--- title: How Trump's ICE Became an Agency in Crisis description: After two fatal shootings in Minnesota, much of the public and Congress view ICE as an out of control agency. Here's how it got that way. canonical: https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-01-26T22:32:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T13:10:32.718Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump's ICE Became an Agency in Crisis og:description: Soon after Inauguration, Trump dispensed with much of ICE's oversight and guardrails. og:url: https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc3ffe9a139e5a3/6998cd2883ec372712c7b4a1/GettyImages-2258017372.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Protests after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, January 2026 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump's ICE Became an Agency in Crisis twitter:description: Soon after Inauguration, Trump dispensed with much of ICE's oversight and guardrails. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc3ffe9a139e5a3/6998cd2883ec372712c7b4a1/GettyImages-2258017372.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # On Thin ICE in Minneapolis: How Trump's Immigration Crackdown Sparked a Crisis of Trust > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Jan 26, 2026 10:32 PM UTC  Federal oficers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies in South Minneapolis clash with a growing crowd of protesters soon after the killing of Alex Pretti in the area on Jan. 24, 2026. Federal oficers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies in South Minneapolis clash with a growing crowd of protesters soon after the killing of Alex Pretti in the area on Jan. 24, 2026.Richard Tsong-Taatarii—The Minnesota Star Tribune  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Jan 26, 2026 10:32 PM UTC In the aftermath of two fatal shootings in Minneapolis in which video evidence suggests federal agents may have ignored or defied protocol, the growing impression among legal experts, many lawmakers, and much of the public is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol are operating recklessly and far outside the norms of law enforcement. During a surge of thousands of federal agents to Minnesota for a sweeping immigration crackdown, federal officers shot and killed [Renee Good](https://time.com/7345243/ice-protests-renee-good/) on Jan. 7 and [Alex Pretti](https://time.com/7357687/alex-pretti-ice-minneapolis/) on Saturday. In both cases, the Trump administration has followed a pattern of smearing the victim, misrepresenting the facts, and refusing to cooperate with local investigators. Across the state, immigration agents have been seen arresting US citizens and legal immigrants, entering homes and vehicles without judicial warrants, and using excessive force against observers and protestors. The impact has been a mounting repudiation of President Donald Trump’s handling of the signature issue that helped him win back the White House less than two years ago. [Former ICE agents](https://time.com/7345954/ice-agents-renee-good/) have warned ICE’s conduct in Minnesota and elsewhere has damaged the agency’s reputation so badly that it may be harder for ICE to fulfill its mission of finding and deporting immigrants in the country illegally. ICE's transformation into its larger, more aggressive form, was a goal of the Trump Administration from the start of his second term. Within weeks of his Inauguration, Trump wiped away internal guidelines that told immigration agents to focus on deporting people with criminal convictions and blocked them from making arrests at schools, courthouses and places of worship. The Administration also quickly pared back mechanisms in place to keep ICE from abusing its power. Personnel cuts last year gutted offices tasked with monitoring the conduct of immigration officers including the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman and the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. There is enough uncertainty around oversight across the Trump Administration that the webpage for another watchdog with authority over ICE—the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties—includes a notice stating that the office “continues to exist and will perform its statutorily required functions.” While Trump stripped ICE of long-standing guardrails and oversight, the agency has gone on its [largest hiring spree ever](https://time.com/7308862/trump-ice-agent-salary-deportation/), more than doubling its manpower from 10,000 to 22,000 in less than a year. To put officers in the field more quickly, ICE shortened training at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia from 13 weeks to six weeks. ICE also waived its long-standing age limit for agents, accepting new agents as young as 18 and older than 40. The Administration's current immigration strategy, which prioritizes boosting deportations, is reflected in internal changes in ICE itself. In the fall, several senior leaders of ICE's field offices were replaced with leaders from Border Patrol and other agencies, [multiple](https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reorganization/2025/10/trump-administration-shakes-up-ice-leadership-across-the-country-in-major-overhaul/) [outlets](https://www.foxnews.com/us/ice-leadership-shakeup-exposes-growing-dhs-friction-over-deportation-tactics-priorities) report. A former ICE official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly tells TIME that the internal changes have been “concerning,” because Border Patrol has never previously enforced immigration laws in the interior part of the United States. All of this is happening while ICE’s budget has ballooned from around $10 billion annually to $85 billion, making it the nation’s highest-funded law enforcement agency. But polling shows that public sentiment is turning against ICE. A YouGov online [poll ](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53939-more-americans-support-than-oppose-abolishing-ice-immigration-minneapolis-shooting-poll)conducted the day after Pretti was shot and killed found that more Americans support abolishing ICE than oppose it, with 46% supporting abolishing ICE, 41% opposed, and 12% unsure. Most striking, 19% of Republicans “somewhat or strongly support” abolishing ICE, according to the poll, up from 12% of Republicans earlier this month. A clear majority of Americans, 58%, agreed with the description of ICE’s tactics as “too forceful.” Lindsay Nash, a law professor and expert on immigration enforcement at Cardozo School of Law in New York, says the Trump Administration came into office promising they were “taking the gloves off” and casting a wider net than previous administrations to more meaningfully reduce the number of people in the country illegally. In practice, that’s meant that ICE hasn't lived up to Trump's campaign promise to focus on deporting criminals. “The statistics don’t show ICE is making arrests according to what it says are its priorities.” Nash says. “Many people are being arrested who don’t have criminal convictions.”  