Daily Kos Staff Emeritus (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at 2:03:31p EST
Courts provide extraordinary protection to the police. Courts provide extraordinary protection to agents of the federal government. Is it still possible to prosecute ICE agents for assault and murder?
For anyone who has watched the many videos showing ICE agent Jonathan Ross shooting and killing Minnesota mom Renee Nicole Good, the conclusion is obvious: This is murder.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Department of Justice would be investigating this incident, and Ross would be suspended awaiting the outcome of that investigation. But we are nowhere near ordinary circumstances. Instead, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has labeled Good a “domestic terrorist” and blessed Ross’s shooting without bothering to conduct any review, talk to any witnesses, or apparently watch any of the videos clearly showing that Ross was never under any conceivable threat.
Both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have issued statements that are completely at odds with what happened on January 7. Noem has also stated that Ross “followed his training protocol” and was justified in his actions.
As far as the White House is concerned, Good is a dead terrorist and Ross is a hero. Fortunately, Noem and Trump don’t have the final say on who gets prosecuted.
Good’s tragedy—a young mother killed for no reason after dropping off her 6-year-old at school—is not a solitary event. Since Trump reentered the White House and began his immigrant pogrom, ICE agents have fired their weapons at civilians at least 16 times. As The Trace notes:
Renee Good was one of four people who have been killed. Another seven people have been injured.
At least 15 other civilians have been held at gunpoint. In addition, ICE has routinely brutalized both protestors and bystanders. That includes incidents such as shooting a priest in the head with pepper balls and teargassing infants.
Every day, ICE agents seem determined to show that they sincerely believe American citizens have no recourse but to submit to their abuse.
What’s most disheartening about all this is that so far … ICE is right. While several agents have been arrested for off-duty crimes, abusive behavior and deadly force have earned only praise from Trump, Noem, Vance, and other Republicans. Attorney General Pam Bondi has taken up none of these cases for review, and Trump has made it clear that he expects Americans to surrender their First Amendment rights … or else.
Q: "Do you believe that deadly force was necessary?"Trump: "It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement. The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement…Law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff."
But if no one in the Justice Department will stand up for the Constitution—and they won’t—what’s left? Can state and local officials bring a rogue agency to heel?
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty have announced that they are investigating Good’s death. This is being made much more difficult because the FBI has taken apparently unprecedented action to block access to any evidence collected by federal officers.
Moriarty is soliciting additional videos and statements from witnesses. Ross or other ICE agents do not appear to have been made available to speak to state or county officials. How likely is it that charges will be leveled against Ross, or any of the other ICE agents involved in incidents of deadly force, assault, and abuse? What are the odds of any of them being convicted?
This is seriously difficult to determine.
First, there’s the question of whether or not an ICE agent involved in an immigration raid qualifies as a “peace officer.” It may seem like an obvious question, but relevant case law is pretty thin on the ground. ICE agents are federal officers, but the Venn diagram of their authority doesn’t cover the general enforcement powers of FBI agents or federal marshals. Their training is on immigration enforcement, and doesn’t include general public safety or community policing. They are not agents under the Department of Justice, but facilitators under DHS.
As an employee of ICE, Ross’s role is limited to carrying out immigration arrests. He’s certainly not empowered to stop or arrest people for partially blocking a street for a few minutes. The whole initial basis of the encounter is unjustifiable.
Best guess? No. ICE agents are not “peace officers,” no matter how many times they stencil “POLICE” on their vests. However, in any case against Ross or another ICE agent, the “peace officer” status is likely to draw a fresh review from the courts. That question will get definitively resolved, but probably only after working its way to the Supreme Court.
Even assuming that Ross is a peace officer under Minnesota state law, that doesn’t cut off the chance of prosecution.
In general, to bring charges against any law enforcement officer for using deadly force, the State has to show that the officer’s use of force was not justified. Justification can include any circumstance where the officer is under threat, or others may be under threat without immediate action. This alone is an enormous hurdle, because courts have repeatedly ruled that this doesn’t just protect officers who were genuinely under threat, but also those who felt threatened.
However, in a rare instance of the current Supreme Court not making things worse, last year’s Barnes v. Felix ruling tossed a decision from the hyper-conservative Fifth District. This ruling restricted the circumstances in which an officer can apply deadly force—or, at least, kept those circumstances from ballooning absurdly.
The description of the case by the Cato Institute makes it clear why Barnes may be very relevant to Good’s shooting.
