WASHINGTON — When a 37-year-old mother of three was fatally shot by an immigration agent Wednesday morning, driving in her Minneapolis neighborhood after dropping her son off at school, the Trump administration’s response was swift. The victim was to blame for her own death — acting as a “professional agitator,” a “domestic terrorist,” possibly trained to use her car against law enforcement, officials said.
It was an uncompromising response without any pretense the administration would rely on independent investigations of the event, video of which quickly circulated online, gripping the nation.
“You can accept that this woman’s death is a tragedy,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media, defending the shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent within hours of her death, “while acknowledging it’s a tragedy of her own making.”
The shooting of Renee Nicole Good, an American citizen, put the administration on defense over one of President Trump’s signature policy initiatives, exponentially expanding the ranks of ICE to outnumber most armies, and deploying its agents across unassuming communities throughout the United States.
ICE had just announced the deployment of “the largest immigration operation ever” in the Minnesota city, allegedly targeting Somali residents involved in fraud schemes. But Good’s death could prove a turning point. The shooting has highlighted souring public opinion on Trump’s immigration enforcement, with a majority of Americans now disapproving of the administration’s tactics, according to Pew Research.
Despite the outcry, Trump’s team doubled down on Thursday, vowing to send even more agents to the Midwestern state.
It was not immediately clear whether Good had positioned her car intentionally to thwart law enforcement agents, or in protest of their activities in her neighborhood.
Eyewitnesses to the shooting said that ICE agents were telling her to move her vehicle. Initial footage that emerged of the incident showed that, as she was doing so, Good briefly drove her car in reverse before turning her front wheels away to leave the scene.
She was shot three times by an officer who stood by her front left headlight, who the Department of Homeland Security said was hit by Good and fired in self-defense.
Only Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, urged caution from lawmakers and the public in responding to the incident, telling people to “take a deep breath” and “hold their judgment” for additional footage and evidence.
He distanced himself from the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Kristi Noem, who took mere hours to accuse the deceased of domestic terrorism. “The investigation’s just started,” Homan told CBS in an interview.
“I’m not going to make a judgment call on one video,” he said. “It would be unprofessional to comment.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Renee Nicole Good was engaged in “domestic terrorism” when she was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent.
(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
Yet, asked why DHS had felt compelled to comment, Homan replied, “that’s a question for Homeland Security.”
It was not just the department. Trump, too, wrote on X that the victim was “obviously, a professional agitator.”
“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” Trump wrote, “who seems to have shot her in self defense.”
Noem was unequivocal in her assessment of the incident during engagements with the media on Wednesday and Thursday.
“It was an act of domestic terrorism,” Noem said. “A woman attacked them, and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over.”
But local officials and law enforcement expressed concern over the incident, warning federal officials that the deployment had unnecessarily increased tensions within the community, and expressing support for the rights of residents to peacefully protest.
“What I think everybody knows that’s been happening here over the last several weeks is that there have been groups of people exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” Minneapolis Chief of Police Brian O’Hara said in an interview with MS NOW. “They have the right to observe, to livestream and record police activity, and they have the right to protest and object to it.”
“The line is, people must be able to exercise those 1st Amendment rights lawfully,” O’Hara said, adding, “and to do it safely.”
On Thursday, Trump administration officials told local law enforcement that the investigation of the matter would be within federal hands.
Vance told reporters at the White House on Thursday that the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security would both investigate the case, and said without evidence that Good had “aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator.”
“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers,” Vance said.