After the national outrage caused by the fatal shooting of 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, the question over the methods the law enforcement agency has employed is growing among the American public, especially considering the rise in violence by ICE agents as their power remains virtually unchecked in protection from the federal government and Supreme Court. 

Founded in March 2003 under former President George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks of 2001, ICE has expanded significantly under current President Donald Trump through the mass hiring of American citizens and increased funding. 

The counter-terrorism agency falls under the Department of Homeland Security, founded prior to ICE in Nov. 2002, as a branch of the federal government meant to protect the national security of the United States. That mission however, has been less black and white as ICE has raided many major U.S. cities, including New York City and Los Angeles, in an attempt to fulfill the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

According to a Oct. 2025 Pew Research Center survey, although more than half of Americans believe deportations are necessary in ‘some form or fashion’, the majority of Americans (53%) have claimed the methods used by the Trump administration, in some cases resulting in death,  are unnecessary compared to 36% who thought the approach was necessary. 

As of Jan. 2026, at least 29 incidents involving firearms used by federal immigration agents have been reported with 16 of those incidents including people being shot at since July 2025 via data from the Guardian. In addition, 32 people have died in ICE custody (discounting deaths in field operations), making it the deadliest year of the organization since 2004, a year after its founding. 

A key running point in both Trump presidential campaigns has been the implementation of federal law enforcement agencies as seen with ICE and with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in his first term. Despite this, ICE is severely understaffed according to the Trump administration’s projections, leading to Border Patrol officers being assigned to help with ICE operations as nearly 3,000 agents from both law enforcement agencies were sent to the city of Minneapolis. 

Not only has there been contention regarding the current mission of the organization, but regarding the power federal agents have in being able to stop people without probable cause. ICE has a different set of rules in comparison to local law enforcement in that agents are able to stop, detain or arrest anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally, and that power reaches to detaining U.S. citizens if they interfere with ICE operations. 

In Minneapolis alone; a place which has become the hub of ICE-related incidents against defenseless victims, many of whom have been identified as American citizens, more than 2,000 federal agents have been sent to the city and over 2,400 people have been arrested since Nov. 29, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

DHS claims these arrests are not only defendable, but warranted due to a Sep. 8 Supreme Court decision in the case of ‘Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo’, where the Supreme Court granted an application from the federal government for a lift on a lower court order which prohibited federal agents from making immigration stops without reasonable suspicion. This permits ICE agents to continue detaining individuals based on a criteria which is yet to be explicitly established by the organization or the Trump administration.

ProPublica, a fact-based, non-partisan newsroom reported that there were more than 170 incidents within the first nine months of the Trump presidency in which ICE agents held U.S. citizens with no reported probable cause. 

Because of this, it is important for citizens to know their rights regarding what ICE has the power to do. According to David Schultz, an attorney and legal studies professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. citizens ‘do not have to provide identification or prove their citizenship when out walking or standing in a street or in public’. 

This action is protected by the fourth amendment which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. If DHS has not determined the criteria in which they are attempting to use ‘reasonable suspicion’, regardless of the Supreme Court ruling, they are in direct violation of constitutional law, an argument which has led to various lawsuits.

Not only are these efforts unconstitutional, the instances of overreach by ICE leading to violence in response to citizens exercising their first amendment right to protest or those refusing to identify themselves in conjunction with their fourth amendment rights has brought to the forefront the growing issue of the organization’s seemingly targeted attacks for no apparent reason other than to fulfill a quota. During President Trump’s two presidential stints we have seen the radicalization of the anti-immigration movement to become a direct attack on non-white racial and ethnic groups. 

Regarding cases where consequences of this overreach have resulted in death, the federal government has continued to deflect accountability pointing to interpretations of federal law. ICE is loosely under the same provisions as other law enforcement agencies under the Constitution which states officers ‘can only use deadly force if the person poses a serious danger to them or other people, or the person has committed a violent crime’. 

Following the fatal shooting of Good, an American citizen, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the shooting was self defense in an act of ‘domestic terrorism’. The dispute over whether the federal agent who shot Good felt he was in danger or not is missing a broader point which is the federal government’s diversion from responsibility due to these interpretations, especially in the cases of those whose lives are lost. 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has been very vocal regarding the presence of ICE in the city, spoke to local Boston NPR affiliate WPUR saying, “We don’t need more escalation. We do not need more armed troops. We do not need more of an invasion or an occupation or whatever you want to call it. If the goal here is peace and order, then there’s a very easy antidote to achieve it, which is for ICE and the troops and anyone else to leave.”

In response to the recent actions of federal agents towards innocent people, many in Minneapolis and cities across the country have taken to the street using their right to peacefully assemble in order to hold accountable those who continue to defend the actions of ICE. 

Although what these protesters are doing is constitutional, President Donald Trump; whose efforts have violated the Constitution, have threatened to use the Insurrection Act if Minnesota politicians, “don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”

The Insurrection Act, signed into law in 1807 by President John Adams, has only been historically invoked about 30 times in American history, and gives the president the authority to deploy the military against the country’s citizens without congressional approval. In this case constitutional law experts say implementation would be unprecedented as “none of the criteria have been met.”

“This would be a flagrant abuse of the insurrection act in a way that we’ve never seen,” said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. Trump repeatedly said he would use the law last year in order to federalize National Guard troops against protesters and unconstitutionally did so in Portland and Chicago. 

Not only has the ICE initiative been drastically ineffective; spurring these protests in cities across the country, the execution has been unproductive. A mandate in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ (OBBBA) required that ICE hire 10,000 new officers by the end of 2025. This initiative came with a stipulation that offered recruits a $50,000 signing bonus made possible by Congress through the funds allocated to the OBBBA. 

During the fall, as ICE was attempting to add these new workers to the organization, an AI tool which was being used to determine if applicants were eligible due to prior training, experienced an error which led to many unqualified applicants being sent to field offices and potentially sent out on the street.

Although an official claimed ICE met their 10,000 officer quota, fact checking from NBC News illustrates that numbers were inflated. Since unqualified applicants supposedly receiving additional training were counted, the organization did not successfully meet their goal. Despite this, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s official website, ICE officers were more than doubled from 10,000 to 22,000 according to a Jan. 3 report. 

Moreover, a broader and more disturbing point can be missed, the federal government is actively attempting to recruit American citizens with no prior military experience to be able to wield weapons and act violently towards fellow citizens. 

Alongside the protest efforts, many groups are attempting to spread awareness about the presence of ICE in their city through neighborhood patrols, social media and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have launched nationwide campaigns attempting to teach people how to interact with ICE.