In 2016, Ashtian Barnes was killed by Harris County, Texas, Deputy Constable Roberto Felix, following a traffic stop for unpaid tolls. As Barnes apparently tried to drive away, Felix jumped onto the moving car and indiscriminately opened fire, killing Barnes instantly.
The Fifth Circuit cleared Felix’s actions, writing that in the “moment of threat,” the officer was clearly in danger and was justified in shooting Barnes. However, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling.
Last spring, the Supreme Court unanimously held that a full review of the “totality of the circumstances,” including the nature of the offense and the events leading up to the incident, is relevant to determining the reasonableness of force.
In Barnes, the initial charges were barely sufficient to warrant a traffic stop in the first place, and Felix was under no threat until he placed himself in peril by grabbing onto Barnes’ car. He may have been frightened in the moment, and for the Fifth Circuit, that was enough, but in the totality of circumstances, it’s not enough.
That “totality of circumstances” requirement also happens to align with Minnesota law.
The circumstances in Barnes seem to almost perfectly overlap with what happened with Renee Good. As multiple videos have shown, Good’s car had only partially obstructed a residential street for a handful of minutes. Other vehicles were still getting by. She was already in the process of moving completely out of the way when Ross and other ICE agents approached the car, and would have been gone had she not stopped to wave another vehicle to pull around her. Her last exchange with Ross was, at worst, snarky, but non-confrontational and contained no threats.
It’s hard to believe that an actual police officer, authorized to deal with traffic situations, would have retained Good.
Assuming Ross was in front of her vehicle at all, he was only there because he violated DHS procedures by placing himself in front of the vehicle after Good was already attempting to leave the area. Good was traveling at low speed, was turned away from Ross and other officers, and had barely begun to move when Ross opened fire.
Good’s offense, if any, was minor. The threat against Ross, if any, was of his own making. The totality of circumstances in this case is not in Ross’s favor. That’s especially true of additional shots he fired at Good from beside or behind the vehicle. There are no reasonable grounds for these shots.
Hennepin County police, like those in many other jurisdictions, are actually forbidden from shooting into a moving vehicle in any circumstance. under the very reasonable understanding that a vehicle in motion doesn’t automatically stop if the driver is dead. The DHS issues these same guidelines to its agents.
This doesn’t mean that a Grand Jury might not still determine that Ross had a reason for his action. The number of cases in which officers have walked away from the use of deadly force seems almost limitless.
Another potential complication comes from the discovery that this is not the first time Ross has been involved in an incident with a car. Federal court records show that last June, Ross approached a car driven by a Guatemalan man, Roberto Carlos Muñoz, and attempted to apprehend him.
According to court testimony, Ross arrived in an unmarked vehicle, approached Muñoz, and ordered him to exit his car. When Muñoz didn’t respond, Ross punched through the side window and attempted to wrest control of the car. Muñoz responded by hitting the gas. As NBC News reported, Ross claimed to have used a taser in an attempt to stop Muñoz.
“I was yelling at him to stop,” Ross testified of Robert Muñoz-Guatemala, who was found guilty last month of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon. “Over and over and over again at the top of my lungs.”
Ross said in his testimony that he feared for his life and fired his Taser repeatedly at Muñoz-Guatemala.
“It didn’t appear that it affected him at all,” Ross said.
“That very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago with 30 stitches in his leg, so he’s a little sensitive about being rammed by an automobile,” Vance said at the White House on Jan. 8.
However, what this testimony actually shows is that Ross already had a history of dealing poorly with people inside vehicles and of violating DHS guidelines. He either didn’t know how to properly and safely deal with such a situation or deliberately ignored the rules. If he was truthful in his claim that he attempted to use a taser in the earlier incident, this also shows an agent primed to skip over any attempt at non-lethal force and go straight for his gun.
Videos show that Ross pulled his gun before Good had begun to move forward, and fired even as he was still holding up his phone in his other hand. This could indicate that he was traumatized, or simply infuriated, by the earlier incident. In effect, he was primed to kill Good as retribution for the perceived wrong he had suffered from Muñoz.
In addition to murder, there are additional charges that could be levied against both Ross and other ICE agents on the scene—and these charges apply equally to peace officers and civilians.
Videos show that ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was on the scene to approach the vehicle and blocked ambulance access to the area. Both of these are felony violations of Minnesota law with penalties up to five years imprisonment. If Good’s death was found to be connected to the delay of treatment, all involved could face additional charges of manslaughter.
