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Federal agents in the United States have shot and injured two people in the city of Portland, Oregon, a city where the administration of President Donald Trump has led an immigration enforcement crackdown.

The shooting was the second time in less than a day that federal immigration authorities claimed to have fired upon a vehicle in self-defence, following a deadly shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

On Thursday, the Portland Police Department announced they had responded to reports of gunfire on southeast Main Street at about 2:18pm local time (22:18 GMT).

“Officers confirmed that federal agents had been involved in a shooting,” the city said in a statement.

Emergency responders then received a call for assistance from one of the shooting victims, a man, at about 2:24pm (22:24 GMT) near Northeast 146th Avenue and East Burnside in Portland’s Hazelwood neighbourhood.

“Officers responded and found a male and female with apparent gunshot wounds,” the statement said. “Officers applied a tourniquet and summoned emergency medical personnel.”

The two shooting victims were transported to hospital. Their conditions remain unknown, according to the police, who were not involved in the shooting.

The local bureau of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed the shooting in a now-deleted post on social media, saying that the incident involved Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents.

“This remains an active and ongoing investigation led by the FBI,” Portland’s FBI bureau said in the post.

Later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered its own account of what happened, describing the shooting as self-defence during a “targeted vehicle stop”.

In a social media post, DHS said its target was a passenger travelling inside a vehicle, who was affiliated with a “transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring and involved in a recent shooting”. The driver, DHS claimed, was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.

“When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents,” DHS said in the post.

“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”

Second agent-involved shooting

Details about Thursday’s shooting remain unknown. But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced criticism for misrepresenting incidents where federal agents deployed violence as part of its nationwide immigration crackdown.

The Portland shooting comes one day after an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, in her car in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Just one day after the horrific violence in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents, our community here in Portland is now grappling with another deeply troubling incident,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement.

“We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”

Good’s death has triggered widespread outrage, as well as criticism that the Trump administration rushed to disseminate a misleading narrative about the Minneapolis shooting.

Video of Good’s shooting showed the 37-year-old stopped in her SUV on a snowy Minneapolis road, appearing to wave other drivers by.

A vehicle carrying ICE officers stopped next to her vehicle, and agents approached her, reaching for the handle of her car door. One approached the front of her vehicle. As her car appeared to turn and manoeuvre away, that agent fired multiple times into the vehicle, killing Good.

In that case, too, Trump administration officials claim the ICE agent acted in self-defence, despite the fact that the vehicle did not seem to make contact with his body.

Trump asserted – without evidence – that Good was a “professional agitator” who “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer”. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also accused Good of a “domestic act of terrorism”, despite there being no evidence Good sought to harm the ICE agent.

Democratic officials have accused the Trump administration of spreading false narratives to distract from its own abuses during the immigration crackdown.

Still, officials in Portland repeatedly called for calm in the aftermath of Thursday’s shooting, while acknowledging the parallels between the incidents.

“We are still in the early stages of this incident,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day said in a statement.

“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”

Mayor Wilson, meanwhile, called for federal immigration agents to leave the city, arguing that they had endangered local citizens with their heavy-handed actions.

“Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences,” Wilson said.

“As Mayor, I call on ICE to end all operations in Portland until a full investigation can be completed. Federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region.”

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, meanwhile, expressed “huge concern” over the incident and suggested that responding with anger would only fuel the Trump administration’s fixation with Portland.

“Trump wants to generate riots,” he wrote. “Don’t take the bait.”

Portland under a microscope

Portland has long been a focal point of Trump’s immigration enforcement actions, and the increased federal presence has ignited largely nonviolent protests in response.

Long seen as a Democratic stronghold, Portland was identified in May as one of the “sanctuary jurisdictions” that the Trump administration identified as resisting its immigration crackdown.

The Republican president hinted he could surge federal agents to the area in response.

In September, those threats appeared to materialise when Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he would be sending the US military to support immigration operations in the city.

The announcement came five days after Trump declared antifa – the loose-knit antifascist movement – a “domestic terrorist organisation”.

