By MICHAEL BIESECKER and JESSE BEDAYN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released records show a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.

The death of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since the start of a nationwide immigration crackdown in President Donald Trump’s second term. On Friday, DHS said the shooting on South Padre Island last March occurred after the driver intentionally struck an agent.

The shooting involved a Homeland Security Investigations team that was conducting an immigration enforcement operation in conjunction with local police, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Washington.

The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the nonprofit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Though Martinez’s death on March 15, 2025, was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent,” resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”

The department did not respond to questions about why it had made no media release or other public notification of the officer-involved shooting over the last 11 months.

Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said her son was just days past his 23rd birthday when he and his best friend drove from San Antonio down to the beach for the weekend to celebrate. South Padre Island, located on the Gulf Coast just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is a renowned spring break destination that attracts tens of thousands of college-aged partiers each March.

Martinez worked at an Amazon warehouse, liked to play video games and hang out with friends. His mother said he had never had any prior run-ins with law enforcement.

“He was a typical young guy,” Reyes told The Associated Press. “He never really got a chance to go out and experience things. It was his first time getting to go out of town. He was a nice guy, humble guy. And he wasn’t a violent person at all.”

Records show federal agents were assisting police

According to an internal two-page ICE incident report included in the newly disclosed documents, shortly after midnight, HSI officers were assisting South Padre Island police by redirecting traffic through a busy intersection after a vehicle accident with several injuries.

A blue, four-door Ford with a driver and passenger approached the officers, who ordered the driver to stop. The report does not say why. Initially, the driver didn’t respond to commands but did eventually come to a stop, according to the report.

Agents then surrounded the vehicle, telling those inside to get out, but the driver “accelerated forward” and struck an HSI special agent “who wound up on the hood of the vehicle,” the report said. An HSI supervisory special agent standing by the side of the car then fired his weapon multiple times through the open driver’s side window, and the vehicle stopped.

Paramedics already on the scene of the accident quickly provided medical aid and the driver was taken by ambulance to a regional hospital in Brownsville, where he was pronounced dead, according to the report. The passenger, also a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody.

The HSI officer who the report says was struck by the vehicle was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released.

The names of the two HSI agents involved in the shooting and the names of the two men in the car were all redacted from the ICE report, but Reyes confirmed the dead driver was her son. She said he was shot three times.

State investigation into shooting is still ‘active’

The report says the Texas Rangers responded to the shooting scene and took the lead as the primary agency investigating the shooting.

Reyes said she first learned her son had been shot by a federal agent, rather than a local police officer, about a week after he was killed. She was contacted by an investigator from the Rangers who she said told her there were videos of the shooting that contradicted the account provided by federal agents. DHS did not immediately respond to an email Friday about the claim that there is video showing a different account.

She said she was told by the investigator that the state report into the shooting was completed in October and that the case would be presented to a grand jury for potential criminal charges.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, said in a statement Friday that the investigation into the shooting is still “active” and declined to offer more information.

Messages left with the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, an elected Democrat whose jurisdiction includes South Padre Island, received no response Friday. South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll also did not respond to requests for comment.

Attorneys for the family said Friday they have spent the past year pursuing accountability and transparency.

“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why HSI was present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen as he was trying to comply with instructions from the local law enforcement officers directing traffic,” attorneys Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said in a statement.

Agents involved were part of a border task force

According to the ICE report, the HSI agents involved in the shooting were part of a maritime border enforcement security task force typically focused on combating transnational criminal organizations at seaports. Over the last year, however, officers from across multiple federal agencies have been reassigned to prioritize immigration enforcement.

In January, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, was killed in the driver’s seat of her SUV by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Trump administration officials initially attempted to paint Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to ram officers with her vehicle before multiple videos emerged of the incident that cast doubt on the government’s narrative.

As in the Good case, experts in police training and tactics questioned why a federal officer apparently positioned himself in front of Martinez’s vehicle.

“You don’t stand in front of the car, you don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a police use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina. He added that there’s never a scenario where it’s justified, “because you don’t know whether this person is going to flee, and if he flees, you could be dead.”

Alpert said investigators will likely review any available body camera video or other footage to examine how swiftly Martinez moved the car forward, if he merely took his foot off the break or pressed down hard on the accelerator.

Martinez’s mother said she didn’t believe he would ever intentionally assault a law enforcement officer.

“They didn’t give him a chance,” Reyes said. “It’s so excessive. They could have done anything else besides that. It’s like they shoot first and ask questions later.”

Bedayn reported from Denver.

The post ICE detains a father outside of Detroit mosque, family concerned about accommodations during Ramadan appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Communities across Michigan are asking how, exactly, local law enforcement is working with federal immigration agents as the Trump administration steps up aggressive enforcement, including the killing of two Americans in Minneapolis. In Detroit, that question is playing out on the pages of two police personnel files. 