However, there’s still one more hill to climb before charging Ross, and it’s a steep one.
Whether or not Ross is a peace officer, he certainly is a federal agent. Vance and others have claimed this gives him “absolute immunity” from state prosecution.
This is, in legal terms, utter bullshit.
Federal officers are broadly immune from state prosecution for taking actions specifically authorized by federal law in a case that goes back to an 1890 incident in which a federal agent shot a man who was threatening a member of the Supreme Court.
Neagle established a two-prong test for this type of immunity from state criminal law: (1) Was the officer performing an act that federal law authorized him to perform? (2) Were his actions necessary and proper to fulfilling his federal duties? If the federal officer satisfies this test, he or she is immune from prosecution for violation of state law.
The DOJ would certainly argue that Ross was acting to perform his duties as an ICE agent. Any State prosecution would need to show that Ross’s actions were excessive or unjustified.
This could be much harder than getting past the leeway given to police use of deadly force. Like the question of whether or not an ICE agent is a peace officer, there are few recent cases to reference, especially when it comes to an agent who was on duty. In short, States simply haven’t done much to test the immunity of federal officers, even when those officers have performed unnecessary acts of violence.
The murder of Good was clearly not required to enable the immigration enforcement actions of the ICE officers. That doesn’t mean a judge, jury, or federal court might not see a way to grant Ross his magic get-out-of-everything card.
Is Ross a peace officer? Probably not. Was this a justified shooting? No. Can he be prosecuted? Yes.
Will those charges survive federal challenges? Let’s find out.
As I keep saying ICE is full of white supremacist gang thugs with no decency or morals. They abused a minor and stole his phone then sold that phone. Think of it they steal like the crooks / criminals they are. These ICE people don’t see any nonwhite person as a human deserving rights. Hugs
In late October, a Houston-area 10th grader, 16-year-old U.S. citizen Arnoldo Bazan, watched his father tackled, choked and arrested in public by immigration officials who the teenager said refused to identify themselves and wore no official uniforms or insignia. Arnoldo Bazan was treated much the same: Put into a banned chokehold by whoever these purported law enforcement figures were supposed to be, he was beaten and choked, and had his phone confiscated, despite his pleas that he was underage and a citizen. His treatment at the hands of agents was later justified by professional murder-rationalizer and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who claimed that he had “assaulted” officers during the arrest by hitting one with an elbow, capping her statement with the following, incredibly smug flourish: “The federal law enforcement officer graciously chose not to press charges.”
The immigration agents in this account are effectively operating as something like federally sanctioned highwaymen–they might as well be privateers in tactical vests and masks, flying the U.S. flag as a defense for why they’re able to do literally anything they want, right up to stealing from citizens for personal profit, confident that nothing will happen to them.
Where is a person supposed to turn, if a man in a vest and mask, who may or may not be ICE, decides to leverage their power against them? Say they take your phone: What do you do? File a police report? Good luck with that–the family of Arnoldo Bazan tried to report their incident to the Houston Police Department, where officers made plain their lack of interest in getting involved in anything related to ICE or DHS. The Bazan family still hasn’t been interviewed by police about the incident, and a department spokesperson told ProPublica that there was no investigation. The message is clear: Federal agents can act with impunity, and local police will only intervene on their behalf.
In late October, a Houston-area 10th grader, 16-year-old U.S. citizen Arnoldo Bazan, watched his father tackled, choked and arrested in public by immigration officials who the teenager said refused to identify themselves and wore no official uniforms or insignia. Arnoldo Bazan was treated much the same: Put into a banned chokehold by whoever these purported law enforcement figures were supposed to be, he was beaten and choked, and had his phone confiscated, despite his pleas that he was underage and a citizen. His treatment at the hands of agents was later justified by professional murder-rationalizer and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who claimed that he had “assaulted” officers during the arrest by hitting one with an elbow, capping her statement with the following, incredibly smug flourish: “The federal law enforcement officer graciously chose not to press charges.”
This story is of course heinous in and of itself, but also typical to the experience of countless Americans who have had their families torn apart by the “immigration enforcement” campaign of DHS and ICE. If you asked Arnoldo Bazan, then surely he would cite the loss of his father Arnulfo Bazan Carrillo that day in October (he was eventually deported to Mexico) as the most important and gutting detail of the encounter. But when the 16-year-old’s case resurfaced this week in the context of a ProPublica deep dive into the widespread use of banned chokeholds by immigration agents, there was another detail that stood out as particularly galling in its sheer disregard for the idea that agents might face any kinds of consequences: The fact that the ICE agents in question allegedly sold Arnoldo Bazan’s confiscated phone for cash, potentially on the very same day that they took it from him.
