Bystander video shows U.S. Border Patrol agents kneeling a man in the face several times while others hold him down, in Minneapolis, Jan. 9, 2026. Violence is rising amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. (Screenshot from video by Monica Bicking via Minnesota Reformer)
State leaders seeking to end increasingly brutal arrest tactics by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis and elsewhere are struggling to push back.
They promised civil rights legislation that could give alleged victims another route to court, ordered official tribunals to collect videos and other records, or asked cities to reject requests to cooperate with raids. But for the most part, states looking for concrete ways to push back are largely paralyzed.
Immigration enforcement violence is increasing. The Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good in Minnesota by a federal immigration agent was one of six shootings since December. Immigrant dies in Texas detention center this month ruled murder. And deaths in prison last year sum at least 31, which is a two-decade high and more than the previous four years combined.
There were too dozens of cases last year, agents used threatening and federally banned arrest maneuvers such as chokeholds, which can cause people to stop breathing.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wearing masks and tactical vests were recorded firing pepper spray at the gun faces With protesterssmashing car windows without warning, hitting AND kneeling people pinned face down to the ground, using ramming rams at front doors and questioning people of color about their identities.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended many of the recorded incidents as justified uses of force against threatening people. Some Republican state lawmakers have said they will work to strengthen ICE operations at their borders.
Some lawmakers, legal experts and immigrant advocates worry whether a lack of oversight from the federal government and a frail stance by state governments could fuel even more violence as President Donald Trump continues his efforts to arrest immigrants who are in the United States illegally.
A murderer and an immigration violator cannot be pursued with the same intensity as a needy nanny or a needy landscaper.
– Muzaffar Chishti, Migration Policy Institute
Previous administrations have prioritized arresting immigrants in the U.S. illegally who also have criminal histories, but that is not the case in Trump’s second term.
“You can’t go after a murderer and an immigration violator with the same intensity as a poor nanny or a poor landscaper. This administration has abandoned all discretion and all priorities, and you create a narrative that you’re doing something patriotic, God-fearing,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a lawyer and policy expert at the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington.
Chishti said there has been a acute raise in the exploit of abusive tactics resulting from a number of federal policies. He cited a massive influx of inexperienced officers under intense pressure to make arrests, military-style tactics intended to create spectacle and fear, and harsh rhetoric intended to instill belligerent hostility toward immigrants and protesters, he said.
More agents, more incidents
For the Department of Homeland Security, the number of ICE law enforcement officers has doubled in less than a year announcing this month, it hired 12,000 modern agents from around 220,000 applicants. More and more agents have arrived in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, and their semi-automatic weapons, bulky vests and balaclavas often contrast with local police officers wearing name tags and sidearms.
Noem insisted that ICE and other officials are the real victims of the increased violence, citing cases like the one on Jan. 14 when an ICE agent shot a man in the leg. In a press release she said these were witnesses hit the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle in Minneapolis when an officer tried to catch a fleeing suspect. Noem called it an “attempted federal law enforcement murder” in which “an officer attacked by three people fired a defensive shot to defend his life.”
Court papers released on Jan. 20 included officer testimony about only two attackers, the suspect and a friend who owned the car he was driving, and stated that the injured suspect tried to flee into an apartment building and that tear gas was used to force the men to surrender.
Noem, who he claimed More than 10,000 immigrants were arrested in Minnesota on Monday described some people living in the US illegally as “foreign invaders”. She characterized Good’s shooting as self-defense against “an act of domestic terrorism.”
And at Tuesday’s Trump press conference he said reporters that the deported people “make our criminals look like children. They make our Hells Angels look like the sweetest people on Earth.”
Chishti stated that such descriptions have become a tool to incite violence.
“When they say they did God’s work with Renee Good, that she was a domestic terrorist, when that’s how the top leadership of the agency presents it, you’re basically sending a message that there’s no accountability,” he said.
Democrats are pushing back
State leaders who say they fear violence are trying a variety of approaches, although they cannot completely rein in federal policies.
New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul he said State resources will not be used to aid in immigration raids, citing Good’s shooting. However, local agencies in New York could still exploit other funds to facilitate with raids.
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has called for a reduction in immigrant detention in the state, although two of the three existing detention centers there may remain operational.
Colorado has fired a modern system for claims of misconduct by federal agents, including ICE agents.
Some Republican-led states are taking the opposite tack, including: Tennessee proposing legislation it would go beyond cooperating with federal immigration and establish its own state immigration laws. If passed, it would test the limits of a 2012 Supreme Court decision that invalidated state immigration enforcement based on a similar Arizona law.
Tennessee is using guidance from the White House to draft its regulations, and other states are likely to follow suit. This would create modern civil rights concerns if states used the same tactics as the federal government.
“This is another way to free up states to not only cooperate with the federal government, but also to allow states to enact their own immigration enforcement, detention and removal systems,” said Lucas Guttentag, a professor at Stanford University who runs design following federal immigration policy by speaking in: a May interview published by the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law.
Fighting federal moves is already difficult, said Guttentag, who held immigration policy positions in the Obama and Biden administrations.
“No single policy strategy can change this,” Guttentag told Stateline this week. “But litigation has proven both critical and effective in curbing some of the most egregious violations. Violence is a clear violation.”
It’s difficult to control an administration that constantly pushes legal boundaries, Guttentag added.
“It’s like a catch-me-if-you-can administration. They take tactics and basically challenge anyone who tries to stop them.”
Two former federal prosecutors, Kristy Parker and Samantha Trepel, argued for the state’s civil rights legislation and investigation in a Jan. 14 ruling. op-ed published in The Guardian under the headline “Cities and states must hold ICE accountable for violence. The feds won’t do it.”
Liability commissions – e.g created by illinois in October after ICE operations there – wrote that they could facilitate by preserving evidence and gathering testimonies in the face of federal obstacles, such as blocking the state investigation into Good’s death in Minnesota.
Potential civil rights legislation
Another method former prosecutors mentioned: This could come through state civil rights legislation theoretically give people harmed by federal agents a hearing in state court under a legal concept called “Converse-1983.”
New York Governor Hochul does proposed such legislation. AND a similar measure from Wisconsin died in July when the Republican majority on the Assembly Judiciary Committee refused to hear from her, said Rep. Andrew Hysell, the bill’s author.
“This is a positive approach to protecting our rights here in Wisconsin, our constitutional rights, because we can no longer rely on the federal government to do that,” Hysell said. “In situations like we saw in Minnesota, the federal government is overstepping the line in what appears to be a violation of constitutional rights.”
But the “Converse-1983” concept has not yet been used successfully to sue a federal agent and may never succeed, said John Preis, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
“I would be shocked if it was the other way around – 1983 [lawsuits] he didn’t go anywhere,” Preis said. “States cannot pass laws that make it harder for federal officers to do their jobs. It would seem that doing the opposite of what happened in 1983 would accomplish that.”
However, in some cases, such as the Renee Good shooting, victims can successfully sue the federal government without such a state law, Preis said. The the process is difficult however, he said the lawsuit could succeed if a violation of citizens’ constitutional rights is proven. Lawyers for the Good family announced on January 14 that they were considering a lawsuit.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at: thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by state linewhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
