Tension over US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown rose across the United States after a second shooting involving immigration officers in two days deepened rifts between state and federal officials.
Protests intensified in Minnesota following Wednesday’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old mother by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Minnesota and U.S. officials offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, and state investigators said 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.
Portland police said early yesterday they arrested six people during protests near an ICE building in the city’s South Portland neighbourhood.
In both the Minneapolis and Portland shootings, US officials contend they were part of a 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 ‘neighbourhood 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 ‘weaponise’ 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 3km away and taken to hospital.
Facing the potential of civil unrest, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has put the state’s National Guard on alert.
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