In the midst of ProPublica’s investigation and interviews with Arnoldo, the teen explained that he had filmed much of the incident between the ICE agents and his father, who had been driving him to high school when they stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. There, federal agents swarmed the Bazans’ vehicle, causing them to flee. The two fled on foot into a restaurant supply store, where agents tackled them and began to choke both. This portion of the incident was partially captured on video by bystanders, and Arnoldo Bazan can be heard pleading and crying as officers constrict his throat, hoarsely saying “I’m underage” and “I was going to school!” He later described the scenario as feeling “like I was going to pass out and die.” It’s little wonder he gave not much thought to his phone at the time, but after being returned to his home hours later, he used the Find My tool to locate where it had ended up–at “a vending machine for used electronics miles away, close to an ICE detention center,” according to ProPublica. Seemingly, he was able to somehow visit this location and retrieve the phone–the publication said it had later seen the footage, which “backed the family’s account of the chase.”
This is 10th-grader Arnoldo Bazan. A citizen.Immigration agents grabbed him and put him in a chokehold. "We're from the United States bro!' he screamed.Agents took and sold his phoneAnd when he finally got home hours later, his shirt was ripped, he neck had angry, red welts, and he sobbed.
Just consider, for a moment, the thought process of the immigration agents making this kind of decision. You detain a man under the suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, and brutalize both him and his teenage son who is on his way to high school. You take the phone that the kid is using to record the experience–prior to when you start choking him, that is. One would expect there to be some kind of lip service here about how the phone was being taken for “evidence” or “investigation,” or in greater likelihood the thought that perhaps it can be wiped of any incriminating evidence. Nevertheless, if a federal agent takes your phone from you, do you not expect for them to hang onto it in some kind of official capacity? Maybe to even return your property to you afterward, if you’re really lucky? One thing I’m pretty certain isn’t in the operations manual: Bringing your phone to a kiosk, to sell for cash, and then pocketing the modest payday.
As if it needs to be said, this isn’t law enforcement–this is the kind of behavior that law enforcement is intended to dissuade and prevent. The immigration agents in this account are effectively operating as something like federally sanctioned highwaymen–they might as well be privateers in tactical vests and masks, flying the U.S. flag as a defense for why they’re able to do literally anything they want, right up to stealing from citizens for personal profit, confident that nothing will happen to them. If this was the Old West, this is the type of scenario where the citizens would be expected to find a U.S. Marshal and round up a posse in order to exact justice. Only today, it’s the federal “lawmen” who are doing the robbery, backed by millions of dollars in federal PR and spin to convince half of the U.S. population that you clearly deserved anything that was done to you. Oh, an ICE agent stole your phone and sold it? Well, turns out that as of this moment, that’s the new retroactive penalty for being “disrespectful” or “obstructive.”
What’s also beyond clear is that nothing can be believed from the statements of spokespeople for these federal apparatus, because they’re so often shown to be shameless lies. An unnamed “ICE spokesperson” was quoted by the Houston Chronicle in the immediate wake of the incident with Arnoldo Bazan, claiming the reports that the agents “beat up” the teenager (he ended up in a hospital trauma unit, receiving X-rays and CT scans) were “outright lies,” going on to claim that “it wasn’t even an ICE officer who was engaged in the physical altercation with him at the store or in the video,” while simultaneously refusing to explain who these men were supposed to be if not ICE. In the midst of ProPublica’s piece written several months later, meanwhile, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has given up on pretending that the men were not ICE–something she’s demonstrably lied about in the past as well–and had instead pivoted to the claim that Arnoldo Bazan had assaulted the officers in order to justify their use of banned chokeholds on him. She gave no statement at all about Bazan’s phone turning up at a sell-your-electronics kiosk.
Where is a person supposed to turn, if a man in a vest and mask, who may or may not be ICE, decides to leverage their power against them? Say they take your phone: What do you do? File a police report? Good luck with that–the family of Arnoldo Bazan tried to report their incident to the Houston Police Department, where officers made plain their lack of interest in getting involved in anything related to ICE or DHS. The Bazan family still hasn’t been interviewed by police about the incident, and a department spokesperson told ProPublica that there was no investigation. The message is clear: Federal agents can act with impunity, and local police will only intervene on their behalf.
