full round at him,” Junior behavioral neuroscience major, QU BIPOC Caucus Chair, and Identity Senator for the SGA Victor Constanza wrote.
Both Good and Petti were killed in Minnesota, but despite the geographical distance, “students should be considered… ICE is lurking everywhere and if you put your guard down, it could always be you,” Saunders wrote.
For junior computer science major, Veteran Senator for SGA and QU BIPOC Caucus member Adhira Arun, it’s personal.
“I am an immigrant woman and American veteran and what ICE is doing in this country is very horrifying and disappointing,” Arun wrote.
The Caucus plans to work or will work with administrators and SGA to take “actionable and public steps” to ensure students feel safe.
It has already received support from faculty and Hamden community leaders.
“We hope that leadership is willing to collaborate swiftly,” Constanza wrote.
Although it hasn’t met with campus leadership yet, it hopes to once its proposal is finalized and finished.
“While we have not received direct outreach from the BIPOC Caucus regarding this issue, we are always open to hearing from students and listening to their concerns,” John Morgan, Quinnipiac’s associate vice president for public relations, wrote in a statement to The Chronicle. “We encourage continued dialogue and remain committed to fostering a welcoming, safe and supportive campus for everyone.”
However, Arun won’t accept silence.
“It feels like nobody is safe, and the silence from this University is deafening to the BIPOC community. It’s like they are saying that they don’t see the necessity to speak up because their main demographic is marked safe from ICE (they’re not),” she wrote.
If campus leadership doesn’t take action, Constanza says the caucus will have to re-evaluate its strategy.
“We will not let this school do nothing on this issue,” Constanza wrote.
They said that, last year, the university had been asked at certain events why they hadn’t said anything.
“They usually say they do not want to be a target. But here is the thing, we cannot hide our skin color, hide our accents, or actions to help our fellow neighbors,” they wrote.
Constanza has a background in community organizing, which they say has helped prepare them for this.
Following the statement posted on Jan. 11, they were happy to see that Quinnipiac students care about each other. Yet, they were also surprised.
“This school historically is not very politically active and has a larger amount of moderate to conservative students, which is rare for a university. The amount of social media engagement was high, and it shows that recent events are really changing the outlook from students,” they wrote.
They didn’t expect the feedback to be so positive.
Within the Caucus, the statement was approved by everyone before being posted.
Per a statement from SGA, the organization remains apolitical, and the opinions do not reflect SGA as an entire organization. The QU BIPOC Caucus is a caucus within SGA. While there is a distinction, its SGA peers continue to give support.
“The United States is in a profoundly difficult place right now, and I’m sure many students are scared and unsure of where our country is heading politically and socially. Our job as representatives and advocates is to work for every student, regardless of their identity or background. We will do our best to keep students safe, and we will do that proactively until the students at Quinnipiac are safe,” wrote sophomore history major, SGA Sophomore Senator and SGA Historian Joshua Parr. Parr is not a member of the QU BIPOC Caucus.
He emphasized that representatives, not necessarily just members of the Caucus, are here to support students.
While it’s important to stay vigilant, students can always find support within the Caucus, the Caucus reiterates.
“If you ever need anything, no matter who you are and what you look like, standing together is the only way to weather the storm. Everything that seems like it’s happening in the horizon is already here,” Arun wrote.
Her sentiments are echoed by fellow caucus members.
“Students need to fight to protect their home from becoming a tragedy,” Saunders wrote.
