Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Ms. Magazine. The brutality we are witnessing in Minnesota, at the hands of thousands of poorly trained, heavily armed and trigger-happy men who have full reign to hunt and harass anyone who is non-white, is nothing short of state-sponsored terror. It is a horrific illustration of what unfettered power does in the hands of leadership that celebrates and demands violence, especially from men.  Make no mistake: The thousands of new recruits to ICE, driven by a $100 million “wartime recruitment” push, were selected with violence in mind. Recruitment ads targeted male-dominated places and spaces where violence is either required or valorized: gun shows, military bases and local law enforcement, along with UFC fight attendees and people who spent time browsing for tactical gear and weapons. > Recruitment ads make it clear that ICE is the place to scratch the violent > itch. The content of those ads makes it clear that ICE is the place to scratch the violent itch. Recruitment posters and slogans focus on ideas of national defense and sacred duty, positioning immigrants as an existential threat by imploring applicants to “defend the homeland” against an incursion of “foreign invaders.” Veterans get a special nod with phrasing like “your nation calls once more.” The work of detaining immigrants is depicted as an epic, heroic quest, with frontier imagery and cowboy-hat clad horsemen alongside language like “one homeland, one people, one heritage.” The ads also dehumanize and fearmonger with racist dog whistles, warning that “the enemies are at the gates” or telling applicants to join ICE to “destroy the flood.” One DHS ad uses the phrase “we’ll have our home again,” which is a lyric from a white supremacist song. Much of this rhetoric evokes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which mobilized white supremacist terrorist attacks in El Paso, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo in recent years with false claims of an orchestrated effort by Jews and feminists to promote immigration, reduce white birthrates, and eliminate white majority societies. It’s not only the homeland that’s being defended in this framing. It’s also the nation’s white women, who the administration has continually depicted as the victims of unfettered crime at the hands of undocumented immigrants. This is why we see Trump administration officials constantly invoking the names of a handful of young white women, like Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray, who were killed by immigrants—even though thousands more women have died at the hands of their lovers, partners or strangers who are citizens. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt railed in response to a journalist’s question about ICE, describing the “brave men and women of ICE” as “doing everything in their power to remove those heinous individuals and make our communities safer.”  False crime statistics about sexual violence have always mobilized white supremacist violence from the extremist fringe, from the KKK’s campaign of racial terror, to recent mass shootings. During his attack, the terrorist who killed nine Black worshippers in 2015 in a Charleston church told his victims he was doing this because “y’all are raping our women.” Now, we are seeing those same false claims mobilize state-sponsored violence. The administration is recruiting, training and deploying federal agents who believe they are on some sort of noble, patriotic and manly quest, flying on horseback across the open land to rescue white women and restore the nation to its righteous place. > Protection isn’t the only way that gendered narratives mobilize violence. What > we are seeing in Minnesota is also about punishment. But protection isn’t the only way that gendered narratives mobilize violence. What we are seeing in Minnesota is also about punishment. Replacement conspiracies frame women—especially feminists—as the problem, arguing they are conspiring to have fewer babies, promote abortion, reduce white birth rates and accelerate demographic change. Women who refuse to submit to male authority, refuse God-given heterosexual relationships or reject their ‘natural’ roles as reproducers of the nation are seen as the enemy.  This is why, after an ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good in the face after she dared to protest his authority, he lobbed the phrase “fucking bitch” as she was dying. In the days following Good’s killing, a local protester reported that another ICE agent sneered at her, “Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch.” Another woman was warned to stop obstructing agents because “that’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.” This is how men who cannot tolerate a woman’s disrespect put her in her place: with violence or the threat of it. The shootings of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent and Alex Pretti by CBP agents—coming on the heels of numerous deaths of ICE detainees in recent months—are a predictable outcome of the institutional norms and social hierarchies the administration is valorizing.  As thousands of amped up men are deployed in the streets and taught there are no consequences for killing anyone who refuses to submit to their authority, we should anticipate more violence to come. After all: The violence is the point. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a scholar at American University, where she is the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). She is the author of several books including, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism.

A version of this story was originally published by The Watch, Radley Balko’s Substack publication, to which you can subscribe here. Conservatives are fond of invoking the American founding, the framers of the Constitution, and the principles that drove the fight for independence. Those invocations have always been selective and opportunistic, but they’ve grown downright farcical as right-wingers contort themselves into knots to defend executive powers explicitly contradicted by the Constitution. The Republicans’ veneration of the founders is particularly rich at the moment because, of all the abuses England heaped on the colonies, nothing angered them more than the Crown’s deployment of soldiers on city streets—and the streets of Boston in particular. Anger, resentment, and violence simmered in Boston for years before the Boston Massacre in 1770. The Declaration of Independence Trump hangs in his office came six years later, followed by the American Revolution, then the birth of the United States. The rage from those pre-revolution clashes in Boston continued to linger for years into the Constitutional Convention, and then the debate over the Bill of Rights. The founders were also students of history, and saw how the domestic use of the military led to the fall of the Roman Republic. This, in large part, is why we have the Second, Third, and Fourth Amendments, and why the Constitution splits control of the military between the president and Congress. You really can’t overstate how much the founders worried about, well, exactly what we’re seeing in Minneapolis. When I was researching my first book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, I found a remarkable archive of colonial-era newspaper articles published as a collection in 1936 by a historian named Oliver Morton Dickerson. The articles are from A Journal of the Times, a pro-patriot, anti-monarchy paper published in colonial Boston. Dickerson’s published archive, which runs from 1767 to 1769, documents the rising tension as English troops patrolled the streets of Boston. The accounts are clearly biased in favor of the angry colonists, but they’re also consistent with other contemporaneous accounts of the occupation. They read like a social media feed—if social media had existed at the time. They also depict scenes remarkably similar to those captured in smartphone videos coming out of the Twin Cities. The full engraving by Paul Revere depicting the Boston Massacre. We’re now at two dead in Minneapolis, with at least five killed by immigration officers overall. We’re at 42 dead since Trump was inaugurated last year if you count the soaring number of deaths in ICE custody, many of which appear to be from either neglect or abuse. Even as I was working on this post, there were two alarming new developments: First, the Associated Press reported that the administration has been keeping a secret memo authorizing immigration to enter homes without a warrant to arrest people who have final removal orders (the memo itself suggests even a final removal order may not be necessary). This is remarkably similar to the general warrants or “writs of assistance” the British crown issued permitting soldiers to forcibly enter any home they suspected of harboring untaxed imports. I’ll just state the obvious: If the Fourth Amendment permits the government to tear down your door with nothing more than an administrative warrant, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist. The argument that this only affects undocumented immigrants is both legally dubious and utter garbage—they’ve already used this policy to terrorize an American citizen. The second alarming new incident