To be clear: Topics like the use of violent, potentially deadly chokeholds are of far more pressing importance than the threat of say, a lost phone. But I can’t stop thinking about that phone, all the same. The immigration agents in question could have done anything with the device after taking it from Arnoldo Bazan. They could have stuck it in an evidence locker. They could have dropped it in the trash. But they seemingly went out of their way to specifically sell it–the private property of a U.S. citizen–as a way of monetizing the cruel business of enforcing the “immigration” policy of Donald Trump. Just a perk of the job, you know! It’s just one more indication that despite all the talk of the rights of citizens vs. illegal immigrants, “citizenship” truly (and predictably) doesn’t mean anything in the eyes of the men who have chosen to become part of this Trump zealot army of ICE goons. They carry out their actions as if they’ve already come to the conclusion that the Supreme Court will retroactively strip the children of immigrants born in the U.S. of citizenship, and have thus decided to simply act accordingly–visualizing the racist world in which they dream of living.
There are videos at the link below. I was unable to post them here. They wouldn’t link or embed. Also there are pictures that did not transfer. This is a hard read ICE was uncalled for violent and had no respect for the civil rights of the people involved. They laughed at the distress of the people. They are white supremacist gang thugs and bullies. I know Stephen Miller and several others in the administration like that civilians are being abused but does Rump even know what is happening. Do the republicans? Anyone watching Fox or other right wing media they don’t know of these abuses. Even Fox tried to smear Pretti but had to walk it back slight when the videos proved they were wrong. Hugs
The despondent faces and screaming, wailing and pleading from these men, women and children in cells will forever haunt me. But perhaps more haunting still was the sound of agents nearby laughing.
Patty O’Keefe
Opinion contributor
Jan. 26, 2026 Updated Jan. 27, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ET
I live smack dab in the middle of an ordinary block in Minneapolis. I borrow occasional eggs or vanilla from the neighbor on my right when I get caught short baking. My partner shovels our elderly neighbor’s sidewalk; she knit him a hat in gratitude. The folks down the street watch our cats when we’re away. In other words, a pretty typical American neighborhood, perhaps not unlike your own.
Imagine if you heard that heavily armed, masked agents were going door-to-door where you live, violently grabbing people from gardeners to grandparents – no questions asked, no warrants offered. What would you do? Especially if you knew that having more community members as observers decreases the likelihood those masked agents will use violence.
That’s what my friend Brandon and I were doing on Jan. 11. We heard reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper spraying the car of an observer blocks from my house and went to warn others. I am a U.S. citizen and resident of Minneapolis for more than 14 years; this is a place where treating others as you wish to be treated is more than a saying.
When we drove to the scene, Brandon and I saw several ICE agents getting back into two unmarked vehicles. They turned down a side street and we followed for about 40 seconds, blowing our whistles and honking our horns – to warn our neighbors that ICE had come.
We did so knowing that monitoring and sounding the alarm about actions undertaken by government agents is our legally protected right. And any government that claims to be of, by and for the people must protect this right, not attack people of good conscience who exercise it.
But attack us is what ICE did. The agents got out of their vehicle, surrounded our car and yelled at us to stop following. On their way back to their vehicles, one of the agents suddenly turned around, as if deciding, “Hey, why not,” and walked back to my car and pepper sprayed into the vents near the front windshield.
‘You guys gotta stop obstructing us – that’s why that lesbian b—- is dead’
Brandon and I were paralyzed with shock, as our eyes and throats started to burn. When we did not immediately turn the car around, the ICE agents returned and, without warning or asking us to exit the vehicle, smashed the front windows of my car, dragged us out and arrested us.
They separated us. I was put in a car alone with three agents. When they got in and shut the doors, the taunting began.
One agent took a photo of me and showed it to the others, laughing. Another called me ugly. His colleague, apparently referring to Renee Good, said, “You guys gotta stop obstructing us – that’s why that lesbian b—- is dead.” In the presence of these masked men with weapons strapped to their bodies – men who claim to be safeguarding our cities – I felt only terrorized and vulnerable.
When we got to the Whipple Federal Building, they shackled my ankles. I asked four times to make a phone call but was denied that legal right. I had to beg for water and to be allowed to relieve myself in another crowded cell with a toilet behind a short wall.
On my way to that cell, I passed holding cells filled with people who appeared to be of Latino and East African descent. The despondent faces and the screaming, wailing and pleading from these men, women and children – reportedly as young as 5 years old – will forever haunt me. But perhaps more haunting still was the sound of agents nearby laughing. Are our lives all just a joke to them?