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison vowed to fire two officers who broke department rules by calling U.S. Border Patrol during traffic stops, handing people over to federal immigration agents. Then he dropped the terminations.

In one stop, an officer called Border Patrol, believing the person was undocumented. In the other, a sergeant called for help communicating with a driver who didn’t speak English, though the department runs a 24-hour translation hotline.

DPD policy — stemming from a 2007 anti-profiling ordinance and a 2020 internal directive — bars officers from contacting Border Patrol, ICE, or any federal agency for translation or immigration enforcement. 

Outlier Media’s public records requests turned up at least two more incidents the chief did not disclose.

Ahead of the Board of Police Commissioners’ vote on the suspensions, The Metro’s Robyn Vincent spoke with Noah Kincade, who runs the Documenters program at Outlier Media. 

The Detroit Documenters helped surface these cases at police commission meetings. 

ICE and CBP did not respond to WDET’s requests for comment about this story.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Editor’s Note: After this interview aired, the Board of Police Commissioners voted 10–0 to suspend both officers without pay for 30 days. Bettison, who said he would terminate them, backed off the next morning. His reversal comes after one officer sued in federal court, claiming her lieutenant ordered the call, and Michigan Republican House Speaker Matt Hall threatened to review Detroit’s state funding in response to the case.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the podcasts you love.

One-of-a-kind podcasts from WDET bring you engaging conversations, news you need to know and stories you love to hear. Keep the conversations coming. Please make a gift today.

Give now »

More stories from The Metro

The Metro: Millions of Iranians want the regime gone. They don’t agree on what’s next

Robyn Vincent

Read More »

The Metro: A positive perspective on Michigan’s economy

Sam Corey

Read More »

The Metro: Paczki Day highlights Polish culture and history

Cary Junior II

Read More »

The post The Metro: Detroit police chief said the line was clear. His officers crossed it anyway appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Tuesday she is prepared to investigate and prosecute federal immigration officers if they violate the law after news surfaced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is opening an office in Southfield.

The post Oakland County prosecutor vows to hold ICE accountable as agency prepares to open Southfield office  appeared first on Detroit Metro Times.

The post Detroit Evening Report: DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Yemen appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Across Michigan, city leaders and police chiefs are asking  the same question: how should they work with federal immigration officers?

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been active across southeast Michigan, including in Livonia, Ypsilanti, Detroit, and other cities. ICE detention centers have been proposed in Highland Park and Romulus. We already know some of the outcomes.

In Michigan, from January to October of last year, ICE arrested over 2,300 people and detained almost the same amount, according to the Deportation Data Project. That number has nearly tripled since last year. 

Some city council members in Michigan have called for limitations on ICE and have supported state bills aimed at that exactly. But many Michigan mayors have remained silent on the issue. 

That’s not the case for Michael Taylor. He’s the mayor of Sterling Heights, where nearly 28% of residents are immigrants. He’s recently made headlines for wanting his city’s police department to separate itself from federal agents. 

He spoke with Robyn Vincent about what kinds of ICE policies he thinks Michigan cities should have.

 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support local journalism.

WDET strives to cover what’s happening in your community. As a public media institution, we maintain our ability to explore the music and culture of our region through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Give now »

More stories from The Metro

The Metro: A positive perspective on Michigan’s economy

Sam Corey

Read More »

The Metro: A 93-year-old pipe flooded Southwest Detroit. Now GLWA wants historic rate hike

Robyn Vincent

Read More »

The Metro: ‘Unseen’ highlights the immediate crisis of missing Black girls

Tia Graham

Read More »

The post The Metro: ICE is destroying the America Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor loves appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, KEVIN FREKING and SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is “incomplete and insufficient” as they are demanding new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and threatening a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they transmitted over the weekend “included neither details nor legislative text” and does not address “the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” The White House proposal was not released publicly.

The Democrats’ statement comes as time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday. Among the Democrats’ demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.

Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was “forward progress.”

Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and “hopefully they can find some common ground here.”

But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.

Republicans have balked at the Democrats’ requests and some have demands of their own, including the addition of legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans register to vote and restrictions on cities that they say do not do enough to crack down on illegal immigration.

And many Democrats who are furious about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s aggressive crackdown have said they won’t vote for another penny of Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back.

“Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward,” Jeffries said earlier Monday. “Period. Full stop.”

Trump deals with Democrats

Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after Trump agreed to a Democratic request that it be separated out from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended Homeland Security funding at current levels only through Feb. 13, creating a brief window for action as the two parties discuss new restrictions on ICE and other federal officers.

Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, and some Republicans suggested that new restrictions were necessary. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7.

