{"id":519033,"date":"2026-01-15T23:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T23:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519033\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T23:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T23:39:21","slug":"immigration-agents-policing-protests-in-minneapolis-spark-safety-and-training-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519033\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration agents policing protests in Minneapolis spark safety and training concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman<\/a> in her car last week.<\/p>\n

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground. <\/p>\n

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.<\/p>\n

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift<\/a> in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds. <\/p>\n

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.<\/p>\n

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge<\/a> ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area<\/a>. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.<\/p>\n

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Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good<\/a>, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle. <\/p>\n

The killing has intensified protests<\/a> and scrutiny of the federal response.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.<\/p>\n

Stepping outside their traditional role <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much about what\u2019s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,\u201d said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Salda\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

Salda\u00f1a, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump\u2019s first term began, said she can\u2019t speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what\u2019s happening \u2014 brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level \u2014 usually at larger police departments that have public order units. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,\u201d Adams said. <\/p>\n

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn\u2019t seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it \u201chorrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tactics that escalate tension<\/p>\n

Maguire said what he\u2019s seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t even say this doesn\u2019t meet best practices. That\u2019s too high a bar. These don\u2019t seem to meet generally accepted practices,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,\u201d he added. \u201cThen there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams noted that police department practices have \u201cevolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There\u2019s an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers. <\/p>\n

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods. <\/p>\n

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganizations and agencies aren\u2019t always familiar with what their own policies are,\u201d said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later,\u201d he said. \u201cWe encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cPolice agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salda\u00f1a noted that both sides have increased their aggression. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, I\u2019m getting concerned on both sides \u2014 the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":519034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[3881,1578,69,57,231220,191824,409,2936,181121,17635,3663,231219,3669,50,80,402,225146,231221,10425,3676,2065,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-519033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-humberto-cardounel","14":"tag-ian-adams","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-law-enforcement","17":"tag-local-news-for-apple","18":"tag-minneapolis","19":"tag-minnesota","20":"tag-minnesota-ice-crackdown","21":"tag-mn-state-wire","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","25":"tag-renee-good","26":"tag-sarah-saldaa","27":"tag-tricia-mclaughlin","28":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","29":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","30":"tag-u-s-news","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115901757279561809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}