Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to Lower Manhattan Thursday morning was met with protests, one day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis.
Noem traveled from Minneapolis to New York City to announce the completion of “Operation Salvo” alongside high-ranking ICE and Customs and Border Protection officials at the agency’s offices at One World Trade Center.
The covert operation run out of the New York field office targeted 54 people said to be associated with the Dominican Trinitarios gang. It came in the wake of the July shooting of an off-duty CBP officer in the face during an attempted robbery in Fort Washington Park, officials said.
While two men from the Dominican Republic accused in the shooting were already arrested and federally charged in July, officials said Thursday that the additional arrests were of people “loosely affiliated to the Trinitarios.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at One World Trade Center about a deportation investigation, Jan. 8, 2026. Credit: Gwynne Hogan/THE CITY
When pressed for details about the nature of the alleged gang ties, Kenneth Genalo, director of ICE’S enforcement and removal operations in New York City, said the affiliations could include having a person’s contact in their phone.
“It varies, a spectrum from speaking to individuals associated with the gang to just having conversations,” Genalo said.
Of the people arrested, 30 have already been deported. The rest remain in ICE custody, with none facing new criminal charges, officials said.
DHS representatives did not have details on how many of the arrestees had prior criminal convictions or pending charges, and further details about the arrests were not immediately available.
While Noem sought to refocus attention on the July shooting of the off-duty CBP officer, it was the killing of 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday that dominated the event.
Video captured by bystanders, and corroborated by multiple eyewitness accounts, shows Good trying to drive away from agents when she was shot, while onlookers screamed. Her car then rammed into adjacent parked vehicles.
The killing sparked protests in Minneapolis and beyond, while President Donald Trump and Noem defended the agent’s actions by claiming that Good was involved in “an act of domestic terrorism” and that the agent was defending himself and his fellow officers, justifying the use of deadly force.
They accused Good of trying to “weaponize her vehicle,” but Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey dismissed those allegations, calling the DHS version of events “bullshit.”
Noem continued to defend the officer’s actions Thursday.
“This is an experienced officer who followed his training,” she said. “These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law, and when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not.”
Dozens of immigrant-rights advocates marched to the World Trade Center to protest Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holding a press conference a day after immigration agents fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis, Jan. 8, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Mayor Zohran Mamdani denounced the killing Wednesday, saying on X that “an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis — only the latest horror in a year full of cruelty.”
“As ICE attacks our neighbors across America, it is an attack on us all. New York stands with immigrants today, and every day that follows,” he wrote.
Many questions remain about how Mamdani — who has been far more adversarial towards ICE than his predecessor Eric Adams — would handle a surge in federal agents onto New York City streets of the kind other cities have seen.
Noem declined to say if New York City should expect a surge in the coming months.
“We’re hoping the mayor will work with us to get these criminal elements, especially gang members and terrorist organizations, out of this city,” she said, adding she had not yet had contact with the mayor’s office or the NYPD. “But we want to continue those conversations so we can work together.”
A spokesperson for Mamdani didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
As Noem spoke, a crowd of dozens of protesters marched from Foley Square to rally outside One World Trade Center, denouncing Good’s killing and ICE’s efforts more broadly. ICE arrests began surging last May, with 70% of people ICE arrested in New York City between last January and mid-October, having no pending criminal charges or past convictions, THE CITY previously reported.
“ICE murdered someone,” said one protester who joined the throng, declining to provide their name. “It’s authoritarianism. It’s fascism. I don’t like it. I don’t think anybody should.”
Additional reporting by Ben Fractenberg.
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