Weeks before the fatal shooting of a driver in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, officials at ICE warned agents on the ground to remain vigilant about protesters and be “prepared to take appropriate and decisive action should you be faced with an imminent threat.”
The Dec. 12 email noted an increase in protest activity and threats against officers, and contained a reminder to “maintain a heightened sense of awareness of your surroundings.” It included a reminder to call 911 in an emergency.
“I have full faith and confidence that each of you possess the training and knowledge to exercise the appropriate response,” said the note, signed by Marcos Charles, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE.
The stark counsel, delivered to all agency deportation staff members from a leading ICE official, underscores the atmosphere of alarm that has pervaded the agency over increasingly hostile protests as the Trump administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in cities.
Protesters have yelled expletives, blown whistles, thrown snowballs and blocked ICE vehicles as officers hunted down those with deportation orders, or questioned those believed to be unlawfully in the country. Officers have at times responded violently.
The Minnesota woman who was killed on Wednesday, Renee Nicole Good, 37, was a U.S. citizen who had been in her vehicle in a residential area where protesters had gathered to oppose the presence of ICE agents. Federal officials said she was part of the protest and had tried to ram the officer when he fired into the car, killing her. But a New York Times analysis of bystander videos found that her car appeared to be turning away at the time of the shooting, and local officials have called the official narrative false.
“We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, said at a news conference on Wednesday. He added that “today, that recklessness cost someone their life.”
Another shooting took place on Thursday, when U.S. Border Patrol agents trying to stop a vehicle in Portland, Ore., opened fire after a driver tried to run over agents, a Homeland Security Department spokeswoman said in a statement.
Federal authorities have issued numerous warnings to ICE personnel in recent months about the increasingly tense protests and other threats they face from those opposing their efforts.
“We are living in a time of heightened threats, some of which are direct, deliberate and deeply concerning,” read a Nov. 10 email to deportation staff and viewed by The Times.
The email went on to allege that “criminal entities” had issued instructions to “shoot on sight” when encountering certain immigration officers. It urged staff to remain “alert” in the field as they faced increasing threats.
Homeland security officials have said immigration officers have faced increased violence this past year. Concerns mounted after a sniper shot at an ICE facility in Dallas, killing two immigrant detainees in custody.
“For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement after the Dallas shooting. “This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. “Comparing ICE day in and day out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police and slave patrols has consequences.”
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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