With tension high in Minnesota, border agent shoots 2 in Oregon traffic stop

MINNEAPOLIS, USA – Tensions over US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown rose across the United States on Thursday, January 8, after the second shooting involving immigration officers in two days, deepening rifts between state and federal officials over how and why the shootings occurred.

Protests intensified in Minnesota following Wednesday’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old mother by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Minnesota and US officials offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, and state investigators complained they were shut out of the federal inquiry.

Then in Oregon a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland on Thursday afternoon. Again, local officials, who immediately called for calm, said they could not verify the federal government’s account of the incident.

In both cases, Democratic mayors and governors demanded the Trump administration withdraw federal officers, who have been deployed largely to Democratic-led cities in moves approved of by many of the President’s supporters after Trump campaigned on a promise to deport undocumented immigrants.

Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the aggressive enforcement operations as an unnecessary provocation.

“When a president endorses tearing families apart and attempts to govern through fear and hate rather than shared values, you foster an environment of lawlessness and recklessness,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said.

In both the Minneapolis and Portland shootings, US officials contend they were part of an increasing trend of criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists using their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.

In Minnesota, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nichole Good, a US citizen who according to one activist was participating in a “neighborhood patrol” that observes ICE activities. US officials alleged she attempted to run over the agent, while defenders of the woman said they believe video showed she steered away from the officer.

In the Portland incident, the Department of Homeland Security said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over agents. In response, DHS said “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away. Portland police said two gunshot victims were later found about two miles (three km) away and taken to hospital.

National Guard on alert

Facing the potential of civil unrest, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has put the state’s National Guard on alert.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Minneapolis on Thursday, chanting “shame” and “murder” at armed and masked federal officers, some of whom used tear gas and pepper balls on protesters.

“I feel like we’re at a turning point. I can’t say it enough, but things have got to change,” said Minneapolis protester Rachel Hoppei, 52.

“We don’t want you,” she said of federal officers. “You have no right to be here. You’re destroying our communities.”

Minnesota officials complained they were denied access to the scene evidence, case materials or interviews. US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in New York that Minnesota simply did not have jurisdiction.

Without access, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said it had withdrawn from the investigation.

The ICE agent who shot Good was among 2,000 federal officers the Trump administration has deployed to the Minneapolis area in what it described as the “largest DHS operation ever.” Part of Trump’s nationwide crackdown on migrants, the operation was also mounted in response to a politically charged investigation into fraud allegations against some nonprofit groups in the Somali community.

A prior incident

Vice President JD Vance, during a press briefing, repeatedly called Good’s actions an “attack” on law enforcement and said the agent deserved “a debt of gratitude.”

Vance said the same agent had been dragged by a car last year and suffered injuries that required 33 stitches. That description matched a case from June 2025, when a migrant living in the country illegally tried to drive away while ICE agents were attempting to arrest him in Bloomington, Minnesota, dragging one officer about 100 yards (91 meters).

The officer, identified in court records as Jonathan Ross, suffered wounds to his arm and hand that took a total of 33 stitches to close, according to prosecutors. The driver was convicted last month of assaulting a federal officer.

DHS declined to identify the agent.

Meanwhile, more details began to emerge about Good, who had a 15-year-old daughter and two sons aged 12 and 6, according to the Washington Post.

Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota-based Community United Against Police Brutality and a paralegal for the National Lawyers Guild, told Reuters she knew first-hand of Good’s involvement as one of hundreds of community members taking part in neighborhood “observer” patrols, and “had been doing that” when she was killed.

Gross disputed assertions by Noem that Good “had been stalking and impeding” agents’ work all day.

“There was absolutely no justification for deadly force,” Gross said. “People are just exercising their First Amendment right to videotape police.”

What remains very much in dispute among federal and state officials is what happened in the moments leading up to the killing of Good.

Bystander videos show two masked officers approaching Good’s car, which was stopped at a perpendicular angle on a Minneapolis street. As one officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed at her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then began driving forward, turning to the right.

A third officer drew his gun and fired three times while jumping back, with the last shots aimed through the driver’s window after the car’s bumper appeared to have passed by his body.

It was unclear from the video whether the car came into contact with the officer, who stayed on his feet and could be seen walking after the incident. Trump said on social media that the woman “ran over the ICE Officer.” – Rappler.com