was the murder of Alex Pretti. And within hours of Pretti’s death, administration officials promptly did what they’ve done after the previous shootings: slandered the victim, brazenly lied about what happened, and prevented local law enforcement from conducting their own investigation. They’ve also refused to release the names of the officers who killed Pretti, publicly praised those officers, and then quickly announced that those officers have been returned to the field. The latter is a particularly sociopathic attempt to project strength. From the officers’ perspective, it’s a hell of a thing to kill someone. The notion that they’d bounce back within a couple days to go out and round up more immigrants is incomprehensibly callous. It’s also a demonstration of this administration’s contempt for human life and its dearth of basic humanity. From the perspective of the people of Minneapolis—and the rest of the country—the message is clear: This administration believes that killing protesters is a thing to be celebrated and encouraged. They believe that performatively lying about these killings in the face of directly contradictory video evidence is a display of strength and power. And they believe that the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments forged after the violence in Boston are mere suggestions. So, here are some excerpts from those newspaper accounts of the siege of Boston, along with comparative examples from the siege of Minneapolis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > We now behold Boston surrounded at a time of profound peace, with about 14 > ships of war, with springs on their cables, and their broadsides to the town! > If the people of England could but look into the town to see the utmost good > order and observance of the laws, and that this mighty armament has no other > rebellion to subdue than what existed in the brain or letter of the inveterate > governor and commissioners… Minneapolis: From the complaint the state of Minnesota filed in federal court: > In December 2025, the federal government initiated “Operation Metro Surge,” an > unprecedented deployment of federal immigration enforcement agents…to the > State of Minnesota, including into the cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. > Operation Metro Surge has instilled fear among people living, working and > visiting the Minneapolis Saint Paul metro area. Thousands of armed and masked > DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry > out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive > public places, including schools and hospitals—all under the guise of lawful > immigration enforcement. > > Defendants claim this unprecedented surge of immigration agents is necessary > to fight fraud. In reality, the massive deployment of armed agents to > Minnesota bears no connection to that stated objective and instead reflects an > alarming escalation of the Trump Administration’s retaliatory actions towards > the state. > > Defendants claim to have deployed over 2,000 DHS agents to the Twin Cities—a > number that greatly exceeds the number of sworn police officers that > Minneapolis and Saint Paul have, combined. Operation Metro Surge is, in > essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities. > > This operation is driven by nothing more than the Trump Administration’s > desire to punish political opponents and score partisan points—at the direct > expense of Plaintiffs’ residents. Defendants’ actions appear designed to > provoke community outrage, sow fear, and inflict emotional distress, and they > are interfering with the ability of state and local officials to protect and > care for their residents. After weeks of escalation, including a DHS agent > shooting into an occupied vehicle on December 21, 2025, in Saint Paul, a U.S. > Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agent shot and killed a > Minneapolis resident on January 7, 2026. Other federal courts have already found that Trump’s justifications for sending troops into Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland were based on lies and gross distortions of the reality on the ground. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [It] appears that the Commissioners of the Board of Customs had repeatedly > complained of being obstructed in the execution of their office. > > The proceedings of Council that “what happened on the 10th of June, seems to > have sprung wholly from those who complain of it, and that it seems probable, > an uproar was hoped for and intended…and there was no occasion for men of war > to protect them.”… > > [In] their unanimous opinion, the civil power does not need the support of > troops; that it is not for his Majesty’s service, nor the peace of this > province, that any troops be required…” Again from the state of Minnesota’s complaint: > Defendants have targeted Minnesota for the latest unprecedented surge not > based on any real or legitimate concern for the enforcement of immigration > laws or promotion of public safety, but rather in service of Defendants’ goal > to score political points. If the Defendants’ true goal was to detain and > deport dangerous individuals, they would not accomplish it through what DHS > describes as “consensual” (namely: random) encounters with people on the > street. And if the Defendants’ true goal was to prioritize detaining and > deporting the highest number of immigrants with no legal right to remain in > the U.S., they would not be targeting Minnesota for what Defendants refer to > as the largest ever immigration operation. Data suggests that just over 1.5% > of Minnesota’s total population are noncitizen immigrants without legal > status, less than half the national average rate. > > On information and belief, that small percentage includes individuals whose > presence has been long known to DHS and who have kept regularly scheduled > appointments with DHS. Many states have higher rates of reported non-citizens > relative to their populations, including Utah, Texas, and Florida. The > administration has made no similar efforts to surge federal immigration agent > deployments into cities in Utah, Texas, or Florida. Incredibly, the reported > non-citizen population of Utah, Florida, and Texas (combined together) is > nearly the size of the entire population of Minnesota… And as for the pretext that the immigration crackdown was about combatting fraud in the Somali community: > [W]hile the “Feeding our Future” fraud case was in no way new, and in fact was > a case involving collaboration between state and federal resources to bring > perpetrators to justice, President Trump and others in his Administration have > repurposed the case in recent months in order to use the pretext of “fraud” > concerns as an excuse to engage in all manner of unlawful actions. > > Pertinent to this lawsuit, the Trump Administration recognized that the > Feeding our Future scheme involved a large number of Somali immigrants, and > since then, have used the case to disparage the entire Somali community, and > Minnesota’s Democratic politicians and policies. > > On November 21, 2025, President Trump posted on social media that Minnesota > “is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” and that he was therefore > “terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS > Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.” Then, on Thanksgiving Day, President Trump > posted a lengthy screed, falsely claiming that “Hundreds of thousands of > refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of > Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our > wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against > hope that they will be left alone…” > > The White House has similarly expressed that the 2,000 deployed DHS agents > have been sent to Minnesota to help with “targeted, door-to-door > investigations at locations of suspected fraud.” But Defendants’ > investigations have not been “targeted.” DHS agents have been conducting raids > at job sites and businesses, detaining and deporting individuals while they > perform essential work that directly benefits Plaintiffs’ communities. > > DHS agents also appear to be conducting general sweeps and detaining people > within their path based on their race and ethnicity. Defendants’ conduct > further undermines the notion that they are focusing efforts on individuals > with violent criminal histories or known targets in fraud > investigations—particularly where fraud allegations are primarily investigated > via reviewing documents, not by roving groups of DHS agents dressed in riot > gear and military fatigues. Multiple federal courts have found Trump’s pretexts for occupying other cities to be wholly without merit, from the claim that violence from protesters was preventing immigration officers from doing their jobs in Los Angeles, to false claims about protest violence at a detention center in Portland, to Trump’s deranged declaration of war on Chicago and claims that the city was fomenting an “insurrection.” The above passage from colonial Boston also speculates that England may have wanted a violent reaction from the colonists in order to justify more oppressive measures. That’s an authoritarian scheme that’s as old as authoritarianism. Here too, there are parallels to the occupation of Minneapolis and other cities. Former ICE and DHS officials say the administration is encouraging the sort of tactics and aggression prohibited by most police agencies, in a way that seems designed to provoke violence and backlash. And of course we know that Trump has been itching for an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act since the summer of 2020. