Over the past several months, federal immigration agents have been immersed in a growing number of controversial cases involving the use of force during arrests.
While the Trump administration and its officials argue that agents acted in self defense and were justified when using lethal force in certain situations, advocates and critics question whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have crossed the line.
According to an investigation by Milenio, four people have been killed over the past six months, including two Mexican nationals. The report also documented eight people injured and 17 shooting incidents during immigration raids carried out by federal immigration agents.
One of the most recent cases involves the death of Renee Nicole Good, a Minnesota woman who was fatally shot by an ICE agent during a street confrontation. Authorities said Good attempted to weaponize her vehicle and use it to run over an officer, prompting ICE agent Jonathan Ross to shoot her four times.
Following the incident, President Donald Trump publicly said Ross acted in self defense.
"I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
However, victims, activists and opposition leaders insist that in many of these cases there were irregular or questionable actions by immigration agents, who often operate while concealing their identities.
As reported by Milenio, at least four deaths at the hands of immigration agents have been recorded in recent months. In addition to Good's death, in September of last year in a Chicago area community, an ICE agent fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, a Mexican migrant from Michoacán and the father of two children who worked as a cook.
Three months later, another person of Mexican descent was killed by immigration agents. In Rio Grande City, Texas, a 31 year old man died after being shot three times during an alleged altercation with a Border Patrol agent.
Days later, before the end of 2025, an off duty ICE agent in Los Angeles killed Keith Porter Jr., an American citizen who allegedly refused to follow an instruction from the agent.
In addition to fatal encounters, at least seven cases have been recorded in which people were wounded after being shot by immigration agents.
The most recent incident occurred Wednesday, Jan. 14, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during a pursuit and attempted detention of a Venezuelan migrant by ICE agents that escalated into a physical struggle. According to reports, the officer fired his weapon and wounded the Venezuelan man in the leg.
As violent incidents involving federal immigration agents continue to be on the rise, administration officials have also said that assaults against agents have increased. The Department of Homeland Security recently said that last year, physical attacks against ICE and Border Patrol agents rose by 1,300 percent.
Hours after Good's death, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the incident an act of terrorism against agents and defended their actions.
"So we are going to continue to do our work, and I want to remind everybody that an act like what we saw today, of using a vehicle to try to kill an officer and his colleagues and the other people around him, is something that every politician, every elected official, everyone in this country should be able to rally around and say that it is wrong, and that sanctuary cities and sanctuary states that protect individuals who do that should no longer be allowed," Noem said.
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