While he agreed to separate the funding, Trump has not publicly responded to the Democrats’ specific demands.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said late last week that the Trump administration is willing to discuss some items on the Democrats’ list, but “others don’t seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are nonstarters for this administration.”

Democratic demands

Schumer and Jeffries have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras.

Among other demands, Democrats say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests, “improve warrant procedures and standards,” ensure the law is clear that officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant and require that before a person can be detained, it’s verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen.

Republicans have said they support the requirement for DHS officers to have body-worn cameras — language that was in the original DHS bill — but have balked at many of the other Democratic asks.

“Taking the masks off ICE officers and agents, the reason we can’t do that is that it would subject them to great harm, their families at great risk because people are doxing them and targeting them,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday. “We’ve got to talk about things that are reasonable and achievable.”

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said on “Fox News Sunday” that Democrats are ”trying to motivate a radical left base.”

“The left has gone completely overboard, and they’re threatening the safety and security of our agents so they cannot do their job,” Hagerty said.

Consequences of a shutdown

In addition to ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the homeland security bill includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. If DHS shuts down, Thune said last week, “there’s a very good chance we could see more travel problems” similar to the 43-day government closure last year.

Lawmakers in both parties have suggested they could separate out funding for ICE and Border Patrol and pass the rest of it by Friday. But Thune has been cool to that idea, saying instead that Congress should pass another short-term extension for all of DHS while they negotiate the possible new restrictions.

“If there’s additional time that’s needed, then hopefully Democrats would be amenable to another extension,” Thune said.

Many Democrats are unlikely to vote for another extension. But Republicans could potentially win enough votes in both chambers from Democrats if they feel hopeful about negotiations.

“The ball is in the Republicans’ court,” Jeffries said Monday.

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Oona Zenda, KFF Health News

Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband’s feeble voice through the phone.

A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio César Peña from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted his wife there.

“What hospital are you at?” Romero asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he replied.

Viridiana Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, couldn’t get an answer to that question, either. Peña’s deportation officer and the medical contractor at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center refused to tell her. Exasperated, she tried calling a nearby hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center.

“They said even if they had a person in ICE custody under their care, they wouldn’t be able to confirm whether he’s there or not, that only ICE can give me the information,” Chabolla said. The hospital confirmed this policy to KFF Health News.

Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. They say many hospitals refuse to provide information or allow contact with these patients. Instead, hospitals allow immigration officers to call the shots on how much — if any — contact is allowed, which can deprive patients of their constitutional right to seek legal advice and leave them vulnerable to abuse, attorneys said.

Hospitals say they are trying to protect the safety and privacy of patients, staff, and law enforcement officials, even while hospital employees in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon, cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted immigration raids, say it’s made their jobs difficult. Hospitals have used what are sometimes called blackout procedures, which can include registering a patient under a pseudonym, removing their name from the hospital directory, or prohibiting staff from even confirming that a patient is in the hospital.

“We’ve heard incidences of this blackout process being used at multiple hospitals across the state, and it’s very concerning,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, the deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the California Immigrant Policy Center, an advocacy group.

Some Democratic-led states, including California, Colorado, and Maryland, have enacted legislation that seeks to protect patients from immigration enforcement in hospitals. However, those policies do not address protections for people already in ICE custody.

More detainees hospitalized

Peña is among more than 350,000 people arrested by federal immigration authorities since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. As arrests and detentions have climbed, so too have reports of people taken to hospitals by immigration agents because of illness or injury — due to preexisting conditions or problems stemming from their arrest or detention.

ICE has faced criticism for using aggressive and deadly tactics, as well as for reports of mistreatment and inadequate medical care at its facilities. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters at a Jan. 20 news conference outside a detention center he visited in California City that he spoke to a diabetic woman held there who had not received treatment in two months.

While there are no publicly available statistics on the number of people sick or injured in ICE detention, the agency’s news releases point to 32 people who died in immigration custody in 2025. Six more have died this year.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for information about its policies or Peña’s case.

According to ICE’s guidelines, people in custody should be given access to a telephone, visits from family and friends, and private consultation with legal counsel. The agency can make administrative decisions, including about visitation, when a patient is in the hospital, but should defer to hospital policies on contacting next of kin when a patient is seriously ill, the guidelines state.

Asked in detail about hospital practices related to patients in immigration custody and whether there are best practices that hospitals should follow, Ben Teicher, a spokesperson for the American Hospital Association, declined to comment.

David Simon, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association, said that “there are times when hospitals will — at the request of law enforcement — maintain confidentiality of patients’ names and other identifying characteristics.”

Although policies vary, members of the public can typically call a hospital and ask for a patient by name to find out whether they’re there, and often be transferred to the patient’s room, said William Weber, an emergency physician in Minneapolis and medical director for the Medical Justice Alliance, which advocates for the medical needs of people in law enforcement custody. Family members and others authorized by the patient can visit. And medical staff routinely call relatives to let them know a loved one is in the hospital, or to ask for information that could help with their care.