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Several persons have been taken up within these few days by the soldiery, and > confined without warrant Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Gentlemen and ladies coming into town in their carriages were threatened by > the guards to have their brains blown out unless they stopped. Minneapolis: > Amid heated protests in Minneapolis following the killing of Renee Good by > Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross, federal agents have > repeatedly invoked Good’s death to threaten the lives of observers and > demonstrators in Minnesota. In multiple confrontations in the Minneapolis > area, agents repeatedly referred to civilians learning their lesson—in an > apparent nod to the use of deadly force in Ross’s killing. Two US citizens detained by immigration officers said one agent told them, “You guys have got to stop obstructing us. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.” Another woman, a former Marine who says an ICE agent rammed her car, says agents warned, “Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch.” We also now know that Alex Pretti was coming to the aid of a woman who had been assaulted by an immigration officer when he was assaulted, tackled, disarmed, and shot. (You can see the video evidence here.) His reported last words: “Are you okay?” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > At about noon the inhabitants were greatly alarmed with the news that the > sheriff, accompanied by the soldiery, had forced an entry sword in hand . . . > Mr. Brown one of the inhabitants, in attempting to disarm him, received > several thrusts in his cloaths, the sheriff’s deputy entered with him; he then > gave possession of the cellar to some of the troops: A large number of > soldiers immediately entered the yard, and were placed as centinels and guards > at all the doors of the house, and all persons were forbid from going in and > out of the same, or even coming into the yard. The plan of operation being as > it is said to terrify or starve the occupants out of their dwellings. > > The sheriff refused giving Mr. Brown a copy of his warrant or orders for > this doing… Minneapolis: > A federal judge in Minnesota on Thursday ordered the release of a Liberian > man four days after heavily armed immigration agents broke into his home using > a battering ram and arrested him. US District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his > ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson’s Fourth Amendment rights > against unlawful search and seizure. “To arrest him, Respondents forcibly > entered Garrison G.’s home without his consent and without a judicial > warrant,” he said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > This night the sheriff procured guards of soldiers to be placed at his house > for his protection, a measure that must render him still more ridiculous in > the eyes of the people. Minneapolis: > White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is one of a handful of > President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members who are hiding out on military bases > so they don’t have to be exposed to the public that hates them. The > Atlantic reported Thursday that Miller, his wife, and their two children have > relocated out of their home north of Arlington, Virginia, to a US military > base after local activists embarked on a campaign to shame Miller for his role > leading Trump’s fascistic crime and immigration crackdown. Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio are also reported to now be living on military bases. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [T]here was a general appearance of the troops in the Common, who went through > their firings, evolutions, etc. in a manner pleasing to the general…The > glitter of the arms and bayonets, and this hostile appearance of troops in a > time of profound peace, made most of the spectators very serious, and reminded > me of what a late traveller relates in his account of Turkey, “That being > present on a day when the Grand Signior was passing from his palace to his > mosque, and observing that the Janissaries stood without their arms, and with > their hands across, only bowed as the Sultan passed; he was led thereby to ask > a captain of those guards why they had no arms? Arms said he, thou infidel, > they are for our ENEMIES; we govern our subjects with the LAW. This passage expresses frustration at the British troop’s performative shows of force. We saw that early on in Los Angeles, when Border Patrol conducted a showy, militarized raid on a mostly empty public park to intimidate an immigrant neighborhood. Minneapolis: We’ve also seen this in Minneapolis, with the now-recalled Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino strutting through city neighborhoods bedecked in his fashiest trench, baiting local residents into confrontations. Last week he and his entourage showed up at gas stations, always with a garish show of force to draw angry crowds. DHS then put out a indignant statement complaining that the city’s “agitators” won’t even led immigration officers urinate in peace. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Lord Bottetourts, ordered [the soldiers] to their several stations in the > colonies, in order to exert their whole influence to carry down the late > regulations. In pursuance of this ministerial plan of policy, we now behold a > standing army and swarms of crown officers, placemen, pensioners and > expectants, co-operating in order to subdue Americans to the yoke. Minneapolis: > This is what happened in our neighborhood yesterday. ICE snatched a human > being off of our streets, roughed them up badly, and then pepper sprayed legal > observers as they documented it all. This is a daily occurrence happening all > throughout Minnesota right now. > > — Elliott Payne (@elliottpayne.org) 2026-01-19T15:46:56.285Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The inhabitants of this town have been of late greatly insulted and abused by > some of the officers and soldiers, several have been assaulted on frivolous > pretences, and put under guard without any lawful warrant for so doing. A > physician of the town walking the streets the other evening, was jostled by an > officer, when a scuffle ensued, he was afterwards met by the same officer in > company with another, both as yet unknown, who repeated his blows, and as is > supposed gave him a stroke with a pistol, which so wounded him as to endanger > his life. Minneapolis: Protesters clash with agents outside an ICE facility after the killing of 37-year-old Renée Good by a US immigration agent, in Minneapolis on January 8, 2026.Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty A person is detained after confronting Border Patrol agents who were arresting two teenagers after a car accident on January 21, 2026 in Minneapolis.Stephen Maturen/Getty An agent threatens photojournalists with pepper spray on January 14, 2026 in Minneapolis.Scott Olson/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Here Americans you may behold some of the first fruits springing up from that > root of bitterness a standing army. Troops are quartered upon us in a time of > peace, on pretence of preserving order in a town that was as orderly before > their arrival as any one large town in the whole extent of his Majesty’s > dominions; and a little time will discover whether we are to be governed by > the [military] or the common law of the land. Minneapolis: > Nasra Ahmed, a 23-year-old US citizen, was arrested and detained by ICE. She > was held for TWO DAYS.ICE agents handcuffed her, called her a racial slur, and > she was knocked to the ground so hard she got a concussion.This cannot > continue happening. ICE needs to leave. > > — Minnesota House DFL (@mnhousedfl.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T01:42:12.898Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The unhappy consequences of quartering troops in this town, daily visible in > the profaneness, Sabbath breaking, drunkenness, and other debaucheries and > immoralities, may lead us to conclude, that our enemies are waging war with > the morals as well as the rights and privileges of the poor inhabitants. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: After noting that local grand juries had attempted to indict several soldiers for “detentions, assaults, and robberies” on Boston residents, the paper lamented that servants of the British crown refused to honor the indictments. > Our young King’s Attorney, refused…alleging as it is said, that “If a soldier > should with his fixed bayonet at the breast of an inhabitant stop and detain > him two hours, it would not in law be adjudged an assault.” It is hoped a > court and jury will otherwise determine it, and that it will no longer be a > doubt even in the minds of the most sceptical that the law of the land is to > yield to the maxims of a meer economy of the military, in civil communities. Minneapolis: Here’s Stephen Miller, incorrectly telling ICE soldiers that they have complete immunity from prosecution. He said this in a Fox News appearance last fall. Miller’s admonition was then amplified by the Department of Homeland Security after the killing of Renee Good: Vice President JD Vance has also wrongly claimed that federal immigration officers have “absolute immunity” from prosecution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Last Wednesday night several officers of the army, sallied out of a house in > King Street, and meeting with one of the inhabitants of the town, they beat > and wounded him very cruelly Minneapolis: A Getty photographer throws his camera to a colleague as he’s swarmed and tacked by federal immigration officers.Pierre Lavie/Instagram -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Abuses are daily offered some one or another of the inhabitants, who are > generally for seeking redress in a legal way; and we cannot but hope that > those of the military, who oppose themselves to the law of the land, will find > the predictions of a great lawyer verified; “that in so doing, they gnaw a > file which will break their teeth.” Minneapolis: > Worth every second > > — Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) 2026-01-15T14:50:46.050Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [S]ix more regiments may be soon expected from Ireland, and another from > Halifax. If pensions of £10,000 sterling per annum had been settled upon the > [public], rather than making so unnecessary a military parade, it would have > been a vast saving to the nation. Minneapolis: > Koh: Trump has now spent $30 billion from the last bill for 10,000 more I.C.E. > Agents that are going to be on the streets. That $30 billion would cover all > the ACA subsidies for a year. It would eliminate all co-pays for prescription > drugs for people from a year, and eliminate all medical debt. > > — Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2026-01-15T03:08:22.836Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The old honest music master was roughly handled by one of those sons of Mars; > he was actually in danger of being throttled, but timously rescued by one who > soon threw the officer on lower ground than he at first stood upon; the > inoffensive keeper of the house for the Commissioners, presuming to hint a > disapprobation of such proceedings, was, by an officer, with a drawn sword, > dragged about the floor, by the hair of his head, and his honest Abigail, who > in a fright, made her appearance without a head dress, was very lucky in > escaping her poor husband’s fate. Whether our Governor will so resent this > behaviour of the military, as to collect affidavits, and make it a subject of > representation to the Crown cannot as yet be determined… Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > As some sailors were passing near Mr. Justice Ruddock’s house, the other > night, with a woman in company, they were met by a number of soldiers…this > soon brought on a battle in which the sailors were much bruised, and a young > man of the town, who was only a spectator, received a considerable wound on > his head; a great cry of murder, brought out the justice, and his son, into > the street; when the former who is a gentleman of spirit, immediately laid his > hands upon two of the assailants Minneapolis: Federal officers detain a person during protests in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis on January 13, 2026.Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty Protestors face ICE agents near where Renée Good was killed by a federal officer the previous week in Minneapolis.Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [H]e was presently surrounded with thirty or forty soldiers, who had their > bayonets in their hands…they then made at him with their fists and bayonets; > when he received such blows as obliged him to seek his safety by flight; they > struck down a young woman at his door holding out a candle, and followed him > and son into the entry-way of his house with their bayonets, uttering the most > profane & abusive language, and swearing they would be the death of them both… Minneapolis: > Federal immigration agents bashed open a door and detained a US citizen in his > Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out onto the > streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions, according to his family > and videos reviewed by the Associated Press. > > ChongLy “Scott” Thao told the AP that his daughter-in-law alerted him on > Sunday afternoon that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were > banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. He told her not to open it. > Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling > at them, Thao recalled. “I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any > warrant; they just broke down the door.” DHS would later claim that Thao was living with two convicted sex offenders. That still would not have justified a warrantless raid on his home. But it was also a lie. Thao lived alone. The man the agents were looking for, it turned out, was already in prison. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The other evening a petty officer of one of the ships of war, who had knocked > down a married woman of this town as she was quietly passing the streets, was > bro’t before him; and being reproved for his indecent speech & behaviour, on > trial, he swore that he would run his jack-knife thro’ the magistrates heart, > whereupon the justice committed him to goal: soon after as several fishermen > were coming out of a tavern in the same part of the town, they were assaulted > by a corporal and some soldiers, who wounded one of the fishermen very > grievously… Minneapolis: > View this post on Instagram -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: Here’s some pushback in the form of a sardonic letter to the editor written by a resident of the city. > “I am glad the troops are come and, believe their arrival will be for the > health of this country. There is a great deal of oratory in the glitter of > arms; and a few ships of war contain all the arts of persuasion. A cannon ball > carries with it, solid and weighty arguments; and a thrust in the side with a > bayonet, will give conviction in a moment…and as we can’t be persuaded into > such a wholsome practice by lenitive and moderate means, we must be brought to > the exercise of reason by vigorous measures, and the point of the bayonet > becomes necessary to fix the conviction. Preparations of steel and surgical > instruments, when lenitives fail, often times produce wonderful effects, and > are frequently used in opening the eyes of the blind. If we were not a dull > stupid race of mortals, and had seasonably relinquished the trade to > Great-Britain, the operation of cutlary ware, and the rhetoric of red coats, > would be of no service; but as matters now stand, the eyes of many want > couching, and these surgical operations must take off the film, and bring us > to our senses, and to measures that are so confessedly for our interest.” Minneapolis: A homeowner collects footage as neighbors confront ICE agents following arrests in a Minneapolis neighborhood on January 13, 2026.Stephen Maturen/Getty A man flips off Border Patrol agents as they detain an unidentified man of Somali descent in Minneapolis on January 8, 2026.Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A young woman lately passing thro’ Long Lane, was stopped and very ill treated > by some soldiers, the cry of the person assaulted, brought out another woman > into the street, who for daring to expostulate with the ruffians, received a > stroke from one of them, and would probably have been further abused, had not > her husband, and some other men came up timely to her assistance; the soldiers > were then soon beat off and the young woman whom they had seiz’d as their > prey, rescued. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A girl at New-Boston, was lately knock’d down and abused by soldiers for not > consenting to their beastly proposal; a gentleman hearing the cry of murder, > ran to her assistance, one of the villains, immediately made off, the other > the gentleman seiz’d, tho’ upon his stiffly denying the fact, and charging it > upon the other soldier, the gentleman suffered him to depart; presently after > the same men assaulted a young gentleman of character supposing him to be the > person who had rescued the girl from their violence; their oaths, and insults > brought several people out of their houses, upon which the soldiers made off, > but return’d a few minutes after with a number of others, and a sergeant at > their head, calling out a riot! A riot! They then drew their bayonets upon the > people, and with many oaths and execrations, threatening to confine them in > the barracks if they did not immediately disperse, accordingly, they began to > put their threats in execution by seizing one of the company and drag’d him > towards the barracks, but the rest being resolute, the soldiers were obliged > to quit him; upon which the whole dispersed. