Trump’s immigration crackdown turns deadly in Minneapolis

A woman was fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis on Wednesday, just days after the Trump administration deployed thousands of new immigration agents to the city.

What happened? This is a breaking news story, and more details will almost certainly continue to emerge. What we do know is based on local reporting collecting video and eyewitness accounts from the scene, including multiple angles of the shooting:

What’s the context? This kind of violence has seemed all but inevitable since federal immigration officials began military-style deployments to US cities last year, resulting in a tide of videos capturing excessive use of force against Americans by immigration agents.

In one similar incident last year, Customs and Border Protection agents in Chicago shot a woman who the government initially accused of “ambushing” them, only for the case to later be dismissed with prejudice at the request of the Justice Department, meaning it cannot be brought again. The woman survived.

There’s also the question of accountability, or the lack thereof: As Vox’s Ian Millhiser reports, the Supreme Court has repeatedly acted to place ICE and other immigration agents above the law even in cases of clearly egregious, violent conduct toward bystanders and peaceful protesters.

How is the Trump administration responding? In confirming the shooting, DHS officials, including Secretary Kristi Noem, have described it as “an act of domestic terrorism” and an attack on ICE officers. It’s important to emphasize that Noem’s characterization of the shooting is not supported by the limited video of the incident.

However, it’s also consistent with a narrative that the administration has attempted to drive in public statements and court filings, one that portrays federal immigration officers as constantly under threat. In at least one instance, that narrative has been explicitly debunked by a federal court.

Why was ICE in Minneapolis? The DHS presence in Minneapolis, which administration officials have described as the “largest immigration operation ever,” comes after weeks of Republican outrage focused on Minnesota and Minneapolis immigrant communities.

Most recently, right-wing media has seized on a welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota as an opportunity for viral content; most of the alleged perpetrators charged in the scandal are Somali Americans, and President Donald Trump and others have used the story to attack Minneapolis’s Somali community writ large. (The Twin Cities area, including Minneapolis, is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the US.)

In December, Trump attacked Somali immigrants in a Cabinet meeting, calling them “garbage” and telling reporters that “I don’t want them in our country.” He also described Minnesota as “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”