But when a patient is in law enforcement custody, hospitals frequently agree to restrict this kind of information sharing and access, Weber said. The rationale is that these measures prevent unauthorized outsiders from threatening the patient or law enforcement personnel, given that hospitals lack the security infrastructure of a prison or detention center. High-profile patients such as celebrities sometimes also request this type of protection.

Several attorneys and health care providers questioned the need for such restrictions. Immigration detention is civil, not criminal, detention. The Trump administration says it’s focused on arresting and deporting criminals, yet most of those arrested have no criminal conviction, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and several news outlets.

Taken outside his home

According to Peña’s wife, Romero, he has no criminal record. Peña came to the United States from Mexico in sixth grade and has an adult son in the U.S. military. The 43-year-old has terminal kidney disease and survived a heart attack in November. He has trouble walking and is partially blind, his wife said. He was detained Dec. 8 while resting outside after coming home from dialysis treatment.

Initially, Romero was able to find her husband through the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. She visited him at a temporary holding facility in downtown Los Angeles, bringing him his medicines and a sweater. She then saw he’d been moved to the Adelanto detention center. But the locator did not show where he was after he was hospitalized.

When she and other relatives drove to the detention facility to find him, they were turned away, she said. Romero received occasional calls from her husband in the hospital but said they were less than 10 minutes long and took place under ICE surveillance. She wanted to know where he was so she could be at the hospital to hold his hand, make sure he was well cared for, and encourage him to stay strong, she said.

Shackling him and preventing him from seeing his family was unfair and unnecessary, she said.

“He’s weak,” Romero said. “It’s not like he’s going to run away.”

ICE guidelines say contact and visits from family and friends should be allowed “within security and operational constraints.” Detainees have a constitutional right to speak confidentially with an attorney. Weber said immigration authorities should tell attorneys where their clients are and allow them to talk in person or use an unmonitored phone line.

Hospitals, though, fall into a gray area on enforcing these rights, since they are primarily focused on treating medical needs, Weber said. Still, he added, hospitals should ensure their policies align with the law.

Family denied access

Numerous immigration attorneys have spent weeks trying to locate clients detained by ICE, with their efforts sometimes thwarted by hospitals.

Nicolas Thompson-Lleras, a Los Angeles attorney who counsels immigrants facing deportation, said two of his clients were registered under aliases at different hospitals in Los Angeles County last year. Initially, the hospitals denied the clients were there and refused to let Thompson-Lleras meet with them, he said. Family members were also denied access, he said.

One of his clients was Bayron Rovidio Marin, a car wash worker injured during a raid in August. Immigration agents surveilled him for over a month at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a county-run facility, without charging him.

In November, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to curb the use of blackout policies for patients under civil immigration custody at county-run hospitals. In a statement, Arun Patel, the chief patient safety and clinical risk management officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said the policies are designed to reduce safety risks for patients, doctors, nurses, and custody officers.

“In some situations, there may be concerns about threats to the patient, attempts to interfere with medical care, unauthorized visitors, or the introduction of contraband,” Patel said. “Our goal is not to restrict care but to allow care to happen safely and without disruption.”

Leaving patients vulnerable

Thompson-Lleras said he’s concerned that hospitals are cooperating with federal immigration authorities at the expense of patients and their families and leaving patients vulnerable to abuse.

“It allows people to be treated suboptimally,” Thompson-Lleras said. “It allows people to be treated on abbreviated timelines, without supervision, without family intervention or advocacy. These people are alone, disoriented, being interrogated, at least in Bayron’s case, under pain and influence of medication.”

Such incidents are alarming to hospital workers. In Los Angeles, two health care professionals who asked not to be identified by KFF Health News, out of concern for their livelihoods, said that ICE and hospital administrators, at public and private hospitals, frequently block staff from contacting family members for people in custody, even to find out about their health conditions or what medications they’re on. That violates medical ethics, they said.

Blackout procedures are another concern.

“They help facilitate, whether intentionally or not, the disappearance of patients,” said one worker, a physician for the county’s Department of Health Services and part of a coalition of concerned health workers from across the region.

At Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, nurses publicly expressed outrage over what they saw as hospital cooperation with ICE and the flouting of patient rights. Legacy Health has sent a cease and desist letter to the nurses’ union, accusing it of making “false or misleading statements.”

“I was really disgusted,” said Blaire Glennon, a nurse who quit her job at the hospital in December. She said numerous patients were brought to the hospital by ICE with serious injuries they sustained while being detained. “I felt like Legacy was doing massive human rights violations.”

Handcuffed while unconscious

Two days before Christmas, Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, received a call from ICE with the answer she and Romero had been waiting for. Peña was at Victor Valley Global Medical Center, about 10 miles from Adelanto, and about to be released.

