Dive Brief:
- Local officials in Minnesota and elsewhere vowed to hold federal immigration agents accountable for alleged criminal and abusive conduct following the shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday, as some law enforcement officials sided with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement action.
- After the Federal Bureau of Investigation removed the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the Good case on Thursday, Hennepin County, Minnesota, County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Friday that her office is “moving forward in collaboration with the [Minnesota] attorney general’s office and the BCA to preserve any evidence and ensure it can be reviewed.” She asked community members to submit information, video and photos of the event to her office.
- Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced Thursday that the Oregon Department of Justice is opening an investigation after two people were shot and injured during an encounter with federal agents in Portland. “Today’s incident only heightens the need for transparency and accountability,” he said. “Our office will take every step necessary to ensure that the rights and security of Oregonians are protected.”
Dive Insight:
Protests erupted nationwide over the weekend after an ICE agent killed Good.
DHS released a statement saying Good “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Several videos of the incident, including one from the ICE officer who shot Good, have been released online.
As DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that hundreds more federal law enforcement officers were headed to Minnesota, mayors and governors moved to curtail ICE activity in their cities and states.
In Chicago, where DHS last fall launched an aggressive deportation campaign that it called Operation Midway Blitz, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced she has established the ICE Accountability Project, “a centralized public-facing repository for the collection of alleged criminal and abusive conduct by federal immigration agents.”
“Simply put, we want to know and see where people believe that agents have crossed the line,” she said during a press conference.
Lightfoot said the project will work in conjunction with the Illinois Accountability Commission, which Gov. JB Pritzker created by executive order in October 2025 to capture the impact of what he called federal immigration agent abuses.
In December, Pritzker signed the Illinois Bivens Act, making it easier for residents to sue federal immigration agents, restricting immigration enforcement outside state courthouses and limiting the information state-funded hospitals, public colleges and universities and day care centers can provide to immigration agents.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a similar portal “to assist members of the public in sharing information with the California Department of Justice regarding potentially unlawful activity by federal agents and officers across the state” in December 2025.
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal issued a strongly worded video statement Friday, calling ICE agents “made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement.”
“Law enforcement professionals around the country do their job, and we have been fighting for years to build that bridge between us and our communities,” she said. “You have one negative nutcase that causes this problem, and now we all have to fight again to let people know law enforcement works with communities.”
Other law enforcement officials expressed support for ICE. The Minnesota Fraternal Order of Police released a statement Thursday supporting federal law enforcement and calling on politicians and leaders “to stop the anti-law enforcement rhetoric.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said during a news conference that ICE agents are “agents of law enforcement” and “we cannot become a society where we just decide to take everything in our own hands and start to commit crimes against law enforcement.”
“You may not like what they are doing,” he said. “I can understand there’s a lot of emotions out there, but that does not mean that you get to commit a crime.”
