ICE agents are living in fear as the public turns against them in record numbers after one of their colleagues shot a mom dead in the street.
The killing of unarmed Renee Nicole Good, 37, has sparked international outrage. She was blasted three times in her car by federal agent Jonathan Ross during an immigration protest in a residential part of Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
Good’s killing has heightened tensions nationwide—but particularly in Minnesota. An ICE agent told the Daily Beast drivers were increasingly making a “gun sign” with their hands as they pass by ICE patrols in the street.
Agents fear the public revulsion towards the heavy-handed approach of ICE under President Donald Trump, and the administration’s efforts to cover its own tracks as it did in the wake of Good’s shooting, is already causing problems securing criminal convictions. One former agent told the Daily Beast that he and his colleagues fear it has already become more common for juries not to believe evidence they are presenting to the court.
Separately, according to a report published Monday, Border Patrol—the agency working with ICE on the ground—is struggling to find agents willing to join the administration’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis, which was promised by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in response to last Wednesday’s deadly incident.
The hostility is such that polling suggests many Americans now wish to see ICE scrapped altogether.
Now, two agents who decided to leave ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in the past six months due to the changing nature of their job under Trump, have told the Beast that they are terrified of the impact this is having on the force and their former colleagues.
“Talking to colleagues in Minneapolis, they say it is not uncommon for people to drive past them and make gun signs with their fingers,” said one, speaking on condition of anonymity amid fear of reprisals, adding that this could eventually translate into real violence of the kind that saw an ICE agent fatally shot in Dallas in September.
Another said: “We used to be respected and liked by the public, who understood the role we played in a functioning society and appreciated that we investigated and deported criminal illegals. That’s gone now.
“If this situation continues, many of us fear that when the Dems get back in, they will dissolve ICE altogether,” he said. “For those of us who care about the good work ICE has done in the past three decades, that’s a very sad state of affairs.”
YouGov polling shows a massive swing in public opinion since Trump came to office, with the agency’s approval rating going from +16 last February to -13 now.
The poll also found 52 percent disapproved of how ICE does its job, while 51 percent said the agency uses too much force.
The situation is also bleak for federal agents operating on the ground in Minneapolis, according to leaked internal Border Patrol documents revealed by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, which called for 300 volunteers to join the push by last Sunday. “We do have personnel but some just don’t want to go,” one agent is reported to have said.
As one senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told Klippenstein: “There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy-handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around.”
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