Excited, Romero and her family made the two-hour-plus drive from Glendale to the hospital to take him home.

When they got there, they found Peña intubated and unconscious, his arm and leg still handcuffed to the hospital bed. He’d had a severe seizure on Dec. 20, but no one had told his family or legal team, his attorney said.

Tim Lineberger, a spokesperson for Victor Valley Global Medical Center’s parent company, KPC Health, said he could not comment on specific patient cases, because of privacy protections. He said the hospital’s policies on patient information disclosure comply with state and federal law.

Peña was finally cleared to go home on Jan. 5. No court date has been set, and his family is filing a petition to adjust his legal status based on his son’s military service. For now, he still faces deportation proceedings.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By REBECCA SANTANA and ELLIOT SPAGAT

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House border czar Tom Homan’s announcement that enforcement in Minnesota was being unified under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed months of internal grumbling and infighting among agencies about how to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Since it was created in 2003, ICE has conducted street arrests through “targeted enforcement.” Homan uses that phrase repeatedly to describe narrowly tailored operations with specific, individual targets, in contrast to the broad sweeps that had become more common under Border Patrol direction in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minnesota and elsewhere.

It is unclear how the agency friction may have influenced the leadership shift. But the change shines a light on how the two main agencies behind Trump’s centerpiece deportation agenda have at times clashed over styles and tactics.

The switch comes at a time when support for ICE is sliding, with a growing number of Americans saying the agency has become too aggressive. In Congress, the Department of Homeland Security is increasingly under attack by Democrats who want to rein in immigration enforcement.

While declaring the Twin Cities operation a success, Homan on Wednesday acknowledged that it was imperfect and said consolidating operations under ICE’s enforcement and removal operations unit was an effort toward “making sure we follow the rules.” Trump sent the former acting ICE director to Minnesota last week to de-escalate tensions after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal immigration officers — one with ICE and the other with Customs and Border Protection.

“We made this operation more streamlined and we established a unified chain of command, so everybody knows what everybody’s doing,” Homan said at a news conference in Minneapolis. “In targeted enforcement operations, we go out there. There needs to be a plan.”

Agencies with different missions and approaches

The Border Patrol’s growing role in interior enforcement had fueled tensions within ICE, according to current and former DHS officials. Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who was reassigned from Minneapolis last week, embraced a “turn and burn” strategy of lightning-quick street sweeps and heavy shows of force that were designed to rack up arrests but often devolved into chaos.

“Every time you place Border Patrol into interior enforcement the wheels are going to come off,” Darius Reeves, who retired in May as head of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Baltimore, said in an interview last year as Bovino’s influence grew.

ICE has also engaged in aggressive tactics that mark a break from the past, especially in Minnesota. An ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Trump administration officials said she tried to run over an officer with her vehicle, an account that state and local officials have rejected. ICE has asserted sweeping power to forcibly enter a person’s home to make arrests without a judge’s warrant, among other controversial tactics.

But ICE’s traditional playbook involves extensive investigation and surveillance before an arrest, often acting quickly and quietly in predawn vehicle stops or outside a home. An ICE official once compared it to watching paint dry.

Bovino, in a November interview, said the two agencies had different but complementary missions and he compared the relationship to a large metropolitan police department. The Border Patrol was akin to beat cops on roving patrols. ICE was more like detectives, doing investigative work.

Asked about the friction, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “There is only page: The President’s page. Everyone’s on the same page.”

“This is one team, and we have one fight to secure the homeland. President Trump has a brilliant, tenacious team led by Secretary (Kristi) Noem to deliver on the American people’s mandate to remove criminal illegal aliens from this country.”

ICE gets blamed for Border Patrol’s tactics, official says

Michael Fisher, chief of the Border Patrol from 2010 to 2015, said last year that his former agency’s tactics were more in line with the Republican administration’s goal of deporting millions of people who entered the United States while Democrat Joe Biden was president.

“How do you deal with trying to arrest hundreds and hundreds of people in a shift?” Fisher said. “ICE agents typically aren’t geared, they don’t have the equipment, they don’t have the training to deal in those environments. The Border Patrol does.”

The Border Patrol’s high-profile raids, including a helicopter landing on the roof of a Chicago apartment building that involved agents rappelling down, rankled ICE officials. A U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity said at the time that ICE often gets blamed for Border Patrol’s tactics.

Meanwhile, Scott Mechowski, who retired in 2018 as ICE’s deputy field office director for enforcement and removal operations in New York, said separately that the Border Patrol was essentially doing roving operations and blanketing an area to question anyone or everyone about their legal status. He considered that an unwelcome contrast to ICE’s traditionally more targeted approach, based on deep surveillance and investigation of suspects.