Eight hours later, I was released without charges because even these agents had no credible claim I had done anything wrong.
ICE is arresting people without cause. We can stand up to tyranny.
President Donald Trump and his administration spread lies about our neighbors based on what they look like or how they speak, all while making us less safe.
In the Twin Cities alone, we’ve seen people arrested without cause while doing their jobs and a grandfather pulled out of the shower and taken into the freezing cold in nothing but his underwear and a blanket. Local schools were forced to cancel classes after ICE tackled staff and tear gassed students, according to the teachers union, while raiding Roosevelt High School.
These actions endanger us. They are designed to terrorize our community with unchecked, unaccountable brutality.
When ICE detained me, the two other people in my cell said they were Marine Corps veterans. These women said they enlisted for the same reason they felt compelled to act as ICE observers – to protect their fellow Americans.
One of those veterans – scraped up and bruised at both wrist and ankle from the ICE agents’ aggression – talked about how ironic and shocking it was that the first time she had a gun pointed at her it was by the very government she swore an oath to serve.
I’m lucky to be back at home; I can return to my job, the people I love and my community. The hundred or so people I saw in that ICE facility may never again see the homes that they’ve built and the families they’ve nurtured. After being killed by Border Patrol and ICE in the past 12 months, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Keith Porter and dozens of others who died in custody are only memories to their families. And our Twin Cities remain under siege by masked militia answering to a regime that spreads lies and sows fear in order to divide us and distract us while its leaders gut our health care, drive up prices and hand more money to their billionaire backers.
But in the United States of America, people who believe in liberty and justice for all stand up to tyranny. We sound the alarm. We support our neighbors. Now is the time for us to join together. And to tell Congress to protect our freedoms by refusing to fund these assaults against us.
With federal agents storming the streets of American communities, there’s no single right way to approach this dangerous moment. But there are steps you can take to stay safe—and have an impact.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Getty Images
If federal immigration agents are coming to your area—or have already arrived—you may be frantically making plans to lay low at home, or perhaps grabbing your whistle and lacing up your sneakers to join a neighborhood watch. It’s a terrifying situation for undocumented residents and all American immigrants, and the climate has even become fraught for US citizens too. There are no simple answers for how to protect yourself and others in every scenario, but there are frameworks you can use for weighing your options.
The presence of immigration agents in cities and towns around the country has starkly increased in recent months, and tensions have escalated in step. On Wednesday, a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and US citizen Renee Nicole Good in her car during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation. Having already deployed 2,000 agents to Minnesota, DHS reportedly planned this week to send 1,000 more. “There are now more ICE agents in Minnesota than there are combined in Minneapolis police force and St. Paul police force,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said on Friday. “So they are outnumbering our own local police officers out on the streets.” (Minnesota and Illinois have since filed lawsuits in federal court to end the ICE “invasion” in those states.)
Elsewhere, Customs and Border Protection agents shot two people in a car in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, hospitalizing both. These tragedies are just the latest in a series of violent incidents involving immigration agents that have escalated since US president Donald Trump took office a year ago with a sweeping anti-immigration agenda. In addition to intense activity in Minneapolis and Portland, ICE and CBP have carried out deportation operations across the US.
“The number of ICE agents has dramatically increased, the sheer presence in people’s communities is larger,” says Jennifer Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “And this means that the risk of encountering an ICE officer has really increased for people, even if you’re not in any way attached to immigration.”
Pause
Problems have persisted for years with ICE and CBP actions—including arrests and detentions—that accidentally ensnare US citizens and other documented residents. Additionally, the agencies’ operations have a history of aggression and mistreatment in dealing with suspects. Immigration infractions are typically civil, not criminal offenses. Over the last year, though, the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for immigration enforcement has expanded substantially at the same time that public unrest about the activity has grown. The result is a charged climate in which standard interactions can quickly, and dangerously, escalate.
“We’re surging operations because of the dangerous situation we see in this country,” homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a press conference on Wednesday. “We should all work together to protect our citizens.”
Many see immigration enforcement’s track record and current activity very differently, though.
“For its entire existence, ICE has been a very violent agency and a very unaccountable agency without a lot of oversight or transparency,” says Nithya Nathan-Pineau, policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
She notes that as immigration officers have been involved in more and more violent incidents in recent months, it has become harder than ever to offer simple, definitive advice to people about assessing risk in interactions with federal agents.
