MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There are thousands of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, and protests against the Trump administration's immigration crackdown continue. Those protests grew after an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis last week. Another Department of Homeland Security officer shot a man in the leg this week during an arrest. And that has all raised questions about the training immigration officers get and the protocols they're supposed to follow. NPR's Ximena Bustillo has been looking into this, and she's with us now to tell us more. Good morning.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So the administration has made it clear from the beginning it wants to increase deportations. It wants to do that fast. And to do that, it's going to hire a lot more immigration agents, so that invites the question of just how these people are being trained. So what are the concerns about that?
BUSTILLO: Immigration advocates have questioned how immigration officers are being trained to not just conduct arrests but also engage with U.S. citizens, and particularly protesters or observers. For example, the woman who was killed in Minneapolis, Renee Macklin Good, was a U.S. citizen. I will note the officer involved in that incident had been with the agency for several years and not a part of this larger hiring surge. But, you know, I've been looking over the ICE and Customs and Border Protection handbooks, which both provide various procedures for how and when to use force, such as discharging a firearm. But it can also depend on the situation.
MARTIN: So say more about what situations these officers are now facing in their jobs.
BUSTILLO: Officers from both agencies were already interacting with the public in various places. For example, the Department of Homeland Security often provides security at major sporting events and national events. And that's different from an immigration arrest at the border, which is different from an immigration arrest in a parking lot in the interior of the country. But for - over the past year, there has been an increase in what immigration agents call at-large arrests, which means that they're out in the community, like on a street in the interior. And we've seen other agencies, such as Border Patrol, play a bigger role in these operations. Of course, they're facing a lot of protesters and more engagement with citizens as well.
Mark Brown is a use-of-force expert who used to train ICE officers. He's now a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. And he says ICE officers might be working in new situations under President Trump.
MARK BROWN: When you have incidents, you have to look at training. You have to look at, was this - was there a gap in the training? Is there something? You can't train for everything, but training has to adapt to what's current.
BUSTILLO: But in all these situations and in my reviews of the handbooks, there is a certain amount of discretion on what agents are allowed to do.
MARTIN: And say more about that. What do you mean by discretion?
BUSTILLO: So let's look at the fatal shooting of Renee Macklin Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. The officer, Jonathan Ross, was in front of her vehicle when she was at the wheel. The agency says that he was acting in self-defense when he shot her in her car. The law enforcement experts and officials have pointed out that officers are often told not to shoot into vehicles or step in front of them. ICE's own handbook includes this, as well. It explicitly says firearms shall not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. But it also gives DHS officers the right to use deadly force when there's, quote, "reasonable belief that the subject" poses an imminent threat.
And that second part is what this administration is really leaning into. The claim that she was a threat is disputed by local leaders and contradicted by video evidence. The shooting is also still under various investigations. And a lot of claims from the administration that it is a felony to interfere? It's not always that simple. Just because the administration thinks something's a felony doesn't mean a judge in court will agree.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Ximena, thanks.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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