“I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote. “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

It was the latest in the string of instances where Trump attempted to send federal troops to largely Democratic urban areas, including Los Angeles and Chicago, Illinois.

Local officials denounced the deployment as a violation of the law and a misuse of executive authority. But the Trump administration doubled down, describing Portland as overrun by criminal behaviour.

“ In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our officers and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law,” Trump said at an October roundtable.

In response, some protesters in Portland began arriving in inflatable frog costumes, in an effort to cast Trump’s warnings about violent extremists as absurd. The Portland Frog Brigade, as the protesters were called, inspired similar demonstrations nationwide.

State and local leaders fought Trump’s troop deployment in court, and on November 7, US District Judge Karin Immergut permanently blocked the deployment.

The US Supreme Court in December declined the Trump administration’s appeal to allow National Guard troops in areas where lower courts had barred them.

On Thursday, Mayor Wilson called for accountability in the recent shootings, saying he would protect local residents’ civil liberties.

“ICE agents and their Homeland Security leadership must be fully investigated and held responsible for their violence against the American people, in Minnesota, in Portland, and across the nation,” he said.

He repeated the message that Portland residents should not seek retribution in the aftermath of the gunfire.

“Portland does not respond to violence with violence. We respond with clarity, unity, and a commitment to justice. We must stand together to protect Portland,” he said.

An attempted ICE arrest outside Baltimore turned violent after a man allegedly drove into law enforcement vehicles.

Two people were injured in a suburb of Baltimore after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents fired shots at a moving vehicle whose driver was allegedly evading arrest, according to US authorities.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said ICE agents had attempted to arrest two men from Portugal and El Salvador – who were allegedly living in the US illegally – as they were driving through Glen Burnie, Maryland, on Wednesday.

DHS said in a post on X that officers approached the vehicle and told the driver to turn off his engine, but the driver did not cooperate and instead drove into several ICE vehicles.

“Fearing for their lives and public safety, the ICE officers defensively fired their service weapons, striking the driver,” DHS said in a statement on X. The driver “then wrecked his van between two buildings, injuring the passenger”.

The two men later received medical attention, and no ICE agents were hurt during the incident, DHS said.

“Our brave officers are risking their lives every day to keep American communities safe by arresting and removing illegal aliens from our streets,” the DHS post also said. “Continued efforts to encourage illegal aliens and violent agitators to actively resist ICE will only lead to more violent incidents, the extremist rhetoric must stop.”

Local police confirmed to ABC News that ICE agents had approached a “white van” during an arrest on Wednesday and reported that the driver “attempted to run the agents over”.

The ICE agents then fired at the vehicle, which accelerated before coming to a rest in a wooded area of residential Glen Burnie, Maryland, ABC said.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore wrote on X that he was “aware of the ICE-involved shooting”,  and his office would continue to share more information as the investigation unfolded.

The shooting follows a similar incident in Minnesota on Sunday, when ICE agents fired shots at a Cuban man who also resisted arrest and attempted to ram ICE vehicles, according to ABC News.

The man, who had entered the US on a discontinued asylum programme, was approached by ICE agents in the city of St Paul while in an SUV.

The agents threatened to break his windows if he did not speak with them, prompting the man to drive away, ABC reported, citing Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. During the incident, the man hit an ICE agent with his vehicle.

The situation escalated when ICE agents pursued the man to his apartment building, where he later rammed an ICE vehicle with his SUV and hit a second agent, ABC said. ICE agents fired several shots before arresting the man, the report said.

A top Amazon executive has said the US technology giant has blocked more than 1,800 job applications from suspected North Korean agents.

North Koreans tried to apply for remote working IT jobs using stolen or fake identities, Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said in a LinkedIn post.

“Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” he said, adding that this trend is likely to be happening at scale across the industry, especially in the US.

Authorities in the US and South Korea have warned about Pyongyang’s operatives carrying out online scams.

Amazon has seen a nearly one-third increase in job applications from North Koreans in the past year, said Mr Schmidt in his post.

He said the operatives typically work with people managing “laptop farms” – referring to computers based in the US that are run remotely from outside of the country.