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Last evening after church service, there was a considerable gathering of > children and servants, near the Town House, drawn by the music of the fife, > &c. which is again heard on the Sabbath, to the great concern of the sober and > thoughtful inhabitants; some of those youth’s having behaved so as to > displease the officer, orders were given the guard to clear the parade; they > marched up with bayonets presented—one of the lads was pursued by a soldier to > some distance, who made a thrust with his bayonet, which passed thro’ his > coat, and had he not thrown himself on the ground that instant, its thought he > would be run thro’ the body… Minneapolis: Liam was detained as he returned home from preschool The ICE agent in the photo then used him as bait to lure his father out of their home, after which both were arrested and sent to a detention center in Texas. Here is a photo of teenage girl confronted and detained by Border Patrol: A young woman sits in her car on Blaisdell Avenue after being rammed by a Border Patrol vehicle in Minneapolis on January 21, 2026. Stephen Maturen/Getty The girl and another teenager riding with her were arrested after what was initially described as a “collision” with immigration officials. Here’s what that collision looked like: A Border Patrol vehicle rear-ended a car driven by a teenage girl on Blaisdell Avenue in Minneapolis on January 21, 2026.Stephen Maturen/Getty A journalist saw the incident, and reported that the immigration agents struck the girl’s vehicle, as the photo suggests, and not the other way around. It isn’t clear why the two were arrested. (Even if the girl caused the accident, a traffic violation is not a federal crime.) The journalist says the girl handed a US passport to federal officials. Details about her passenger are unclear. What we do know is that there have now been multiple incidents in which ICE, Border Patrol, and DHS have been caught lying after agents rammed into the cars of protesters, observers, and people they suspect of being undocumented, then arrested the occupants of those vehicles on the lie that they intentionally assaulted the officers with their vehicles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: Here, A Journal of the Times article explains why it decided to publish the names of Boston merchants who were cooperating with the Crown… > Fellow Citizens and Countrymen: Inasmuch, as some persons among us have in a > case of the utmost importance, preferr’d their own supposed private advantage > to the welfare and freedom of America, it is highly proper you should know who > they are, who have at this critical time sordidly detach’d themselves from the > public interest. May this disgraceful, but necessary, publication of their > names, lead them to reflect on the baseness of their crime; and when they find > themselves slighted and shunned by their neighbours and acquaintance; when > their shops are deserted, and they feel their fortunes miserably impaired by > prosecuting the plan of purblind avarice; when their guilty consciences have > rendered this life insupportable; may they seriously attend to the concerns of > another: And altho’ they must suffer the punishment due to their parricide in > this world, may a humble and sincere repentance open the way to their > forgiveness in the next. Minneapolis: > The identities of thousands of federal employees working with Immigration and > Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have been leaked online, raising safety > concerns. > > According to a report from The Independent, the leak includes the identities > of about 4,500 federal employees working with ICE, including 2,000 agents. > They were shared with the website The ICE List, which calls itself a > “journalistic project” meant to share information to “hold ICE members legally > accountable.” > > The site, which accepts user-generated data, includes photos and descriptions, > and is indexed by state. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who is > included on the site, told NewsNation that the leak “would constitute 4,500 > felonies.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [A] tradesman in an alley was without the least provocation knocked down by a > grenadier of the 29th Regiment; he soon came to himself, and having recovered > his cane, was quietly walking off; but soon perceived was followed by the same > soldier, who he called upon to stand back, but this not being regarded he made > so good a use of his cane, as to protect himself from any further abuse for > that time; [the soldier] dared to assault & wound him with his bayonet, in a > most cruel manner, a number of soldiers looking on, and had it not been for > the timely assistance of some of the inhabitants passing by at that time, he > would probably have been murdered: This person was confined to his house a > considerable time, by means of the wounds received. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The soldier had a bill found against him by the grand jury, but this being > suspected before it was given in, the criminal deserted, or rather was > concealed for a time, and then, as is supposed, conveyed away, as others had > been before him, out of the reach of the law… Minneapolis: > Gun-toting Feds swarmed the home of the ICE agent who fatally shot protester > Renee Good on Friday morning, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal. > > A Special Response Team arrived at the suburban Minneapolis home, where Jon > Ross, 43, lives with his wife and children, early this morning. > > Daily Mail images captured half a dozen Federal officers wearing masks and > balaclavas, one carrying pepper spray and another wielding an assault rifle. > > They entered the smart five-bed home before carrying out five large plastic > crates, a computer tower and a stack of picture frames. Also: > After Good’s death on Wednesday, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension > announced that they would be investigating Good’s killing in tandem with the > FBI. But on Thursday, Superintendent Drew Evans said he’d been told that the > FBI would be the sole investigator and that the state agency had “reluctantly > withdrawn” from the investigation. > > “The BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or > investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent > investigation,” Evans said. “Without complete access to the evidence, > witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative > standards that Minnesota law and the public demands.” We’ve also learned that the FBI agents who initially began investigating Good’s death recommended opening a civil rights investigation. That was then vetoed by the administration, which ordered a criminal investigation of Good’s wife instead. Six federal prosecutors resigned, as did the FBI agent. I expect we’ll see similar stories about Alex Pretti in the days ahead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A country butcher who frequents the market, having been in discourse with a > grenadier of the 14th Regiment, who he said had before abused him, thought > proper to offer such verbal resentment as led the soldier to give him a blow, > which felled the butcher to the ground, and left other proofs of his violence. > The assaulter was had before Mr. Justice Quincy, convicted and fined, and upon > refusing to make payment, was ordered to [jail]; but rescued out of the hands > of the constable, by a number of armed soldiers, in the sight of the justice, > when they carried their rescued comrade, in triumph, thro’ the main street to > his barracks, flourishing their naked cutlasses, giving out that they had good > support in what they were doing, and that they defied all opposition. Minneapolis: After killing Renee Good, DHS and Trump administration officials—including Trump himself—celebrated Jonathan Ross, Good’s killer, as a hero. Meanwhile, immigration agents teargassed and flash-banged a car with six children inside, sending two to the hospital, including six-month-old who had temporarily stopped breathing. After the incident made national news, DHS posted this: The family was driving home from a basketball game. I’ll sum up with this: The day before the murder of Alex Pretti, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Minnesotans braved below-zero temperatures to protest and demand that Trump end his occupation of Minneapolis. Their resolve, bravery, refusal to abandon their neighbors, and defiance of a tyrannical federal government is the best of us. Our founding is fraught with moral complexities. But for all its faults if the American experiment survives all of this, it will be because of the valor and courage of the people of Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Memphis, Charlotte, and Portland—and others like them all over the country. I also can’t help but admire their restraint. This administration has given them every reason to lash out with violence. They haven’t. Not yet. Perhaps that’s in part because, as noted, they know that this is exactly what Trump, Vance, Miller and the other ghouls in charge want. This administration wants an excuse to declare war on our cities. This administration should probably learn our history.

