Why ICE agents face far less accountability than police
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
The investigation into the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good would likely be going very differently if a local police officer, instead of an ICE agent, had pulled the trigger last week in Minneapolis.
Why it matters: A local police shooting usually initiates a multi-agency investigation and the threat of prosecution. An ICE agent shooting is handled almost entirely inside the federal government — where accountability is far harder to reach.
- ICE is a relatively young federal agency — created after the 9/11 attacks with fewer guardrails — and hasn't faced the number of court challenges that forced other agencies to rein in their officers.
- That's unlikely to change under President Trump. His administration has halted all Department of Justice "pattern-or-practice" investigations into police departments accused of excessive force, and likely won't launch one into ICE despite a spike in shootings.
Catch up quick: Video footage of Good's death, watched by millions of Americans, splintered the nation into two irreconcilable camps, with one crying murder and the other terrorism.
- Trump accused Good of "violently, willfully, and viciously" running over an ICE officer, and said "it's hard to believe" the officer survived, though critics said footage showed Good posed no threat.
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President Vance also defended the ICE officer, as activists in hundreds of cities nationwide held "ICE Out For Good" protests last weekend.
Between the lines: Similar shootings or the use of excessive force by local police officers — when caught on video — are often followed by promises of a thorough investigation by independent agencies or a panel.
- If the case is one of many drawing scrutiny of that agency, the DOJ faces pressure to launch a pattern-or-practice probe. That could force a city, county, or state to enter a consent decree on court-ordered reforms aimed at revamping a department, changing hiring standards and agreeing to more oversight.
- DOJ's Civil Rights Division has launched dozens of pattern-and-practice investigations into local police departments since the 1990s.
- But ICE has never faced one of them.
Zoom in: There have been at least seven ICE officer-involved shootings, two of them fatal, since Trump surged Homeland Security agents in city-by-city operations in early 2025, Axios' Brittany Gibson reports.
- An Axios analysis of publicly known ICE excessive force cases shows that before 2025, the agency, on average, had one agent shooting case per year, and sometimes had none.
The big picture: An uptick in alleged abuse since Trump re-entered office should trigger a DOJ pattern-and-practice probe into ICE, Ira Kurzban, a civil rights lawyer and author of "Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook," tells Axios.
- A growing number of U.S. citizens — many of them Latinos — have reported getting detained by ICE agents in what critics say are instances of racial profiling and overzealous policing.
- Some Native American tribes say ICE immigration agents are harassing tribal members.
- "The central question isn't whether they can prosecute. It's whether this Justice Department is willing to act like a Justice Department and actually do it," Kurzban said.
What we're watching: Minnesota officials are launching their own investigation into possible state charges against the ICE agent for Good's killing.
- Some are accusing the Trump administration of limiting access to materials, interviews and the scene, possibly setting up more legal fights.
Flashback: The 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff raised the same legal knot now dogging the ICE agent shooting.
- In 1997, an Idaho prosecutor charged FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for manslaughter after he fatally shot an unarmed woman during the standoff.
- The case was fought in court for years over the question of federal immunity, but was later dropped by another Idaho prosecutor.