The firm used a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and verification by its staff to screen job applications, he said.

The strategies used by such fraudsters have become more sophisticated, Mr Schmidt said.

Bad actors are hijacking dormant LinkedIn accounts using leaked credentials to gain verification. They target genuine software engineers to appear credible, he said, urging firms to report suspicious job applications to the authorities.

Mr Schmidt warned employers to look out for indicators of fraudulent North Korean job applications, including incorrectly formatted phone numbers and mismatched education histories.

In June, the US government said it had uncovered 29 “laptop farms” that were being operated illegally across the country by North Korean IT workers.

They used stolen or forged identities of Americans to help North Korean nationals get jobs in the US, said the Department of Justice (DOJ).

It also indicted US brokers who had helped secure jobs for the North Korean operatives.

In July, a woman from Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in jail for running a laptop farm to help North Korean IT workers secure remote jobs at more than 300 US companies.

The DOJ said the scheme generated more than $17m (£12.6m) in illicit gains for her and Pyongyang.

MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction Thursday, marking a victory for President Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.

Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.

The jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for six hours. Dugan faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced, but no date had been set as of late Thursday evening.

The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.

Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later told reporters that he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.

U.S. Atty. Brad Schimel denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully. He said courthouse arrests are safer because people are screened for weapons and it isn’t unfair for law enforcement to arrest wanted people in courthouses.

“Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”

U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche praised the verdict on X, saying nobody is above the law, even judges.

According to court filings that include an FBI affidavit and a federal grand jury indictment, immigration authorities traveled to the Milwaukee County courthouse on April 18 after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan learned that agents were in the corridor outside her courtroom waiting for Flores-Ruiz. She left the courtroom to confront them, falsely telling them their administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest him and directing them to go to the chief judge’s office.

While the agents were gone, she addressed Flores-Ruiz’s case off the record, told his attorney that he could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led Flores-Ruiz and the attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.

Prosecutors worked during Dugan’s trial to show that she directed agents to the chief judge’s office to create an opening for Flores-Ruiz to escape.

An FBI agent who led the investigation testified that after agents left the corridor, she immediately moved Flores-Ruiz’s case to the top of her docket, told him that he could appear for his next hearing via Zoom and led him out the private door.

Prosecutors also played audio recordings from her courtroom in which she can be heard telling her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for leading Flores-Ruiz out the back.

Her attorneys countered that she was trying to follow courthouse protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors and she didn’t intentionally try to obstruct the arrest team.

Richmond writes for the Associated Press.

Dec. 15 (UPI) — The trial for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan began Monday, with prosecutors playing audio of the judge saying she’ll “get the heat” by showing an undocumented defendant how to leave her courtroom to avoid immigration officials.

Dugan pleaded not guilty earlier this year to federal charges including one count of obstructing and official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest and another of concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.

The case stems from an incident on April 18, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to her courtroom and notified her they planned to arrest undocumented immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. They said she sent the agents to the chief judge’s office before going back to her courtroom, pushing Flores-Ruiz’s case to the front of her docket, then helped him and his lawyer leave from a private jury door.

The ICE agents ultimately found and arrested Flores-Ruiz.

During Monday’s trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Alexander played audio from the day appearing to depict Dugan speaking with the court reporter, Joan Butz, who offers to show Flores-Ruiz the private door. Dugan says, “I’ll do it. I’ll get the heat.”

Alexander said Dugan’s actions were tantamount to formulating an escape plan for Flores-Ruiz, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“The judicial robe the defendant wore that morning did not put her above the law,” Alexander said in his opening statements.

Dugan’s lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, said the private jury door Dugan showed Flores-Ruiz wasn’t hidden and was less than 12 feet away from the public doors of the courtroom. He said she didn’t seek to thwart ICE agents.

“Not even as far as your jury box,” he said. “There was a federal agent to the left and to the right.”

Biskupic said that instead of arresting Flores-Ruiz, the federal agents chose to follow him outside and arrest him after a foot chase, NBC News reported.

“Now, after the fact, everyone wants to blame Judge Dugan,” he said.