As Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Turns Deadly, FBI Moves ICE Agent Cases to HSI: Report | Today’s news
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will reportedly no longer be involved in investigating cases involving alleged attacks on immigration agents; instead, the agency defers such cases to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
CBS News, citing sources, reported the development on July 19, saying FBI field officers were notified of the changes on July 16.
Read also | ICE agent fatally shoots man during immigration operation in Maine
HSI is a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meaning the immigration agency would become responsible for investigating incidents involving its own agents.
However, the agency does not typically investigate officer-involved shootings and lacks the resources needed to conduct key aspects of such investigations, including ballistic and forensic analysis, firearms searches, video evidence review and extensive witness interviews.
Shooting incidents involving ICE officers are on the rise
The development comes amid a spate of fatal shootings by immigration officials, with the latest reported from Texas and Maine earlier this month. On July 7, an ICE officer shot and killed a Mexican national who lived in Houston and had been in the United States for decades. A few days later, another incident was reported in Biddeford, Maine, where immigration officials shot a Colombian man.
Read also | Trump rejects plan to end ICE traffic stops
Earlier this year, the FBI increased resources in Minnesota to investigate alleged attacks on immigration officials tasked with conducting enforcement operations in Minneapolis. According to the report, some of those cases were later dismissed after prosecutors reviewed the evidence. However, the matter became a flashpoint after a fatal encounter between an ICE officer and Renee Good. Later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the FBI and prosecutors to treat the investigation as an assault on an officer rather than a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good, prompting several prosecutors and an FBI agent to resign.
Trump’s crackdown on immigration turns deadly
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was on his way to work in Houston, Texas with his brother and two other passengers when immigration agents began chasing his vehicle. After stopping the car, the agent shot through the open passenger side window, fatally shooting him.
Six days later in Biddeford, Maine, 26-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was driving through his neighborhood when immigration agents stopped his vehicle at an intersection near a laundromat he regularly visited with his three-year-old daughter. He was also shot and killed.
The two fatal shootings, which occurred less than a week apart, have sparked grief and anger across the United States. Protesters rallied in both cities and renewed calls for ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, to remove its agents from their communities.
According to The Guardian, to fulfill Trump’s promise of mass arrests and deportations of immigrants, ICE officers armed with military-grade gear have been forcibly detaining immigrants across the country, at traffic stops, outside department stores, bus stops, warehouses, farms, schools and churches.
Since Trump took office last January, Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero became the 29th and 30th people to be shot by immigration officials. Last week, another man fleeing immigration agents in Florida died after being hit by a truck. At least 22 people have died in ICE custody this year, including in immigration detention centers.
