Trump flooded the streets with ICE agents. One just killed an unarmed woman.

Good cops have been shouting from the rooftops that this would happen.

Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Donald Trump made targeting immigrants the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign. And while he’s broken nearly all of his other policy promises—lowering costs, ending all wars, delivering full employment, fixing America’s broken healthcare system—this is one his administration has been laser-focused on.

As soon as he reentered office, Trump rolled out a macho-toned recruitment campaign for 10,000 new ICE agents. The campaign was replete with thinly veiled white nationalist appeals, and sent a clear message: The administration is building a law enforcement arm accountable to Trump and Trump alone.

Then he set to work deploying federal agents to US cities—Los Angeles, Washington DC, Memphis, Chicago, New York, and most recently Minneapolis. These are big, blue cities that Trump writes off as “blood-soaked” “cesspools,” and the campaign is clearly aimed at sending yet another message: If you’re not an ardent supporter of this administration, we’ll put boots on the ground in your community.

The latest action: surging 2,000 ICE agents into Minneapolis amid swirling administration-driven conspiracy theories trying to tar the state’s entire Somali immigrant population because of fraud committed by a small group of criminals. These theories are as racist as they are false, and the president’s disgusting recent attack against Rep. Ilhan Omar on social media is a low point in a first term that plunges new depths daily.

And now, within days of the start of this latest occupation, a masked ICE agent shot and killed an unarmed 37-year-old woman in her car. The Department of Homeland Security claims that she “weaponized her vehicle” in “an act of domestic terrorism.” But multiple videos from the scene show that the ICE agent continued firing at the woman after he was out of the path of her car and clearly in no danger.

What’s more, this kind of wanton abuse fits within the broader pattern of ICE agents’ behavior toward the public they’re supposed to protect and serve. We’ve seen them manhandle defenseless delivery drivers, whisk away 71-year-old abuelitas, shoot priests in the head with pepper balls, point loaded guns at pedestrians, and attack “liberals” for ruining the country.

The killing is senseless, disturbing, infuriating—and sadly predictable. As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stated in response to the killing: “We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety.” And now here is the tragic proof.

The city’s police chief, Brian O’Hara, noted that there is “nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity.” Chief O’Hara also tried to ring the alarm in advance about this kind of senseless killing, saying in December that ICE’s strong-arm tactics have “been very destabilizing for a lot of people in the community.” And yet, here we are.

This is not the first time an incident like this has happened amid the administration’s war on immigrants, and it won’t be the last. We saw similar shootings in Chicago in September and Los Angeles in November. The New York Times reports that at least 10 such shootings have been documented since the start of Trump’s second term.

Here at Home of the Brave, we’ve been ringing the alarm about ICE’s thug tactics as well. DC police officer and January 6 hero Daniel Hodges, my friend and former colleague, wrote in these pages in September: “ICE … has created an atmosphere of dread for many of our Hispanic residents who are now afraid to go to work, lest they be abducted under the color of law.”

Here’s Chief Rick Myers, a career cop who ran law enforcement agencies in seven different cities: “Right now, ICE is acting like instilling fear is its goal. But fear doesn’t make for good policing; it’s counterproductive to our work overall.”

Retired Staff Inspector Thomas J. Cowper from the New York State Police: “Many police officers are on our side today, and still working out the right way to proceed … Save your peaceful rage for ICE, Border Patrol, and those who actively support this fascist regime trying to end democracy in America.”

And retired Sheriff Dave Mahoney, who ran the National Sheriffs’ Association: “Unfortunately, many of the current tactics on display by federal law enforcement—especially ICE—seem designed to alienate citizens from law enforcement.”

We at Home of the Brave, and these officers in particular, have been shouting from the rooftops for months: The kind of senseless, tragic killing we’ve just witnessed in Minneapolis is a predictable outcome of the current drive to take over communities, assert government power, and intimidate locals into submission.

What happens next will follow a familiar, depressing pattern: Trump, his administration lackeys, and his defenders will rally around the ICE agent, lionize his actions, and write off any criticism as BLM-antifa-Somali-terror-mongering. Those of us who see the clear injustice of it all will call out this pack of lies for what they are.

Federal agents will continue to operate throughout Minneapolis—and other American cities to be determined. In the meanwhile, it’s the people in the community who will suffer, and mourn, and reflect, and wonder: How much more of this can we take?

Michael Fanone is a former police officer who defended the Capitol on January 6. He is an Advisory Board Member and Spokesman for Home of the Brave, an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness. You can subscribe to his Substack here.