Four people have been shot to death by federal immigration officers so far in 2026. Joan Sebastian Guerrero died July 13 in Maine, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo died July 7 in Houston, both in targeted traffic stops in which they were reportedly misidentified. Alex Pretti and Renee Good died on January 24 and January 7 during clashes with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
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After ICE’s invasion of Minneapolis in January that purported to “crackdown” on undocumented immigrants and the March departure of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, her successor Markwayne Mullin promised to take, as POLITICO reported, “a lower-profile approach to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, mothballing the flashy and aggressive tactics employed by his predecessor.”
But as the recent fatal shootings remind us, ICE is still killing people on the streets of places as distinct as Houston, Texas, and Biddeford, Maine. That helps explain why a majority of the American public “disapprove of the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.”
The federal immigration officers who allegedly carried out those shootings have also not been held accountable for their actions. Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot Good in Minneapolis, has not been disciplined by ICE or DHS, let alone faced any federal or state criminal charges.
As the state of Minnesota following Good’s death, “The people of Minnesota are entitled to basic safety and dignity in their communities . . . They expect that law enforcement, whether federal, state, or local, will follow the law, avoid creating dangerous and chaotic circumstances, and conduct itself in a manner that distinguishes officers from masked criminals.”
“Indeed,” it added, “being free from unlawful seizures, excessive force, and retaliation are not a list of aspirations Minnesotans deserve; these are rights enshrined within state and federal laws.” Not surprisingly, during its immigration crackdown across the country, the Trump administration has done little to protect those rights.
The latest sign of the administration’s aggressive and evasive attitude came on July 19, when the New York Times reported that FBI agents were informed that the bureau “would no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents — cases that sometimes yield evidence that could be used to prosecute Department of Homeland Security agents implicated in violent encounters.”
In other words, the FBI will be leaving DHS to, as the Times noted, “investigate itself.”
Thomas Hobbes wrote that in a just society, “no man can be a judge in his own cause.” This principle has been a bedrock of American law — until Donald Trump became president.
More than four centuries ago, an English political theorist explained why that approach is so wrong. Thomas Hobbes wrote that in a just society, “no man can be a judge in his own cause.” This principle has been a bedrock of American law — until Donald Trump became president. Now, circling the wagons, covering one’s tracks and letting agencies investigate themselves has become the order of the day.
ICE, DHS and the rest of the administration have followed a standard script after fatal shootings by federal immigration officers, claiming that the killings were acts of self-defense or, as in the killing of Guerrero, that the shooting officer “[feared] for public safety.”
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This version of events should not have surprised anyone who paid attention to the ICE shootings in Minneapolis. There, Trump and administration officials confidently painted Good and Pretti as dangerous, domestic terrorists. Both were U.S. citizens; Good was a white mother of young children, and Pretti was a white Veterans Affairs nurse with a legal permit to carry a firearm. What can we expect when the victim is an immigrant of color?
The latest ICE killings present a clear example of a stark difference, if not in basic morality, then at least in the framing of victim and aggressor. “Our frames help determine what evidence we focus on, and how we interpret that evidence, as well as what evidence we leave out of consideration.” Dr. Kate Starbird, co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public and professor at the University of Washington, explained in a recent essay.
But what happens when one frame precludes federal agencies, like the FBI, from considering, or even gathering, evidence to see whether ICE killings are justified? One consequence is that career professionals in the FBI take the hint and leave.
Ironically, amid the administration’s cries about border control, about 300 special agents who specialize in national security have quit the FBI, “taking,” as the Economist pointed out, “decades of experience in counterterrorism and cyber-warfare with them.”
Not everyone is leaving on their own accord. Earlier this year, former federal agents sued the FBI, alleging that they were terminated “solely” because of their participation in an investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Such actions underscore the FBI’s descent into cronyism and how it has become more interested in protecting the Trump administration than the American people. While the bureau turns its attention to other matters, holding ICE agents to account may require aggressive action at the state level. That the administration is not eager to see that happen is evidenced by their months-long refusal to provide Minnesota authorities access to key pieces of evidence.
In Texas, officials investigating the more recent shooting of Araujo report they are being shut out by the federal government. Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said on July 20 that federal officials have not provided his office with basic information, such as the identities of the ICE officers involved or their whereabouts.
Getting the FBI out of the business of investigating ICE killings will only make it harder to get at the truth about ICE shootings. It is yet another step toward government by collusion, concealment and cover-up.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned almost a century ago, “Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.”
While we mourn the deaths of Guerrero, Araujo,Pretti and Good, we should be resolute in our refusal to stand by idly as the Trump administration displays its contempt for the law and invites us to do the same.