“We didn’t just park our cars and walk through Times Square going, ‘OK, everybody. Come over here. You’re next, you’re next.’ We never did that. To me, that’s not the way to do your business,” Mechowski said.

Homan offers a narrower approach

As the Border Patrol’s influence grew last year, the administration reassigned at least half of the field office directors of ICE’s enforcement and removals operations division. Many were replaced by current or retired officials from CBP, the Border Patrol’s parent agency.

Homan’s arrival in Minnesota and his emphasis on “targeted enforcement” mark a subtle but unmistakable shift, at least in tone. He said authorities would arrest people they encounter who are not targets and he reaffirmed Trump’s commitment to mass deportation, but emphasized a narrower approach steeped in investigation.

“When we leave this building, we know who were looking for, where we’re most likely to find them, what their immigration record is, what their criminal history is,” Homan said.

On the ground, the mood has not changed much in Minneapolis since Bovino’s departure and Homan’s consolidation of operations under ICE. Fewer CBP convoys are seen in the Twin Cities area, but with ICE still having a significant presence, tensions remain.

On Thursday, The Associated Press witnessed an ICE officer in an unmarked vehicle tail a car and then pull over its driver, only to appear to realize he was not their target. “You’re good,” they told him, after scanning his face with their phones. They then drove off, leaving the driver baffled and furious.

Associated Press writer Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

In 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump promised mass deportations. Since his election, the president has largely delivered.

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported more than 620,000 people, with another 70,000 currently in custody.

Millions have taken to the streets in protest. But for places that have seen the greatest influx of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, protests and observation of ICE tactics is a new way of life.

Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Twin Cities have been inundated with federal agents. Residents are putting themselves between immigration officers and the people ICE is attempting to deport.

Protesters have been aggressive in letting agents know they’re not welcome. They’re following them around town, honking horns and blowing whistles. There has been no shortage of profanity.

Protests get bloody

White House Border Czar Tom Homan says those words are violence. “I begged for the last two months on TV for the rhetoric to stop,” says Homan. “I said in March, if the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s going to be bloodshed, and there has been.”

In Minnesota, the blood that has been shed has come from U.S. citizens. Last month, federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In justifying Good’s killing, Trump Administration officials said she was armed with a car. In the moments leading up to his death, Pretti was exercising both his First and Second Amendment rights with a gun on his hip and a phone in his hand.

Steve Dulan is a professor at Cooley Law School in Lansing.  He’s also on the Board of Directors of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners. Dulan says Pretti’s actions that day were Constitutionally protected.

“Being a protester? That’s not justification to kill somebody,” Dulan said. “Filming the police? Not justification to kill somebody. Being armed? Certainly not justification to kill somebody.”

At Second Amendment rights demonstrations at the Michigan State Capitol Dulan has been armed – but also while doing business inside. After a series of armed protests during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Michigan Capitol Commission largely banned the possession of guns inside the Capitol building – something Dulan believes is likely unconstitutional.

Exercising two amendments at once

Dulan says he would defend the rights of people to carry firearms while protesting, though he wouldn’t put himself in a similar situation.

“Personally, I don’t think it’s responsible gun ownership, particularly when there’s a high likelihood that there could be some kind of a physical confrontation,” Dulan said. “You know, we’ve been teaching classes to gun owners for a long time at MCRGO. We teach that situational awareness is incredibly important, and the best way to solve most problems is by avoidance.”

Carrying a gun can also influence how other protesters see you.

Loren Khogali is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. She says demonstrating 2^nd Amendment rights may make others hesitant to exercise their right to peaceably assemble.

 “What we need right now in this country is as many people as possible to feel as comfortable possible exercising their 1st Amendment right to speech,” Khogali said.

Acting with impunity

The bigger issue to Khogali is the Trump Administration – and the armed agents enforcing his demands – attacking people with seeming impunity.

 “Right now we are watching the government engage suppressing people’s right to speech, suppressing people’s right to protest in the most violent of ways,” Khogali said. “We have watched the federal government murder two people in Minnesota, and so it is extremely important that when you go to a protest, you understand exactly what your rights are based on those state laws.”

 “Law enforcement should be adhering to the Constitution and should be protecting the right of protesters to protest within the law,”Khogali said.

In Minnesota, federal law enforcement has been largely unconcerned with the rights of protesters. Numerous judges have cited ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for violating court orders.

What is qualified immunity?

Steven Winter is the Walter S. Gibbs, Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Wayne State University. He’s litigated cases on qualified immunity – the rule that shields police and other governmental entities from civil liability. 

He says those who violate constitutional rights should face consequences, but that’s not the reality.

 “Well as a practical matter, very little,” Winter said. “In a theoretical matter, they should both be open to potential civil and criminal liability.”