Immigration officers in Minneapolis are now using a weapon that’s unfamiliar to many protesters: grenades that spew a noxious green gas. On Wednesday, Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino made headlines when he hurled a canister of it at a crowd that had gathered at Mueller Park. > U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino is seen deploying a gas > canister at Mueller Park in south Minneapolis this afternoon.Video by Ben > Luhmann. > > — Minnesota Star Tribune (@startribune.com) 2026-01-21T23:57:11Z “I’m gonna gas. Get back. Gas is coming,” Bovino says in the video, filmed by activist Ben Luhmann. The gas has been used repeatedly by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Twin Cities, according to Andrew Fahlstrom, who helps lead Defend the 612, a community group opposed to the federal surge. “People are sharing images of” it, he said. “I don’t know the name, but they say it’s more toxic than regular tear gas.” The gas, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, appears to be made by the company Defense Technology. I reached out to experts to see what they knew about it and whether it really is more dangerous than other chemical munitions. Sven-Eric Jordt, a professor at the Duke University School of Medicine who studies tear gas and its health effects, had an answer for me. The Defense Technology website, he said, includes a link for each product that is supposed to go to a “safety data sheet,” which should provide safety information. Unfortunately, Jordt discovered, the links were broken. But he found a working link using Archive.org. The green smoke grenade used in Minneapolis is missing from the archive, but Jordt located another product that appears the same—another smoke pocket grenade—except it uses uncolored smoke. He also found a military-style green smoke grenade “that is equivalent but bigger.” These grenades contain worrisome chemicals. “The potassium perchlorate is a significant toxicant and some of it may expose bystanders, but most of it is likely burned,” he says. “The lead and chromium are highly toxic—listed as reproductive toxicants and carcinogens. Again, the amounts are small, but are of concern.” But compared with the CS tear gas pocket grenade, which deploys the kind of tear gas protesters are likely more familiar with, the green gas grenades have a smaller number of toxic constituents. “If exposures are equal, I would consider the CS tear gas pocket grenade to be more toxic than the smoke pocket grenade,” he said. “The green dyed smoke suggests high toxicity to protesters,” he adds, “but the effect is more psychological.”

As the Trump administration’s deportation campaign continues to bring fear and upheaval to Minneapolis, more immigrants are sharing their stories of detainment and harsh treatment when being apprehended at their homes, while driving, and at work. Tensions continue to rise as federal immigration agents target people who they claim are in the country without legal status, as well as protestors filling the streets to demand accountability for Homeland Security’s often violent tactics, including ICE agent Jonathan Ross’ killing of Renée Good in her car.  This week, according to reporting from the Minnesota Star Tribune, federal agents detained three workers from a family-owned Mexican restaurant hours after the agents themselves dined at the establishment. The agents reportedly followed the workers after the workers closed up for the night and took them into custody. That was not the first time ICE agents have gone to a local business as customers before arresting someone who works there.  > “They took trophy pictures with their personal phones,” a man detained by ICE > says. During a Saturday press conference, a recently released man described a different form of callousness by ICE. Garrison Gibson, 38, said that agents showed up to his house multiple times, eventually smashing open the door with a battering ram. After armed agents took him from his home Gibson says, they reveled in his detainment.  “They took trophy pictures with their personal phones,” he said, adding, “like one stood by me on the right side of me. One stood on the left side of me. And they went, like, thumbs up and took pictures with their personal phones.”  According to reporting from Minnesota Public Radio, the federal agents “did not let Gibson change into warm clothing or put on a coat before taking him out into the 16-degree winter air.” Gibson was sent to El Paso, Texas, before being returned to Minnesota, due to a federal judge’s intervention. He made it back home just in time for his daughter’s birthday, but Gibson is still fighting the government’s efforts to deport him to Liberia, “a country he hasn’t visited since he fled a civil war there when he was 6 years old,” reported MPR. Another troubling account comes from a husband and wife who were pulled over by federal agents while on the way to the hospital. According to reporting from Sahan Journal, Bonfilia Sanchez Dominguez was experiencing back pain and was being driven to the emergency room by her husband, Liborio Parral Ortiz, when ICE agents stopped the car. The couple’s daughter, who says she was on the phone with Ortiz during the interaction, said that ICE “started opening their doors and pulling them. They were not asking them any questions, they just started grabbing them.” Ortiz was taken into custody and quickly sent to El Paso, Texas, according to the family and ICE’s detainee locator system. According to the daughter, ICE agents and hospital staff have been restricting access to her mother at the hospital, even turning away the family’s pastor and lawyer.  “They were just racially profiled and picked up and kidnapped without a destination,” the daughter told Sahan Journal.

