Authorities reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot a woman dead during a controversial operation in Minnesota.
Authorities said the incident prompted outrage from local officials and protests.
The victim was a poet and a mother of three.
Police said the 37-year-old woman was in her vehicle blocking a road in the city of Minneapolis when an ICE officer approached on foot.
The car then began to move, after which at least two shots were fired.
The woman reportedly sustained a head injury and was pronounced dead in hospital.
Investigations into the incident are under way.
Police said the woman was believed to be white and that, based on current information, there was no indication she had been a target of the authorities.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, attacked U.S. President Donald Trump for a style of governance that he said was “designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict”.
The U.S. president has sharply tightened deportation policy during his second term in office, with ICE operations forming a key element of the new push.
Raids by the agency, sometimes involving masked officers, regularly trigger protests in Democratic-led cities.
Department of Homeland Security defends officer
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a post on X that ICE officers had been conducting targeted operations in Minneapolis when “rioters began blocking ICE officers.”
McLaughlin added that the woman had “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted to run over officers.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the shooting at a news conference in Texas as a defensive use of firearms to protect officers and bystanders.
Trump later defended the ICE officer involved in the shooting, saying video footage suggested the incident was an act of self-defence.
“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defence,” Trump wrote.
He blamed what he described as a “Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate” for escalating tensions and accused it of targeting law enforcement officers.
Minneapolis officials push back
disputing the description given by authorities.
Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey said the situation had been escalated, rejected claims of self-defence as “bullshit” and urged ICE agents to leave the city.
Former U.S. vice president Mike Pence, a Republican, called for a “detailed investigation,” while warning against jumping to conclusions.
“What happened in Minnesota is a tragedy but we should be careful to rush to judgement,” he wrote on X.
Protests broke out at the scene, with hundreds of people gathering on Wednesday afternoon, chanting slogans against ICE and demanding that the officers leave the city.
Media also reported rallies in other cities.
Governor Walz called on the population to protest peacefully, saying: “We can’t give them what they want.”
The Minneapolis school board said schools would remain closed on Thursday and Friday “due to safety concerns related to today’s incidents around the city.”
The Washington Post newspaper described the woman as an award-winning poet and mother of three children aged 6, 12 and 15.
“She was a wonderful person,” her father told the newspaper.
Democratic Senator Tina Smith said she was a U.S. citizen, though this had not yet been confirmed by the federal authorities.
