A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a woman on Jan. 7 amid a surge in federal agents in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) area as part of the U.S. government’s latest crackdown on immigration. The day before, it was widely reported that the Trump administration was deploying 2,000 federal troops to Minneapolis.
In a news conference following the shooting, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara recounted the events, saying the woman, who was White, was in a vehicle blocking the roadway in response to the presence of federal law enforcement.
After being approached by a federal law enforcement officer on foot, she drove off. According to media reports and sound from video footage, three shots could be heard firing and the vehicle crashed on the side of the roadway.
The shooting sparked immediate protests in Minneapolis, other cities around the country and local officials called for ICE to leave the city.
“They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. They’re ripping families apart, they’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in the news conference.
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bull**it,” the mayor added. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
He said the video he saw depicted the car driving away as the shots were fired, and he demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis. “We do not want you here,” he said. However, mayors have no authority regarding federal troops.
A video by The Associated Press depicted the scene following the shooting, with protesters yelling, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota!”
The shooting occurred a mile from where former Minneapolis police officer, now convicted murderer Derek Chauvin, knelt on George Floyd’s neck and killed him in 2020, The Associated Press reported. Local law enforcement turned the investigation of the Jan. 7 shooting over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
However, the BCA has reportedly accused the FBI of cutting off their access to case materials and now the case will be investigated just by the FBI. Federal agents first arrived in the Twin Cities area in December after a slew of disparaging remarks by President Donald Trump about the Somali community.
The number of agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Homeland Security Investigations agents, surged to about 2,000 in January.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia, described the presence of federal agents as the “newest phase of militarized racial terror.”
She accused “masked and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents” of stopping non-Whites and “demanding identification.”
“As media reports have documented, they have seized U.S. citizens. When concerned bystanders have tried to intervene, they have been met with pepper spray and threats.
Terrified families do not know where their loved ones have been taken, by whom or why,” Rep. Omar wrote in an opinion piece published Dec. 14 by Minnesota NOW, a grassroots organization fighting for equality and justice.
She laid out the pattern of demonization of immigrants, starting with the weaponization of fear before targeting entire communities. “The ultimate goal is to cast suspicion on anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant,” Rep. Omar wrote. “… that means anyone who is not White,” she added.
Immigrants make up about 12% of the population in the Twin Cities, with the second largest and fastest growing group coming from Africa and in particular Somalia and Ethiopia, according to a 2023 report by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
The Minnesota Reformer, an independent nonprofit news organization, cited data from the American Community Survey, an ongoing survey conducted by the Census Bureau, saying most people of Somali descent in America, including those in Minnesota, are U.S. citizens.
In 2023, about 45% of Somalis in Minnesota were naturalized citizens and about 39% were born in the U.S. Only about 9% were not citizens. Minnesota has the largest Somali population of any U.S. state.
Increased agents in the Twin Cities have sparked fear and anxiety among the Somali community. In one reported incident, a masked agent tackled a citizen of Somali descent and held him in a chokehold.
In another incident, an agent knelt on a woman’s back and attempted to drag her to a car. Many Somalis have started carrying ID cards in public and have avoided grocery stores and medical care, several media outlets reported.
Rep. Omar highlighted more examples that have aided in heightened fear, including ICE agents detaining a Somali man, who said he was a U.S. citizen, on his lunch break, taking him to a federal facility and making him walk home through the snow after admitting there was no cause to detain and holding a Somali woman, also a U.S. citizen, for 24 hours.
The surge in federal agents in the Twin Cities comes after a YouTuber, Nick Shirley, posted a now-debunked video going to Somali-owned day care centers and alleging fraud.
Media outlets such as The Intercept exposed Mr. Shirley’s main source, a political lobbyist named David Hoch, as someone who has a history of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim sentiment and who has connections in the Minnesota State House.
Local news outlets reported that state inspectors had already visited the facilities within the past six months and confirmed the day care centers were legitimate.
“This city, I can’t even recognize it. We saw the deployment of ICE agents throughout the country, and we were watching it, just like the rest of the country, from our phones and our TVs and hoping that we wouldn’t be next.
And lo and behold, over 2,000 agents have landed in the city of Minneapolis for the sole purposes of conducting the so-called ICE raids,” Suleiman Adan, deputy executive director of CAIR-MN, said to The Final Call.
He painted the picture of U.S. citizens being detained without due process and being taken to holding facilities and told to walk home. Members of CAIR-MN were on site when the Jan. 7 shooting happened.
The pulse of the community following the shooting? “Anger,” Mr. Adan said. “She wasn’t a threat to anyone.” He described the sea of people that showed up at the site despite heavy police presence and the continued presence of ICE agents. That evening, community members held a vigil followed by a rally.
Following the shooting, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz threatened to deploy the National Guard, saying at a news conference that they were prepared to be deployed if necessary and said, “We’ve never been at war with our federal government.”
Meanwhile, Somalis in Minneapolis have felt demonized, antagonized, harassed and villainized, according to Mr. Adan. Federal agents have targeted Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, which is largely Somali, carrying out daily raids from 6 a.m. until nightfall, Mr. Adan said.