Local officials in Minneapolis called on federal forces to leave the city after a woman was fatally shot during a confrontation with immigration agents. But they urged residents to remain calm, as federal officials defended the agents’ actions.
“We’re demanding ICE to leave the city immediately,” Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, said on social media, saying that the shooting involved an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He added that “the presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city.”
Elliott Payne, the president of the Minneapolis City Council, condemned the presence of ICE in Minneapolis in an interview from the scene.
“They’re an escalating factor. We need them out of our city,” he said.
Homeland Security officials said the shooting happened during an immigration enforcement operation as agents were being confronted by protesters. But the exact circumstances of what occurred remained unclear. Federal officials have defended the overall crackdown in Minneapolis as a necessary response to illegal immigration and widespread fraud in state social service systems.
The attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, said on social media that there were a lot of unknowns surrounding the shooting. But he said that President Trump’s decision to send armed ICE agents to the state “is causing serious harm and spreading terror throughout our communities.”
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
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