More resignations of federal prosecutors are expected at the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota amid ongoing frustration over the Trump administration’s response to the fatal shooting of Renée Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. “I have heard there may be more people leaving, people I would consider senior and respected career prosecutors,” said Anders Folk, a former acting US attorney in Minnesota, who left the office in 2021 to work for the Justice Department in Washington, DC, under former President Biden. Minnesota Federal Defender Katherian Roe, in a staffwide email obtained by the Sahan Journal, also wrote that “more resignations are anticipated” at the US Attorney’s Office. “It’s a sign that something is not right” there, added Folk, who is still in touch with colleagues in the office and is now running for Hennepin County Attorney. Already this week, at least five federal prosecutors in Minnesota announced their resignations. Among them was the office’s second-in-command, Joseph Thompson, who was overseeing the welfare fraud investigation involving Somali immigrants that President Trump used as a pretext to send his immigration force to Minneapolis. The prosecutors did not give a reason for their departures, but their announcements came shortly after the Justice Department ordered the office to investigate Good’s wife rather than focus on the shooter and the shooting. “It’s a big deal, and this is fairly unprecedented,” Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor now based in Los Angeles, said of the resignations. “You have so many leaving, and frankly on principle: We are living in unique times where prosecutors are being asked to do things they’ve never had to do before. That’s not what they signed up for.” Five senior prosecutors at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in DC—a unit that investigates police killings—also resigned this week. Since Trump’s reelection, the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office has seen a steady stream of departures. Nearly 50 out of about 135 staffers have left their positions, according to a person with knowledge of the departures who did not want to be named, and who confirmed that more resignations are likely. Some of the office’s attorneys left earlier this year as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was working to downsize the federal workforce. Others quit in December, after ICE launched its Minneapolis surge. > “They’ve had a major brain drain, and I don’t know who’s going to be left to > do the cases.” The administration’s response to the Good’s death on January 7 appears to have been the last straw for some of the prosecutors. The 37-year-old mom, who had partly blocked a neighborhood street with her vehicle, was fatally shot in the head and chest by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. The killing, which has sparked nationwide protests, was captured on video by multiple bystanders, and also by Ross, who recorded the encounter on his phone. In his footage, a male voice, which the New York Times has verified was Ross, could be heard calling Good a “fucking bitch” after he shot her. The Justice Department has defended Ross, accusing Good of trying to run him over, and ordered the US Attorney’s Office to focus on Good’s wife, who was on hand protesting the ICE operation. But a frame-by-frame video analysis from the Times clearly shows that Ross shot Good as she was steering her vehicle away from him, and that he was not run over, as Trump and other federal officials claimed, or struck by the vehicle in a substantial way. The administration quickly excluded the Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from its investigation, making it harder for state authorities to gather evidence. As staffers at the US Attorney’s Office watched the video footage, some were crying or otherwise visibly emotional about the death and the Justice Department’s response, according to the person with knowledge of the departures. Since Operation Metro Surge began in the Twin Cities, federal immigration officers have reportedly arrested more than 2,400 people. To deal with the influx of cases, given its reduced staff, the US Attorney’s Office is receiving help from military attorneys known as Judge Advocates General. Several JAGs are already stationed at the office, and the Pentagon, according to CNN plans to send about 25 more. As videos spread showing brutal ICE encounters in the Twin Cities—officers dragging a disabled woman out of her car as she tried to drive to a doctor’s appointment; carrying away an unconscious man in handcuffs; throwing a flashbang at a car with six children, and more—protesters are calling for accountability and yelling at the masked federal officers to get out of their neighborhoods. But to file civil rights cases against ICE agents or any other law enforcement, prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office would need approval from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in DC. And that “feels impossible,” said the person with knowledge of the resignations, “when you can’t even get an investigation for a woman who was shot point-blank in the head.” Folk, the former acting US attorney, told me that he’s never seen anything like the recent spate of resignations in Minnesota. It’s unusual, he said, for so many career prosecutors, as opposed to political appointees, to leave at the same time. “It’s deeply concerning to many members of the legal community here,” Folk told me, and he worries about the consequences for other investigations, including the ones looking into fraud in state welfare programs and the assassinations of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, last year. At least some of the attorneys who resigned this week had planned to use their accumulated leave to stay on longer and help with the transition, but the Justice Department fired them after they announced their intentions, abruptly blocked their credentials, and had them escorted our of the building. The Minnesota US Attorney’s Office had fewer than 30 prosecutors prior to the latest departures—that’s less than half of what the full head count should be, Folk said. Former federal prosecutor Levenson added that it might be difficult for the office to hire new attorneys, given the explosive political environment. “People of the caliber you used to get at US attorney’s offices aren’t interested in the job; they’ve had a major brain drain, and I don’t know who’s going to be left to do the cases,” she said. “This will have an impact for years to come.”

The Trump administration’s offensive against immigrants in Minneapolis—and those who seek to help them—continued to intensify Wednesday night and into Thursday after a federal agent shot another person during an immigration operation.  President Donald Trump, in a Thursday morning Truth social post, threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act—a centuries-old law that allows the president to deploy the US military domestically.  The move comes after another chaotic night in Minneapolis during which a federal agent shot a man in the leg, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The City of Minneapolis said that the man was taken to the hospital with a non-life threatening injury.  According to DHS, the man was a Venezuelan national who was a target in an immigration operation. The federal agency claimed in a statement on X that officers were assaulted on the scene prior to the shooting and that an agent was also taken to the hospital.  This latest shooting by a federal agent comes just one week after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Rénee Nicole Good in her car.  In a post commenting on initial reports of the shooting, US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday evening that there was a “Minnesota insurrection” happening. Blanche, who used to be Trump’s personal attorney, accused Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of “encouraging violence against law enforcement.” Both Frey and Walz have multiple times called for peaceful protests against ICE’s actions in the city.  “Walz and Frey,” Blanche wrote, “I’m focused on stopping YOU from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It’s a promise.”  President Trump threatening to send the military into a US city under the Insurrection Act isn’t a new idea for the administration. Back in 2023 in an interview with the New York Times, Stephen Miller,Trump’s longtime advisor, said that they were already planning to invoke the law to apprehend immigrants.  The ongoing situation in Minneapolis has been intensifying for over a month and has only become more acute after the killing of Good. Videos from the frontlines, including many published by Mother Jones, show federal agents violently pulling a woman from her car, repeatedly deploying chemical agents on protestors, and otherwise continuing their offensive against those DHS claims are in the country without legal status—in their home, at school, and at work.  In a Wednesday night address, Gov. Walz spoke directly to Minnesotans, urging them to continue to record ICE’s actions. “If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and record. Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans. Not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution,” he said, once again telling protestors to respond peacefully. “Trump wants this chaos,” Walz added. “He wants confusion. And yes, he wants more violence on our streets. We cannot give him what he wants. We can’t. We must protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.” > Watch my address on the ongoing federal presence in > Minnesota:https://t.co/n4AqTkHXRx > > — Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 15, 2026 “This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement, instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by the federal government,” Walz said, telling Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to “end this occupation.”

