So far in 2026, Minneapolis has recorded three homicides. Two of those deaths were at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
As part of President Donald Trump’s broader crackdown on purportedly illegal immigration, at the end of 2025 the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. This operation resulted in 2,000 federal agents from both ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) being deployed in what the government described as the “largest immigration operation ever.”
In response, protests have grown, particularly in Minneapolis, where federal agents have been accused of especially aggressive behaviour that led to the deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and, just days later, Alex Pretti.
In the immediate aftermath of these incidents, government officials claimed that Good attempted to run an ICE officer over with her car and that Pretti intended to assassinate a federal agent, and that both killings were in self‑defence.
Without any investigation, Pretti and Good have been labelled by high-ranking officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, as “domestic terrorists.”
However, video evidence and eyewitness testimony, at this moment, appears to contradict the claims the Trump administration has been making about these two deaths.
While the government claims Good was charging at federal officers with her vehicle, video footage analyzed by the New York Times suggests her car had been turning away from the officer as he opened fire, not towards him. Good’s last words caught on camera were “I’m not mad at you” to an ICE agent.
In the case of Alex Pretti, a 37‑year‑old ICU nurse, video evidence and eyewitness accounts show he was attempting to help a woman, after an ICE officer appeared to have shoved her, and was holding only a phone moments before he was tackled by federal agents. Multiple videos indicate that he did not brandish a weapon and that an agent disarmed Pretti before shooting him, contradicting government officials’ claims that he was a would‑be assassin.
These two incidents have only intensified concerns from the public and activists as to what type of tactics ICE has been using, who they have been detaining, and the lack of accountability measures in place.
ICE detainees
In May of 2025, ICE staged raids in California specifically at places where Latino people are known to work, shop, eat, and live. They dramatically increased arrests of people who do not have any record of criminal behaviour.
In 2025, the CATO institute conducted a study revealing only five per cent of those detained by ICE have a criminal conviction for violent acts and 73 per cent have no conviction at all.
The Trump administration had deported Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, who was legally residing in the United States, to a detention facility in El Salvador. The administration later returned him after a court ruling.
In addition, ICE, at the behest of the Trump administration, has deported students critical of U.S. policy toward Israel. They were also brought back after courts ordered their return, based on reasoning that their First Amendment rights had been violated.
Concerns over ICE tactics
Agents operating throughout American cities have been masked to conceal their identities and have been accused by reputable human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of excessive force, including smashing car windows, dragging people out of their vehicles, threatening unarmed people by pointing firearms at them, and using chemical irritants against protestors and bystanders.
“The news broke last week that there is a new internal memo going around ICE saying that in certain circumstances they can knock down people’s doors to drag them out of their houses without a warrant from a judge,” said Jeremy Jong, a staff lawyer for Al Otro Lado, an organization that provides legal services to migrants, in an interview with rabble.
Conditions in ICE facilities
Beyond the tactics of ICE officers, there have long been concerns over the conditions inside detention facilities for detainees.
Speaking about the conditions in detention facilities, Jong stated, “I would emphasize they are deadly.”
Amnesty International, in 2025, published a report that found detainees living in insanitary environments with overflowing toilets, fecal matter in sleeping areas, a lack of food, poor-quality water, limited shower space, and a lack of access to proper medical care, leading to a decline in the health of detainees.
“Even people who don’t have legal immigration status don’t deserve to die in detention centres,” said Jong.
A lack of oversight for ICE officers
There is a lack of accountability measures in place for ICE officers and potential abuses they may engage in.
The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which “allowed for the centralized collection of reports of misconduct, making it easier to identify past misconduct allegations in the hiring process,” has been disbanded by President Trump.
Additionally, when President Trump came into power, his administration gutted various offices responsible for ICE oversight by firing hundreds of employees, including the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), and the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman (CIS).
This has disrupted hundreds of investigations into civil rights violations.
Most recently, in the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, control of investigations has been shifted to internal units in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), rather than being investigated by independent civil rights prosecutors. There has also been a restriction of state access to evidence in the deaths of the two individuals.
“The message from the administration is loud and clear. Do what you do, create maximum terror, do whatever you want to deport as many people as possible, don’t let anyone get in your way, and if something happens, if you kill somebody, don’t worry, we have your back. We will make sure nothing happens to you. There is a culture of impunity,” said Jong.
Concerns over corporate Canada’s ties to ICE
These acts combined have raised concerns from the public in Canada that Canadian companies are complicit in these abuses.
A recent report from the Globe and Mail has revealed that Hootsuite, a social media management platform, has taken $95,000 in contracts from ICE to engage in “social media listening” to gauge what the prevailing public sentiment about the organization is.
Hootsuite expressed, in internal emails, that their goal is to continue doing business with ICE to “support their mission.”
Roshel, a Canadian defence and security company headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, that specialises in manufacturing armoured vehicles, has been accused of selling vehicles to ICE. The Ontario NDP released a statement saying, “Ontario’s Official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles is calling for an end to Ontario’s manufacturing contract with ICE — referred to by Premier Ford as ‘fantastic’ — to ensure that both Ontario and Canada have no part in the atrocities being committed in the United States.”
However, it has since been reported that it is not the Brampton branch of Roshel that is producing the armoured vehicles, but a new facility based in the United States.
From a Canadian export controls perspective, the federal government has little action it can take because the vehicles are being produced in a different jurisdiction.
Despite this, politicians in Canada have put forward a motion, Bill C‑233, demanding greater transparency into Canada’s arms deals with the United States to ensure greater oversight for where our products end up.
While this had been put forward by the NDP to block Canadian weaponry from being used by the Israel Defense Forces, others have suggested it can be used to investigate whether or not the products of Canadian defence organizations are ending up in the hands of ICE officers.
Bill C‑233 aims to increase transparency by mandating all military exports are reported to Parliament so Canadians could see where arms are going and how they are being used. It also requires a human rights assessment where it would have to be examined whether the goods being exported could contribute to human rights violations. None of these are required at the moment in dealings with the United States, making it more difficult to assess the extent of Canadian complicity in the potential abuses by ICE officers from an arms perspective.
Moreover, a Vancouver-based organisation called the Jim Pattison Group is selling property in Virginia to DHS that can be used as an ICE processing facility.
In response to these business dealings, the Attorney General of British Columbia, Niki Sharma, stated at a press conference, “That calls upon business leaders across this province, including the whole country, to think about their role in what is unfolding there and to make decisions that would not lead to some of the outcomes that we’re seeing unfold in the States.”
“ICE and the Trump administration… they rely on international logistics to carry out human-right abuses,” said Jong.
People should “figure out what companies are critical to ICE’s mission and pressure them to withdraw their support,” Jong added.
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