A day after a federal immigration officer shot and killed a woman in Minnesota, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, defended the officer’s actions, traveling to New York City on Thursday to vow that President Trump’s immigration crackdown would continue unabated.
On her first trip to the city since Zohran Mamdani took office as mayor last week, Ms. Noem, who oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, accused Mr. Mamdani and city officials of protecting “violent transnational gang members” at the expense of New Yorkers.
Ms. Noem railed against the city’s so-called sanctuary laws, which limit most cooperation between ICE and city agencies, but stopped short of calling for an escalation of ICE activity in New York City, a possibility local leaders have been preparing for.
The purpose of her visit was to announce the arrest of 54 people accused of being affiliated with a Dominican street gang, after an investigation into the shooting of an off-duty customs officer in Manhattan last summer. Two men from the Dominican Republic were charged in the attack on the officer, who survived, and the incident prompted Trump officials to respond with a broader crackdown focused on people associated with the Trinitarios gang, Ms. Noem said.
But the news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices in Lower Manhattan was quickly overshadowed by the fallout from the death on Wednesday of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was shot at three times by an officer while in her car in Minneapolis.
Ms. Noem has argued that the officer was acting in self-defense, accusing Ms. Good of trying to use her S.U.V. as a weapon to run over immigration officers and calling her actions domestic terrorism. City and state officials in Minnesota have described Ms. Noem’s version of events as false, calling it “propaganda.” Video analysis has shown that Ms. Good appeared to be turning the car away from the officer as he opened fire.
“I would say that when these individuals use their vehicles to try to ram our law enforcement and put their lives in jeopardy, that law enforcement officer has to make a decision to protect his life and the individuals around him as well,” Ms. Noem said on Thursday at the federal offices at One World Trade Center.
Ms. Noem said that the officer, who has not been identified, was experienced and had “followed his training,” adding that an investigation into his use of deadly force was continuing.
She also had sharp words for Mr. Mamdani, a vocal critic of ICE who on Wednesday accused the officer of murdering Ms. Good and said that New York would stand “with immigrants today, and every day that follows.”
Ms. Noem said that Mr. Mamdani, a Democrat and democratic socialist, “chose to stand with illegals instead of those individuals who just want the chance to raise their families in New York City.”
She added that while Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Trump had a “productive conversation” at the White House in November, her agency’s communications with the mayor’s office and the Police Department have not proved similarly fruitful. But she did not indicate plans for a large deployment of federal officers to New York similar to recent operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Noem’s visit to New York was her first since July, when she held a news conference with Thomas Homan, the president’s border czar, to blame the city’s sanctuary policies and Eric Adams, the mayor at the time, for the shooting of the customs officer.
The officer was shot in the face and arm during a robbery attempt at a park in Upper Manhattan, after two men rode up on a scooter and one revealed a weapon, police officials said at the time. The robber fired his weapon first, and he exchanged gunfire with the officer, the police said.
The two suspects, both Dominican immigrants with prior arrests, were detained within 48 hours and charged in the shooting. But Ms. Noem said that the shooting led federal investigators to embark on a monthslong operation to detain other immigrants engaged in criminal activity.
They homed in on the Trinitarios, a violent Dominican street gang that sprang from the Rikers Island jail in the 1990s, spreading outside the United States and becoming a source of consternation for the police in New York and elsewhere.
On Thursday, Ms. Noem and her top officials said that the 54 people arrested were not necessarily members of the Trinitarios, but rather “loosely affiliated to the Trinitarios,” according to Francis J. Russo, the director of the customs field office in New York.
Federal officials said that more than half of the people, all of whom they said lacked legal status, had been deported; the rest remained in custody. Officials said that many of those arrested had previous convictions and criminal charges, including weapons- and drug-related offenses, but they did not provide a list of names or details of their criminal histories.
During the news conference, about 100 protesters gathered outside One World Trade Center and chanted, “Say her name: Renee Nicole Good!” Some held signs that read “ICE Out of NYC Now,” and “The People Demand ICE OUT.”
Arlene Geiger, 77, sat in a chair holding a sign with “ICE” crossed out by an X. Ms. Geiger said she had been moved to tears after watching footage of Ms. Good’s death.
“It was just revolting,” Ms. Geiger said. She added: “People need to rise up and get out into the streets.”
Samantha Latson and Liam Stack contributed reporting.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration in the New York region.
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