In the days after Pretti was shot in Minneapolis, some Trump administration officials were quick to brand the VA hospital nurse as a threat to law enforcement. Kristi Noem, secretary of homeland security, said Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who has been leading the surge operations in Minneapolis, said it “looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” But videos from the scene show Pretti approaching officers with his hands up and a phone in his right hand. When officers surround Pretti on the ground, an officer appears to pull a handgun from Pretti’s waistband just before another officer opens fire. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters that Pretti was believed to be a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said that the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection are conducting investigations of the shooting. “Let's be clear about the circumstances which led to that moment on Saturday,” Leavitt said. “This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota." The conservative editorial boards at the Wall Street Journal and New York Post have turned on Trump’s harsh immigration actions in Minnesota. “However noble the mission is to rid the country of the ‘worst of the worst,’ the broad support for it is now ebbing fast,” the Post wrote, warning that if Trump followed through with his earlier threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota it would “backfire.” The Journal called the shooting of Pretti “a moral and political debacle” for Trump’s presidency and called for ICE to “pause” in Minneapolis. Even Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, one of the most outspoken advocates of immigration enforcement in the country, said Monday that ICE needed to ["recalibrate"](https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5707062-texas-abbott-immigration-minnesota/) its operations in Minnesota. In a sign that President Trump may be open to cooling down tensions in Minnesota, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he had a “very good call” with Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz that morning, and the two “actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength.” Trump also said Monday he was sending his “border czar” Tom Homan, a former acting head of ICE, to the state to talk to local officials and that Homan will report “directly” to Trump. Some legal experts argue that Trump administration officials have created a permissive atmosphere for immigration officials to employ excessive use of force, making deadly encounters more likely. After Renee Good was shot on Jan. 7, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller had this message for all ICE officers: “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.” Vice President JD Vance inaccurately said the officer who fired at Good’s head through the windshield of her car “is protected by absolute immunity.” Vance seemed to dial that back during a news conference in Minneapolis last week, saying officers would face discipline if they violate policies or the law. The American Civil Liberties Union has helped file a lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota demanding ICE end the pattern of illegal activities, including arresting people without warrants, stopping people without probable cause and racial profiling. That case was brought by a 20-year-old U.S. citizen named Mubashir Khalif Hussen, who alleges that on Dec. 10 in Minneapolis while walking to lunch, he was stopped by masked ICE agents who put into an SUV and took him to a federal building where he was shackled and fingerprinted before being released. “We are filing lawsuits about the illegality of their actions,” says ACLU attorney Naureen Shah. “They don’t have the kind of total immunity or the absolute prerogative to do whatever they want that the administration is asserting.” While such court action may lead to some changes, there are limits on a citizen’s ability to sue a federal officer for damages related to actions in the line of duty. Shah and the ACLU would like to see Congress pass a law that would give the public more power to operate more as guardrails on law enforcement in court. “What we often are doing is suing for injunctive relief–’stop that thing you are doing’--but we also would like to be able to sue for damages against the officers that are actually doing the harm,” Shah says. A measure called the Bivens Act that would allow people to sue for damages if their rights are violated by federal officials has been introduced by Democrats in the House and Senate, and has drawn the support of dozens of fellow Democrats. So far, no Republicans have signed on to sponsor the bills. —WITH REPORTING FROM PHILIP WANG ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/"},"headline":"On Thin ICE in Minneapolis: How Trump's Immigration Crackdown Sparked a Crisis of Trust","datePublished":"2026-01-26T22:32:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T13:10:32.718Z","description":"The impact has been a mounting repudiation of Trump on his signature issue","url":"https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc3ffe9a139e5a3/6998cd2883ec372712c7b4a1/GettyImages-2258017372.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc3ffe9a139e5a3/6998cd2883ec372712c7b4a1/GettyImages-2258017372.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Protests after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, January 2026","caption":"Protests after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, January 2026","creditText":"Richard Tsong-Taatarii—The Minnesota Star Tribune","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7358027/ice-agents-minnesota-alex-pretti-abolish-ice/","name":"On Thin ICE in Minneapolis: How Trump's Immigration Crackdown Sparked a Crisis of Trust"}}]}] ```