Numerous sources told WIRED that their trainings and materials about interacting with federal immigration agents are actively evolving to reflect the current moment. For example, one core point has long been to explain the difference between a judicial warrant signed by a judge that gives law enforcement the right to, say, enter a person’s home versus the administrative warrants that ICE agents often carry that do not give them that right. “Don’t open the door for ICE” is a common refrain. But this type of information, while still accurate, does not fully account for the chaotic intensity of current US immigration enforcement.
“In the past, we would encourage people to exercise your right to protest or record video to document,” the National Immigration Law Center’s Whitlock says. “We always talked about risk assessment and how some people are more vulnerable than others, but now it’s not just risk of arrest at a protest, it’s risk of physical harm. I don’t think we fully anticipated how ICE and CBP would ignore and violate people’s constitutional rights.”
In short, there is some risk inherent in any interaction with federal immigration officials, whether you’re a US citizen or not. Even if you aren’t willing to expose yourself in that way, though, you can still take action to meaningfully and concretely help people in your community affected by the Trump administration’s policies.
Plan Ahead
Depending on your situation, you should make a plan in case you end up interacting with immigration enforcement while out and about.
In its online guidance, the nonprofit National Immigrant Justice Center says individuals and communities can create a “safety plan” to help be best prepared in case ICE operatives arrive in the area. Such a plan could involve identifying trusted family members, friends, or colleagues who can act as emergency contacts for people who could be the target of federal immigration actions, or anyone who could come into contact with agents. Memorize their phone numbers and also make sure that your child’s school or daycare has emergency contacts on file. If you know you are at specific risk of deportation, you may consider additional steps, too, related to establishing an emergency guardian for children and a power of attorney for yourself.
Given that US citizens are not safe from violence or arrest at the hands of federal immigration agents, immigrants with an established status, visa, or permanent residency are potentially at even higher risk if they participate in community safety efforts or other activities that put them near immigration agents.
In December, DHS vehemently denied to WIRED that its agents engage in racial profiling as part of immigration operations. Multiple sources emphasized to WIRED, though, that nonwhite Americans should consider being extra cautious about proximity to immigration agents. This is particularly true in light of a September 2025 US Supreme Court decision in which Justice Brett Kavanaugh concluded that someone’s apparent ethnicity may be a “relevant factor” that could justify detaining someone during an immigration enforcement action—something now derisively known as a “Kavanaugh stop.”
You should consider taking precautions to protect yourself against potential digital surveillance if you know you are going to be proximal to immigration authorities. CBP and ICE both have digital surveillance capabilities that are increasing all the time. You can’t always anticipate when you might encounter federal agents, of course, but people who could specifically be the target of an immigration enforcement action should consider taking extra digital precautions if they can.
Looking broadly, sources told WIRED that political polarization and rising tensions across the US are key contexts in assessing potential risks.
“It’s no longer Officer Friendly out there,” Whitlock says. “This is not to give any excuse, but I can imagine there is a mindset within the field ICE agents and CBP where they really do think they’re under attack and being threatened. And no one is above the law, but I think it’s important for people to understand that there are going to be limited forms of trying to hold these officers accountable in practice.”
On the Scene
If you find yourself witnessing an immigration enforcement action, there are some things to keep in mind if you want to stick around.
“The goal is to be an observer and to document what is happening,” says Nathan-Pineau of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “The goal is not to go and try to intervene in the law enforcement action.”
Training materials from Siembra NC, a North Carolina–based grassroots organization working to defend its local communities from exploitation, say that the priority when ICE is present is letting agents know they are being observed and reminding people of their right to remain silent, while deescalating whenever possible and promoting safety. The group advises that if ICE operatives are conducting an arrest or traffic stop, responders should try to approach within their line of sight and identify themselves in the process.
You can also report immigration enforcements sightings in many areas without getting involved by calling a local ICE watch tip line. Many immigration advocacy and human rights groups suggest using the “SALUTE” acronym to guide the information you give in these reports. Size: How many agents or officers you see. Activity: What are they doing? Has anyone been detained? Location: Where exactly did you see them and what direction are they heading in? Units: What types of officers are they or what words and markings can you see on their uniforms? Time: What time was the sighting? Make reports as quickly as possible. Equipment: What do the agents have with them, such as types of weapons, vehicles, crowd control methods, and other details?
