An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday after a group of people began blocking agents during an immigration-related operation, the Department of Homeland Security said.
ICE agents were conducting targeted operations in the city when a woman allegedly “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a press conference that the agents’ vehicles got stuck in the snow and they were trying to push them out when the woman “attacked them.”
“It was an act of domestic terrorism,” she said.
The agent fired what McLaughlin said were “defensive shots” and killed the woman.
“He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers,” she said.
President Donald Trump has unleashed immigration agents in cities across America, who have been employing increasingly aggressive tactics. The efforts have ramped up tensions with local officials and communities that are increasingly protesting the efforts in some cities.
Video footage from NBC affiliate KARE 11 of Minneapolis showed a burgundy SUV with what appears to be a bullet hole in the windshield. The vehicle had crashed into a light pole. It’s not clear to whom the SUV belongs or from where the bullet was shot.
Brandon Hewitt, who is new to the neighborhood, said he was getting up around 8:30 a.m. when he heard three gunshots. He then looked outside and said he saw that a vehicle had crashed.
“I’m pretty right-leaning, but seeing this, this is not what you need to do,” he told KARE. “It’s not how to do it. It’s not how we’re supposed to do things around here in America.”
Residents and locals gathered in the street after the shooting, chanting and throwing snowballs in the direction of federal agents, KARE reported. Law enforcement deployed pepper spray and tear gas.
McLaughlin said the ICE officers injured during the incident are expected to make full recoveries. She did not detail what type of injuries the agents sustained.
Mayor Jacob Frey demanded that ICE officers “leave the city immediately” and said “the presence of federal law enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city.”
“We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities,” he said in a post on X.
Since arriving in Minneapolis in early December, ICE officers and agents have arrested roughly 1,400 people, McLaughlin previously said.
That is a significant increase from the roughly 300 arrested by Dec. 12, making it a much larger operation than some of the Border Patrol surge operations in cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans.
McLaughlin also said Border Patrol agents just arrived in Minneapolis and will begin operations there on Wednesday.
DHS, this week, sent hundreds of more officers and agents to bolster immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, with the agency posting on social media that it is waging “the largest DHS operation ever” in Minnesota.
The immigration enforcement operation will add up to 2,100 officers, according to two senior DHS officials. The administration began swelling the numbers Sunday and planned to continue adding forces Wednesday, the officials said. That total includes 1,500 enforcement and removal officers and 600 Homeland Security Investigations agents.
Arrests in Minneapolis could increase with the added boots on the ground.
The rush of more enforcement follows the posting of a video by a conservative content creator the day after Christmas that alleged Somali-run daycare centers in Minneapolis were defrauding American taxpayers by taking federal grant money and not providing any services to children.
The FBI surged investigators in the city to look into the allegations soon after the video was posted, HSI has been door-knocking on Somali businesses since last week and the state of Minnesota concluded from its on-site checks of 10 Somali day care centers targeted in the video that they were operating normally, with children at every site except one, which was not yet open to investigators when they arrived to investigate.
Minneapolis’ Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who has said his department does not enforce immigration laws, has expressed concern that the DHS immigration dragnet may lead to political unrest, KARE 11 reported.
Many Minnesota residents of Somali descent, including those who are American citizens, have been staying indoors or have reduced activity outside, fearful of being snagged in the stepped-up enforcement now in its second month.
President Donald Trump disparaged Somalis last month, saying they had destroyed Minneapolis and the country. He called Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, “garbage” and said Somalis should return to where they came from and fix it. Omar’s family fled civil war in Somalia and lived in a Kenyan refugee camp before she moved to the U.S. and became a citizen.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.