But asked if he thinks the agents who killed Good and Pretti will face justice… “I think it’d be very unlikely,” Winter said.

Winter says U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of what can negate qualified immunity. “It’s only a violation–it’s only actionable–if it was clearly illegal, clearly unconstitutional. So that’s easy to muddy up, right?”

Knowing your rights regardless

Even if it’s unlikely you will receive justice if your rights are violated, it’s still best to know your rights and have a plan.

“You always have the right to remain silent and to ask to speak to an attorney. You also have the right to walk away from the police calmly,” Khogali said. “If an officer demands that you should turn over your phone, you should refuse and you should tell them that you would like to speak with an attorney.”

However, witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti say their phones were confiscated anyway. Other witnesses were taken into custody.

Khogali recommends having emergency contact numbers memorized and to let loved ones know when you’re headed to a protest.

Steve Dulan says the on-going protests can serve as a teaching tool. “I am hopeful that people will take this opportunity to learn about their rights and I’m hoping that the rhetoric cools.”

This week, Homan announced that 700 ICE agents were being taken out of Minnesota. The protests and deportations continue.

The ACLU of Michigan has this handy pocket guide for your rights at protests, and what you should know before, during, and after ICE raids.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

The post The US Constitution guarantees the right to protest, carry a gun—sort of appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Many have been actively engaging and organizing against federal immigration enforcement and the killings of Americans at the hands of immigration agents.

It’s been true in Minneapolis, where thousands have taken to the streets. And it’s spread from there to Detroit and many other places across the nation.

Scenes in America this past weekend harkened back to the civil rights era with people taking to the streets, students walking out of class, and businesses shutting down for a national day of protest against ICE and the Trump administration. 

All these actions have us wondering: How effective have anti-ICE protests been so far? And when exactly is a protest successful?

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She’s also the author of “A Protest History of the United States.” She joined Robyn Vincent to discuss.

 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

More stories from The Metro

The Metro: How a Plymouth ice hockey training program develops Olympic-level talent

Cary Junior II

Read More »

The Metro: The plan to fix Michigan’s teacher shortage

Sam Corey

Read More »

The Metro: Could a free market ease Michigan’s affordability crisis?

Sam Corey

Read More »

The post The Metro: Have protests against ICE been effective? appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

The post Detroit Evening Report: Immigration fears tied to student absences in Detroit appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER, SAVANNAH PETERS and STEWART HUNTINGTON

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flooded Minneapolis, Shane Mantz dug his Choctaw Nation citizenship card out of a box on his dresser and slid it into his wallet.

Some strangers mistake the pest-control company manager for Latino, he said, and he fears getting caught up in ICE raids.

Like Mantz, many Native Americans are carrying tribal documents proving their U.S. citizenship in case they are stopped or questioned by federal immigration agents. This is why dozens of the 575 federally recognized Native nations are making it easier to get tribal IDs. They’re waiving fees, lowering the age of eligibility — ranging from 5 to 18 nationwide — and printing the cards faster.

It’s the first time tribal IDs have been widely used as proof of U.S. citizenship and protection against federal law enforcement, said David Wilkins, an expert on Native politics and governance at the University of Richmond.

“I don’t think there’s anything historically comparable,” Wilkins said. “I find it terribly frustrating and disheartening.”

As Native Americans around the country rush to secure documents proving their right to live in the United States, many see a bitter irony.

“As the first people of this land, there’s no reason why Native Americans should have their citizenship questioned,” said Jaqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund and member of Isleta Pueblo.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to more than four requests for comment over a week.

Native identity in a new age of fear

Since the mid- to late 1800s, the U.S. government has kept detailed genealogical records to estimate Native Americans’ fraction of “Indian blood” and determine their eligibility for health care, housing, education and other services owed under federal legal responsibilities. Those records were also used to aid federal assimilation efforts and chip away at tribal sovereignty, communal lands and identity.

Beginning in the late 1960s, many tribal nations began issuing their own forms of identification. In the last two decades, tribal photo ID cards have become commonplace and can be used to vote in tribal elections, to prove U.S. work eligibility and for domestic air travel.

About 70% of Native Americans today live in urban areas, including tens of thousands in the Twin Cities, one of the largest urban Native populations in the country.

There, in early January, a top ICE official announced the “largest immigration operation ever.”

Masked, heavily armed agents traveling in convoys of unmarked SUVs became commonplace in some neighborhoods. By this week, more than 3,400 people had been arrested, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 Border Patrol officers were on the ground.

Representatives from at least 10 tribes traveled hundreds of miles to Minneapolis — the birthplace of the American Indian Movement — to accept ID applications from members there. Among them were the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe of Wisconsin, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa of North Dakota.

Turtle Mountain citizen Faron Houle renewed his tribal ID card and got his young adult son’s and his daughter’s first ones.

