When Mothers March Against State Terror

Two mothers are dead in Minneapolis. Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot three times by federal immigration agents as she tried to drive away. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was killed even after being disarmed. Neither were immigrants—they were simply in the wrong place when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents opened fire.

Since Trump's return to office in January 2025, ICE operations have left 11 people shot, thousands detained—including U.S. citizens—and children tear-gassed. The masked agents conducting these raids remind political scientist Laura Tedesco of something she hoped never to see again: the state terrorism that consumed Argentina in the 1970s.

But Argentina's story also offers an unexpected lesson about resistance. When a military junta "disappeared" 30,000 people between 1976 and 1983, it was mothers—not politicians or generals—who ultimately helped restore democracy.

The Familiar Face of Authoritarianism

Amnesty International has coined a term for the current U.S. immigration enforcement: "the Trump effect." Masked federal agents in plain clothes began detaining international students in April 2025, violating international policing standards that require officers to use "the least harmful means likely to be effective."

The parallels to Argentina's military dictatorship are unsettling. In March 1976, the armed forces overthrew a chaotic civilian government, claiming they needed to "restore order." What followed was systematic state terror: young activists, union members, and even Catholic priests embracing liberation theology were secretly kidnapped, tortured, and dropped from airplanes into the River Plate on "death flights."

The regime's power seemed absolute. A state of siege banned all public assembly. Fear silenced dissent. But in April 1977, something unexpected happened in Buenos Aires's central plaza.

When Grief Becomes Revolution

Fourteen women gathered in the Plaza de Mayo, facing the presidential palace. They weren't politicians or activists—they were mothers searching for their disappeared children. To evade the assembly ban, they walked in circles around the plaza, a simple act that would eventually topple a dictatorship.

The regime tried everything to discredit them. State media called them "Las Locas de Plaza de Mayo"—the "mad women" of the plaza—painting them as emotionally unstable subversives with foreign connections. Officials mocked their weekly marches and accused them of fabricating kidnappings.

The government's response wasn't just rhetorical. In 1977, three founding mothers—Esther de Balestrino, Azucena Villaflor, and Mary Ponce de Bianco—were themselves disappeared when military personnel stormed a Buenos Aires church. Twelve others vanished with them.

Yet the mothers persisted. International support from France and human rights organizations amplified their voices globally, putting diplomatic pressure on the regime. As evidence of systematic disappearances became undeniable, public perception shifted. The "mad women" became moral heroes.

The Democracy Mothers Built

When Argentina's military lost the Falklands War in 1982, the dictatorship collapsed. But the mothers' work was far from over. They continued searching for their children's remains and the grandchildren born in captivity, then illegally adopted by military families.

Their persistence exposed the regime's full scope of atrocities. The National Genetic Data Bank, established in 1983, has since identified more than 120 grandchildren. The mothers' testimony helped convict dozens of military officials for crimes against humanity.

Most remarkably, they transformed private grief into collective political action, sustaining public pressure for accountability that continues today. Democracy wasn't restored by generals or politicians—it was rebuilt by mothers who refused to stop walking in circles.

The American Mirror

Today's ICE operations share disturbing similarities with Argentina's state terrorism: masked agents, disproportionate force, and the targeting of vulnerable populations to instill fear. The 11 shootings since January 2025 suggest a deliberate escalation beyond immigration enforcement.

But Argentina's history also reveals the state's vulnerability to moral resistance. Authoritarian regimes depend on public compliance and international legitimacy. When mothers in Minneapolis begin organizing—and they will—the government faces the same dilemma that ultimately destroyed Argentina's junta.

The regime can demonize grieving mothers, but that strategy has limits. International attention follows. Public sympathy shifts. The circle of resistance grows.