ICE Can Defend Itself From Those Using Cars As Murder Weapons

A woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, apparently attempted to ram her car into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and was promptly shot and killed by an agent seeking to neutralize the threat. By all appearances, the ICE agent was fully justified in doing so.

The media and other Democrats are trying to paint this as a brazen attack on an innocent person, but attempts to use deadly force in an attempt to maim or kill law enforcement officers cannot be tolerated in a civil society.

“Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking  ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said. “An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers.”

Cars are often used by terrorists to cause as much mayhem and kill as many people as possible.

The attack comes after a 1,300 percent jump in attacks against ICE officers and an 8,000 percent surge in death threats, according to McLaughlin, almost certainly driven by demonization from Democrats and the media.

Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., was quick to blame ICE for being attacked by the driver, saying that it is a “patriotic duty” to protest ICE for lawfully conducting immigration enforcement.

Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey did the same, saying, “I am aware of a shooting involving an ICE agent at 34th Street & Portland. The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city. We’re demanding ICE to leave the city immediately. We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities.”

Walz and Frey have both overseen massive fraud in Minneapolis perpetrated by immigrants, many of whom could see their legal status revoked.

As my colleague Shawn Fleetwood reported, media outlets are failing to mention the fact that the woman was driving her vehicle into ICE officers, pushing the narrative that ICE is evil.

Regardless of the left-wing psy-op now at play, the justification for shooting the driver is quite clear, because cars being used in this manner should be perceived as deadly weapons.

The idea is not novel — in fact, it’s obvious. And with the amount of videos showing disruptive protests, violent attacks on ICE officers, people throwing rocks at them, and largely getting away with it, this kind of escalation was inevitable.

For that, some blame can be placed at the feet of the Trump administration, which has not seemed to do much to track down and punish domestic terrorists interfering with immigration enforcement. If they put as much effort into protecting law enforcement operations in Minneapolis as they did in Venezuela, or if they used federal law enforcement with the same vigor as the Biden administration in tracking down Jan. 6 protesters, perhaps a deterrent effect could have been achieved.

As President Donald Trump pointed out after watching a video of the car-ramming, there were almost certainly paid protesters present. Investigating and dismantling those networks should be a top priority for his administration, as they so often cultivate violent and deranged people willing to commit acts of terrorism.

“The reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis,” Trump said.

That’s certainly true, and it is well beyond time to stop treating them with kid gloves.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.