“You just get nervous,” Houle said. “I think (ICE agents are) more or less racial profiling people, including me.”

Events in downtown coffee shops, hotel ballrooms, and at the Minneapolis American Indian Center helped urban tribal citizens connect and share resources, said Christine Yellow Bird, who directs the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s satellite office in Fargo, North Dakota.

Yellow Bird made four trips to Minneapolis in recent weeks, putting nearly 2,000 miles on her 2017 Chevy Tahoe to help citizens in the Twin Cities who can’t make the long journey to their reservation.

Yellow Bird said she always keeps her tribal ID with her.

“I’m proud of who I am,” she said. “I never thought I would have to carry it for my own safety.”

Some Native Americans say ICE is harassing them

Last year, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that several tribal citizens reported being stopped and detained by ICE officers in Arizona and New Mexico. He and other tribal leaders have advised citizens to carry tribal IDs with them at all times.

Last November, Elaine Miles, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and an actress known for her roles in “Northern Exposure” and “The Last of Us,” said she was stopped by ICE officers in Washington state who told her that her tribal ID looked fake.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe this week banned ICE from its reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska, one of the largest in the country.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota said a member was detained in Minnesota last weekend. And Peter Yazzie, who is Navajo, said he was arrested and held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix for several hours last week.

Yazzie, a construction worker from nearby Chinle, Arizona, said he was sitting in his car at a gas station preparing for a day of work when he saw ICE officers arrest some Latino men. The officers soon turned their attention to Yazzie, pushed him to the ground, and searched his vehicle, he said.

He said he told them where to find his driver’s license, birth certificate, and a federal Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood. Yazzie said the car he was in is registered to his mother. Officers said the names didn’t match, he said, and he was arrested, taken to a nearby detention center and held for about four hours.

“It’s an ugly feeling. It makes you feel less human. To know that people see your features and think so little of you,” he said.

DHS did not respond to questions about the arrest.

Mantz, the Choctaw Nation citizen, said he runs pest-control operations in Minneapolis neighborhoods where ICE agents are active and he won’t leave home without his tribal identification documents.

Securing them for his children is now a priority.

“It gives me some peace of mind. But at the same time, why do we have to carry these documents?” Mantz said. “Who are you to ask us to prove who we are?”

Brewer reported from Oklahoma City and Peters from Edgewood, New Mexico.

The post Washtenaw County sheriff says cooperating with ICE puts community members at risk appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By MICHAEL BIESECKER, REBECCA SANTANA and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday.

“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said during a news conference.

Blanche did not explain why DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but has said a similar probe is not warranted in the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. He said only on Friday that the Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.”

“President Trump has said repeatedly, ‘Of course, this is something we’re going to investigate,’” Blanche said of the Pretti shooting.

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Friday that “the family’s focus is on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.”

FBI to take over federal investigation

The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the FBI will lead the federal probe into Pretti’s death.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the investigation during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department previously said Homeland Security Investigations, a departmental unit, would head the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Homeland Security Investigations will support the FBI in the investigation. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was not immediately clear whether the FBI would share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal investigation.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

Videos emerge of previous altercation

The change in agency comes after two other videos emerged of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

Schleicher, the Pretti family attorney, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified the shooting more than a week later.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Donald Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”

Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin called for the resignation, firing, or impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday, escalating Democratic opposition to federal immigration enforcement tactics that led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis this month. The Holly Democrat delivered a scathing floor speech targeting Noem’s leadership after federal agents […]

The post Slotkin demands Homeland Security chief resign over Minneapolis shootings appeared first on Detroit Metro Times.

A Michigan lawmaker is pushing to block state-owned property from being sold or repurposed for federal detention facilities after 32 people, including children, died nationwide in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025. 

The post Michigan lawmaker proposes ban on state property being used for ICE detention appeared first on Detroit Metro Times.

The post Inside the Midwest’s largest immigration detention center with a retired pastor appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

The killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers has forced the country to look more closely at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When applying that closer lens, that scrutiny moves beyond individual agents to the system itself. It’s one built through laws, budgets, and a long-standing decision to treat immigration as a criminal problem.

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, studies the once less known aspects of the U.S. system: where immigration enforcement operates like criminal policing, and detention functions like punishment even when the government calls it “civil.”

His latest book is “Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the ‘Criminal Alien.'”

García Hernández joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss what kind of immigration system is actually being built in the name of Americans, and how we got here.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

More stories from The Metro

The Metro: Arts college emphasizes sustainability in winter lecture series

Cary Junior II

Read More »

The Metro: The bus is running. The question is how well

Robyn Vincent

Read More »

The Metro: The humility and light of Albert Kahn

Sam Corey

Read More »

The post The Metro: The inner workings of ICE and the origins of immigration policing appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.