If the ICE officer who shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week is not prosecuted criminally, or even if he is, can he also be sued? Legal experts have different takes. Last week I spoke with a police misconduct attorney in Minnesota who seemed hopeful about the odds that Good’s family might face in court. Others I spoke with were somewhat less optimistic. Winning lawsuits against cops who kill “is challenging by design,” as Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights advocacy group, wrote on the group’s website. To flesh that out, I caught up with Lauren Bonds of the National Police Accountability Project, a national group that works with civil rights attorneys to file lawsuits over police misconduct. Our conversation below, edited for length and clarity, explores the legal hurdles to beating an ICE officer like Good’s killer, Jonathan Ross, in civil court. It’s notoriously tough to sue police, but it’s even harder when the officer is federal. What are the challenges? You’re absolutely right: All the problems you have with suing a regular law enforcement officer exist, and then you have additional barriers. There are two distinct pathways to sue a federal officer for misconduct or excessive force: One is a Bivens action—a court-created pathway that allows you to sue federal agents for constitutional violations. And then there’s the Federal Tort Claims Act, a statutory provision that allows for these lawsuits to move forward. The problem with Bivens is it’s been really, really narrowed in recent years by this particular Supreme Court. First there was Hernandez v. Mesa, a 2020 case where a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a child on the other side of the border in Mexico. And the court said it didn’t fit within the narrow confines of Bivens. And then there was a case in 2022, Egbert v. Boule, that foreclosed any new Bivens action: Basically the court said that this type of civil rights violation is something you can pursue under Bivens, but if it’s anything new, we’re not going that far. The Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) is where more people are going to get relief for violations by federal officers. It basically says that any tort that you would suffer under state law [such as false arrest, assault, or battery] you can sue the federal government for—with vast exceptions: There’s one that comes up a lot for law enforcement cases, the “discretionary function” exception, which says an officer can’t be sued for anything that he or she needs to use discretion for. Courts have done a good job of interpreting that to mean discretion in terms of policymaking decisions, but some courts get it wrong. So those are the two pathways—they’re both narrow, and they’re both complicated. There’s the issue of qualified immunity for police officers, or even sovereign immunity for the federal government, right? Sovereign immunity [a legal principle that says the federal government can’t be sued without its consent] wouldn’t come up in an FTCA case, because it’s a statute in which Congress waived sovereign immunity and agreed to be sued under certain circumstances. It does come up as a defense when [the government is] saying, Oh, this case falls within an exception, but they can’t assert it otherwise. If you were to file a constitutional claim under Bivens, they could invoke qualified immunity, another protection that law enforcement officers have; it asks whether there is case law in the circuit that would have put the officer on notice that their conduct was unconstitutional. [If not, the officer is essentially off the hook.] A lot of courts have taken that requirement to an extreme place, basically saying it’s got to be identical facts—like there are cases that have been thrown out on qualified immunity because a person was sitting with their hands up versus standing with their hands up. That level of granularity has been applied to defeat civil rights claims. And so it’s a difficult barrier to overcome. Given how hard it can be to sue, what about criminal charges? It’s definitely possible. There isn’t any immunity from criminal prosecution that federal officers are entitled to, none that I’m aware of anyway. I know this issue came up when some ICE raids were planned to take place in San Francisco back in early fall, with the DA of San Francisco asserting that she did have authority to pursue criminal action against ICE agents if they broke California laws. What about the Supremacy Clause? It protects federal officers from state prosecution if they were performing their federal duties, right? The Supremacy Clause protects federal officers when they’re engaged in legal activity, and so if their conduct is illegal, they wouldn’t be protected. So in Minneapolis, if the officer engaged in a Fourth Amendment violation, he’d be beyond the protection of the Supremacy Clause. This issue has come up with California, too. The Trump administration is suing California over new state legislation that would create a crime for wearing a mask and obscuring your identity if you’re a law enforcement officer. And it’s suing Illinois [for a state law that allows residents to sue ICE agents in certain circumstances]. Those lawsuits have asserted that the Supremacy Clause makes these [state] laws unconstitutional—that you can’t take any action against federal law enforcement officers under state law. Have you heard of cases in this past year of ICE officers being sued or prosecuted for misconduct? I haven’t seen any prosecutions yet. In terms of lawsuits, we’ve seen an increase in FTCA cases against DHS agents. Regarding the recent killing in Minneapolis, what do you see as the main path to accountability, and the main challenges? There’s going to be all the standard barriers that we talked about, including the Supremacy Clause defense, particularly because you have so many high-ranking federal officials, including the president and Secretary Noem, who are saying that this shooting was the right thing to do and was consistent with him carrying out his obligations. On the civil side, this could be a potentially difficult Bivens or FTCA case. I would note, since we’re on the heels of January 6: Ashli Babbitt, the woman who died during the Capital insurrection, filed a FTCA case, or her family did, and got a $5 million settlement from the government. It’s hard to factually distinguish these cases. The federal government has authority to settle a case like that, but since the Trump administration is taking a very opposing position against Good, the woman who died in Minneapolis, I would be surprised if they would be willing to put money on the table.

Minneapolis remains on edge after the ICE killing of Renée Good last Wednesday. As ICE and Border Patrol operations intensify—Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that “hundreds more” agents are being sent to the city—residents continue to spill into the streets, filming, heckling, and tracking federal vehicles, block by block. Following this drama closely is reporter Amanda Moore, who puts it simply: “Yeah, it’s chaos.” Over the weekend she captured confrontations she describes as “extremely violent,” including a St. Paul gas station scene where agents “busted out the window of a car.” (According the DHS, the man driving the car was a Honduran national with a final removal order.) Amanda says the mood is a mix of fear and fury, with residents watching arrests unfold up close and, at times, finding themselves surrounded by “masked men… banging on your windows carrying guns.” Her bottom line on the enforcement posture: “Everything is very aggressive.” Even the timing, she notes, might be a signal of escalation. Amanda says Sundays were normally a day off from the front lines—“you could do your laundry and watch TV.” With the ramp-up of federal agents, “I guess not anymore.” Check out her latest dispatch.

In the immediate aftermath of the ICE killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis last week, the Trump administration smeared her as a “domestic terrorist,” claiming that she had weaponized her vehicle. They labeled Good a “violent rioter” and insisted every new video angle proved their version of the truth: Good was a menace and the ICE agent a potential victim. That’s despite video evidence to the contrary, showing Good, by all appearances, trying to leave the scene of the altercation, while ICE agents acted aggressively. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, spent Sunday doubling down, insisting that Good had supposedly been “breaking the law by impeding and obstructing a law enforcement operation.”  Last Thursday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz invoked Orwell’s 1984 to describe this break between what millions of people saw, and what Trump and his allies insisted had taken place: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” he quoted. “It was their final, most essential command.” So, on Sunday, I joined the throng in Manhattan for one of many dozens of protests held around the country this past weekend. In the middle of Fifth Avenue, surrounded by raucous, defiant New Yorkers, I asked protesters the simple question: What did you see?  “I mean, it seems like the bottomless, self-radicalizing thing that the government is going through,” said Anne Perryman, 85, a former journalist. “Is there any point when they’re actually at the bottom, and they’re not going to get any worse? I don’t think so.” “I think there’s a small minority of Americans who are buying that,” said Kobe Amos, a 29-year-old lawyer, describing reactions to the government’s gaslighting. “It’s obviously enough to do a lot of damage. But if you look around, people are angry.” “I saw an agent that overreacted,” he added, “and did something that was what—I think it’s murder.” Protesters also described a growing resolve amid the anger sweeping the country. “This moment has been in the works for too long,” said Elizabeth Hamby, a 45-year-old public servant and mom. “But it is our time now to say this ends with us…Because we want to be a part of the work of turning this tide in a different direction.”

Kansas City police Officer Matt Masters first used a Taser in the early 2000s. He said it worked well for taking people down; it was safe and effective.  “At the end of the day, if you have to put your hands on somebody, you got to scuffle with somebody, why risk that?” he said. “You can just shoot them with a Taser.” Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Masters believed in that until his son Bryce was pulled over by an officer and shocked for more than 20 seconds. The 17-year-old went into cardiac arrest, which doctors later attributed to the Taser. Masters’ training had led him to believe something like that could never happen.  This week on Reveal, we partner with Lava for Good’s podcast Absolute: Taser Incorporated and its host, Nick Berardini, to learn what the company that makes the Taser knew about the dangers of its weapon and didn’t say. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in August 2025.