Today is Wednesday. But for many of us, it doesn’t feel like just another Wednesday. Even as we go to work as always, taking care of our families and our day-to-day responsibilities, we are grappling with feelings of anxiety, fear, rage, uncertainty, and despair. How have we gotten to this point? How much further can it go? What can we do to stop it?

Twice in the short first three weeks of this new year, federal law enforcement agents killed American citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—who posed no threat to them or anyone else, in broad daylight, in front of numerous witnesses and on video.

Let’s be clear, they are heroes: Renee Good was trying to protect her neighbors, and Alex Pretti—a union sibling of AFGE Local 3669 and VA nurse—was helping a woman who had been shoved to the ground by ICE agent, as so many of us frontline workers serving our communities with respect, dignity, and humanity would have done.

Just yesterday, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked while speaking at a town hall in Minnesota. We must not be afraid to speak up and stand up for our democracy. As Congresswoman Omar said, “I’m a survivor, so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.”

We must honor the sacrifice, courage, and bravery of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Congresswoman Omar, and the people of Minnesota by standing together with them. We also refute the mischaracterization and the demonization of these heroes. We demand a full, swift and independent investigation of the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and that the perpetrators be brought to justice. We also demand that Congress do its job and hold Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as the heads of DHS and ICE accountable.

We demand that Congress uphold the constitution and the right to due process and equal protection, which prohibit the government from depriving any person in the United States of life, liberty, or property without fair legal procedures. We also demand that the U.S. Senate and House vote no on a spending package that includes funding for ICE and DHS.

Moments like this call for all of us to stand together with courage and solidarity. We are at a pivotal moment in U.S. history. While the United States has never fully lived up to the ideals our constitution enshrines, we are watching the rights our predecessors fought and died for go up in smoke before our eyes.

We cannot afford to return to Jim Crow. We cannot afford to allow the killing, abuse, and disenfranchisement of Black and brown people, our neighbors, our colleagues. We must not accept the demonization of “immigrants”; we are a nation of immigrants. Our strength lies in our diversity. We must stand up. We must protest peacefully and use the power of our votes at the ballot box to maintain our democracy and hold our government accountable. 

We are already seeing positive impacts of the people’s outrage and refusal to be silent in the face of gross injustice, inhumanity sanctioned by the highest levels of power, and the decimation of democracy. In Minneapolis, workers pulled off an impressive general strike on January 23, with some 50,000 people braving -20-degree weather to march in the streets against the ICE takeover and hundreds of businesses closing for the day. And for many months before the current nightmare in Minnesota began, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people have mobilized for marches; have escorted immigrants to their court hearings; have formed networks to alert their communities to ICE raids and have documented the abuses with their phones and social media.

Republicans at the highest levels of power are now on the defensive. What we are doing as individuals is having an impact collectively. Now is not the time to let fear get in our way of standing up for what’s right.

We must keep showing up to observe, to document, to protest. We must keep speaking out. We must call our representatives in Congress and hold them accountable to refuse to fund a paramilitary organization that is hunting our neighbors down in their homes, workplaces, and the streets while brazenly murdering those who seek to protect them. And when the midterm elections roll around, we must do everything we can to make sure those representing us in Congress are people who share our values and have the courage to stand up for what’s right.

Let us honor the sacrifice of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, our ancestors, and the countless others who have been locked up and abused, by standing together with courage. Let us not be afraid. Together we shall overcome.