What is ICE and how has it changed during Trump’s second term?

The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday was the second such incident in four months involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

It’s also arguably the biggest flashpoint yet, as Donald Trump’s second administration has called on ICE and other agencies to pursue an aggressive deportation strategy.

Here’s a look at the history of ICE and some of the major developments and controversies surrounding the agency during the first year of Trump’s second term.

ICE expansion over 20 years

ICE emerged after the enactment of the Homeland Security Act in 2002, as the United States sought to deal with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Individuals from four countries arrived in the United States in early 2000 and prepared and trained for the September 11 hijackings.

Responsibilities and functions previously carried out by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) personnel under the Department of Labor were reconsidered, and ICE was established in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on the deportation of unauthorized persons in the United States and the eradication of cross-border migrant smuggling.

The United States once and today has a significant number of unauthorized people in its territory – the total is currently estimated at around 12 million by various immigration think tanks. While President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to a few million undocumented immigrants in 1986, this type of measure has not taken place since.

Both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations have used ICE – Barack Obama has been called by some critics “the deporter in chief.” But from the start of his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump focused on illegal immigration in an unprecedented way.

Speaking to CBC Front burner podcast in 2025, American historian Adam Goodman said that over the years, “we’ve seen a real shift from the service side of the immigration bureaucracy to the enforcement side of the immigration bureaucracy.”

During his first administration, Trump sought, through executive orders and his own pulpit, to put pressure on some local and state law enforcement agencies that, over the years, began to limit their cooperation with ICE in certain circumstances.

Since his political comeback ended last year, Trump and some of his closest advisers – including Stephen Miller – have expressed a desire for a million deportations a year.

The first-year Trump budget allocated more than $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, with $75 billion allocated to ICE for further immigration arrests, including building more detention centers. In a critical analysis of the administrationThe liberal Brennan Center for Justice said ICE’s 2025 budget, at nearly $29 billion, was nearly triple the amount of the previous year’s budget.

ICE tactics and arrests

Much attention has been focused over the past year on ICE agents wearing masks and not identifying themselves.

Todd Lyons, who has been acting ICE director since last March and has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, has said in several interviews that this can sometimes be done to prevent doxxing of officers.

“I am not in favor of masks. However, if it is a tool [for] “It’s up to the men and women of ICE to keep themselves and their families safe, so I will allow it,” he told CBS. Face the nation in July.

Even more serious, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents have used chemical agents and flash bangs in some incidents. During a raid on a Chicago building targeting gang members, officers recalled from Black Hawk helicopter.

Lyons said ICE was focused on detaining the worst offenders for possible deportation, but anyone in the U.S. without authorization would be subject to arrest, given the administration’s priorities.

Mike Fox, a researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, criticized this approach in September in an interview with CBC News.

“THE [deportation] the numbers will be much lower if you actually focus on the violent people you should be focusing on,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to stand in front of a Home Depot and bring people together. »

Cato is among a number of think tanks and civil rights groups that point out that statistics provided by the federal government have shown that a significant number of people detained by ICE have not had criminal records since entering the United States.

Lyons stressed that the data does not take into account criminal records from countries of origin.

Dozens of Canadian citizens are among those detained. Given the administration’s goals, this development is not surprising: In terms of visa overstays in the United States, Canadians still rank high on the list.

The courts have not significantly hindered how ICE conducts its business, with progressive organizations and some Democrats opposing it. what they now call “Kavanaugh Stops”, since a controversial Supreme Court order in September.

“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot fuel reasonable suspicion; however, according to the Court’s jurisprudence regarding immigration controls, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered with other salient factors.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote.

Shootings, but not indictments

Good’s killing was the second fatal shooting by an ICE officer in four months. Good, a U.S. citizen, was not the target of any immigration enforcement and it is unclear what agents were doing in the Minneapolis area.

ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old Mexican cook, during a traffic stop in suburban Chicago on September 12. The FBI and DHS have not yet released any information regarding previously announced investigations into the shooting.

In the past eight months, three other people – two in California and one in Virginia – have died in accidents while fleeing ICE raids.

Meanwhile, a gunman who opened fire at an ICE facility in Dallas last year killed a detainee instead of the federal agents he was allegedly targeting. There were also non-fatal shootings in Texas last summer, near an immigration center and a U.S. Border Patrol facility.

ICE-related shootings before this year were rare but not unprecedented, according to The Trace, a news outlet devoted to gun-related news. What is new are the prosecutions.

By obtaining court records from a lawsuit filed by a shooting victim, The Trace said it revealed that between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE agents took place in 26 U.S. states, resulting in 23 deaths.

“There is no evidence that any ICE agent has been charged,” The Trace reported.

According to a Reuters legal analysisfederal agents are generally immune from state prosecution if they are carrying out their official duties. At the federal level, a prosecution would face the challenge of proving that the officer did not believe he was potentially at risk of death or serious injury.

When it comes to civil litigation, ICE agents, like police officers, have qualified immunity for workplace shootings, although some Democrats would like to change that.

It is also worth considering that Trump has made liberal use of his power to pardon or grant sentence commutations to people accused of or convicted of crimes. During his decade as a politician, Trump has, with the exception of the 2021 Capitol riot, supported aggressive law enforcement tactics.

While Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said in a CBS interview Wednesday that he wanted the investigation into Good’s death to “play out” before making any conclusive statements, the president himself and other officials quickly sought to promote a narrative that absolved the unidentified officer and called into question the victim’s actions leading up to the shooting.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday the shooting was a response to “an act of domestic terrorism.”