Donald Trump has defended his administration’s increasingly violent immigration crackdown, describing the 37-year-old woman killed by federal agents as likely a “wonderful person” whose “tough” actions justified a lethal response.
Trump’s comments, made during an interview with CBS News after touring a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, came as tensions continue to rise in Minneapolis days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Good at the wheel of her SUV on a residential street last week.
The shooting set off nationwide protests and prompted six federal prosecutors in Minnesota to resign in protest over the justice department’s decision not to hold a civil rights investigation into the incident.
In the interview on Tuesday afternoon, CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil told Trump that he had spoke to Good’s father, a strong supporter of the president’s, who was “heartbroken” over his daughter’s death – and over the administration’s characterization of Good as a “domestic terrorist”. Asked what Trump would say to the grieving father, the US president replied: “I would bet you that she, under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person. But, you know, her actions were pretty tough.”
Trump, the vice-president, JD Vance, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, have repeatedly said the agent acted in self-defense. “There are a couple versions of that tape that are very, very bad,” Trump told CBS, making the claim that the footage capturing the shooting “can be viewed two ways”.
Analysis of videos taken from multiple angles show Good’s vehicle turning away from the officer as he opens fire.
The administration characterized the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism”, accusing Good of being a “professional agitator”. Video evidence and local officials have sharply contested that narrative. Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, described the killing as a reckless use of power and told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis”. The administration has responded by expanding its enforcement operation in the Twin Cities, part of a broader immigration crackdown that has targeted Minnesota’s Somali community.
The administration’s intensifying focus on the state follows a sprawling fraud investigation into pandemic-era meal and relief program schemes that has led to felony charges against dozens of people, many of Somali origin. Trump has used the scandal to justify an enforcement surge and used xenophobic language to attack Somali Americans as “garbage”, stating: “We don’t want them in our country.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it would end temporary protected status for Somalis in March, effectively forcing as many as 2,400 people out of the US, even though, in his racist rant last month, the president referred to Somalia as “barely a country”.
Meanwhile, the justice department has signaled it will not open a criminal civil rights investigation into Good’s death – a sharp break from historical precedent. The administration has also moved to block state investigators from accessing evidence, asserting that Minnesota has “no jurisdiction” over the killing of its own citizen by a federal agent.