Filming ICE behavior can let agents know they are being watched, potentially creating some accountability for their actions, as well as a digital evidence trail for any legal cases or proceedings that may occur at a later date. When interacting with federal agents as part of a group effort responding to ICE, Siembra NC recommends identifying yourself as a volunteer, and asking agents who they are, what they are doing, and what agency they work for. Then you can state that you will remain present to observe, while also recording any models of vehicles, license plates, and operatives at the scene.
“We always advise people that if the law enforcement officer that you are filming tells you to step back, you should step back and you should say it out loud—‘I’m stepping back, I’m stepping back.’ That way you’re recording that you’re complying with their order,” Nathan-Pineau says.
Multiple sources reiterated that recording federal agents has a dual purpose, because if your own behavior and that of the people around you is appropriate to the situation, this will be captured in your documentation as well as any officer misconduct. The fact remains, though, that peacefully filming interactions can be interpreted as aggressive or escalatory precisely because it is an accountability mechanism.
Proximity is one of the most important risks to assess when on the scene, says Xavier de Janon, director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild. “The closer people have been to federal agents or property, the more likely they’ve been charged, tackled, or arrested,” he says.
More and more, federal prosecutors are seeking criminal charges against people for allegedly assaulting federal officers, even if the cases ultimately don’t succeed and later get dropped. The NLG recently published a guide on how protesters and observers can assess risks related to the federal assault law.
Work From Home
Even if you can’t risk hitting the streets, there are other important ways to contribute to community safety efforts.
Civil liberties groups have been campaigning nationwide to ban real-time surveillance platforms and end lucrative contracts that feed information to ICE. You can contact the offices of your local officials and tell them to cancel surveillance contracts and stop information-sharing and other law enforcement cooperation that fuels ICE operations.
“It’s good that local officials in cities targeted by ICE are speaking out and condemning their brutal tactics—but talk is cheap,” says Evan Greer, director of the digital rights activist organization Fight for the Future. “ICE violence is enabled by ICE surveillance, often with help from local police and city-run surveillance systems. If local leaders want to protect their residents from ICE’s gestapo tactics, one of the most immediate things they can do is roll back and limit surveillance by canceling contracts with surveillance vendors like Flock and banning the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric surveillance, either through executive action or city ordinance.”
For those who are not direct targets of the federal immigration crackdown, Kathy O’Leary, a member of the Catholic peace organization New Jersey Pax Christi, recommends listening to neighbors who are directly affected and figuring out what they need. Every week, she and other volunteers go to Delaney Hall Detention Facility in New Jersey to support families who are visiting their loved ones in detention. The volunteers bring chairs and water for the visitors—who are forced to wait outside—and help visitors navigate the rules of the facility.
For example, she said, her group started bringing extra clothing because they realized that visitors were being turned away because of dress code violations. She said it started when a woman who had traveled all the way from Boston to visit her father in detention was turned away because she was wearing ripped jeans. A volunteer realized she was the same size and offered to switch pants.
“That was a serious act of resistance,” O’Leary says. “The system was creating a hurdle to see her father. The system tries to limit contact with families; it’s about stealing people’s hope and trying to break people.”
O’Leary and other volunteers also give out gift cards to grocery stores to visitors, since many families’ breadwinners are the ones in detention. O’Leary says that people who want to figure out how to get involved in their communities can see if they live near a local member of the Detention Watch Network. If there isn’t a member in their state, sometimes groups in neighboring states will know who’s active in their area.
Working with local mutual aid organizations, food pantries, and other humanitarian support groups contributes to overall community strength and safety. And simply contributing to digital ICE watch trackers as you go about your regular activities can give others valuable information.
“It’s about what lever matches your risk tolerance, matches the resources that are available to you,” says Matt Mitchell, CEO of the risk-mitigation firm Safety Sync Group. “Not everyone has the same privileges. Some people want to donate money, some people want to write letters, some people want to read up on what law enforcement and CBP and ICE can and can’t do. Some people want to put their bodies in the space and assemble because that is our right, some people want to document. There are many different levels.”
Updated 9 am ET, January 13, 2026: Added details about ICE watch tip lines.
Updated 2:45 pm ET, January 13, 2026: Corrected Xavier de Janon’s professional title.
Same and crew talk about the racial purification the tRump people are on. They show how Bovino pulled a job listing because black people were applying and instead filled the job with a white racist like himself. Hugs
People who followed and were following the rules being tortured so they will give up their rights and voluntarily leave the country. This is the country white supremacist want, they do not see nonwhites a human. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 