Since the surge began, agents have arrested both immigrants and protesters, at times smashing windows and pulling people from their cars, and have been shouted at for stopping black and Latino US citizens to demand identification.
The Department of Homeland Security identified the man its officer shot as Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Federal officers attempt to disperse demonstrators protesting against ICE in St Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday.Credit: Bloomberg
He had been allowed into the US by the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, in 2022 through the government’s humanitarian parole program. The Trump administration has since revoked the parole granted to Venezuelans and others admitted under Biden.
In its statement, DHS called him a convicted criminal under Minnesota law after being caught driving without a licence and giving a false name to a police officer. Court records of those cases reviewed by Reuters show he was only convicted of “petty misdemeanours”, which Minnesota state law says do “not constitute a crime” and for which the maximum punishment is a $US300 ($448) fine.
According to the DHS account, federal officers tried to stop Sosa-Celis in his vehicle. He fled the scene in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car, and then ran away on foot, the DHS said.
One officer caught him and while the two were “in a struggle on the ground”, two other Venezuelan men came out of a nearby apartment and “attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle”, the statement said.
Teargas is deployed to disperse protesters in Minnesota.Credit: Bloomberg
Sosa-Celis got loose and began hitting the officer with “a shovel or a broomstick”, and so the officer “fired defensive shots to defend his life,” the DHS statement said.
Reuters was unable to verify the account given by DHS.
The men fled into the apartment and all three were arrested after officers went in, DHS said. Sosa-Celis and the officer were recovering in hospital from injuries, according to the department and city officials.
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The Trump administration and Minnesota leaders have each blamed the other for stoking anger and violence.
In a late-night press conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the ICE surge an invasion and said he had seen “conduct from ICE that is disgusting and is intolerable”.
“We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another,” Frey said, calling for peace.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a law allowing the president to deploy the military or federalise soldiers in a state’s National Guard to quell rebellion, an exception to laws that prohibit soldiers being used in civil or criminal law enforcement.
It has been used 30 times in US history, according to New York University’s Brennan Centre for Justice. The Supreme Court has ruled that the president alone can determine if the act’s conditions have been met.
A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters.Credit: AP
Trump has already taken the unusual step of federalising National Guard soldiers to help with immigration law enforcement in Democrat-run cities over the objections of state governors, including in Los Angeles last year, which a judge ruled in December was unconstitutional.
Trump’s aggressive moves in Minnesota have divided his supporters: 59 per cent of Republicans favoured a policy prioritising arrests by immigration officers even if people get hurt, while 39 per cent said officers should focus on not harming people even if it means fewer arrests, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released on Thursday.
If Trump sends soldiers to Minnesota, he would almost certainly face legal challenges by the state. The Minnesota attorney-general’s office has already sued the Trump administration this week, saying ICE agents were engaged in a “pattern of unlawful, violent conduct”, including racial profiling and forced entry into residents’ homes without warrants.
The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a similar lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday.
Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.Credit: Alpha News/X
Reuters
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