| schema:text
| - In January 2026, after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, in Minneapolis, a claim (archived) circulated online that Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal called ICE "made up, fake, wannabe law enforcement" and warned agents, "You don't want this smoke," appearing to indicate that the agency should stay away from Philadelphia.
One Facebook user who shared the alleged quote wrote, in part:
There will be no brotherly love for ICE agents if they go to Philly per Philadelphia Sherriff Rochelle Bilal. Bilal declared Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a "made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement" agency that violates "not only the legal law, but the moral law."
A longer image caption claimed Bilal also said, addressing ICE, "You don't want this smoke, because we will bring it to you."
Bilal's alleged quote also circulated on X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking whether the sheriff really spoke the reported words.
Bilal did call ICE "made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement" and say "You don't want this smoke" during a news conference (archived) with other city officials led by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner on Jan. 8, 2026, the day after Good's death in Minneapolis. As a result, we've rated this claim true.
The Philadelphia Sheriff's Office posted Bilal's section of the news conference on YouTube (archived). In the video, she said (at 1:44):
And so we stand here today with all those who stand against the made-up, fake, what you can call ICE, professional law enforcement, I don't call them none of that. I call them made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement because what they do is against not only legal law but the moral law.
Bilal continued, appearing to address ICE agents (at 2:10), "If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide, nobody will whisk you off. You don't want this smoke because we will bring it to you."
Bilal spoke at a news conference hosted by Krasner, who also delivered a strongly worded warning to ICE agents. After describing (at 0:24) Good's death as "an unlawful killing" and "the criminal homicide of a young woman," Krasner said (at 8:04):
If any law enforcement agent, any ICE agent, is going to come to Philly to commit crimes, then you can get the F out of here. Because if you do that here, I will charge you with those crimes. You will be arrested. You will stand trial. You will be convicted.
ICE carried out immigration enforcement work in Philadelphia during the second administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, according to its website, though at the time of this writing it had not announced targeted action of the type seen in a number of other cities and states in 2025 and early 2026.
For further reading, Snopes has covered numerous topics related to Good's shooting, including whether an image authentically showed her vehicle aimed at the agent who shot her and whether an image shared online was an accurate depiction of her criminal record.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)