Amid Trump's crackdown on immigrants, two people shot by Border Patrol agent in Portland

Tensions surrounding US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown escalated across the United States after a second shooting involving immigration officers within two days further widened divisions between state and federal authorities on Thursday.

Protests intensified in Minnesota following the fatal shooting on Wednesday of a 37-year-old mother by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. State and federal officials offered sharply conflicting accounts of the incident, while Minnesota investigators said they had been excluded from the federal investigation.

Later on Thursday, a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon. Once again, local officials—who quickly urged calm—said they were unable to independently verify the federal government’s version of events.

In both incidents, Democratic mayors and governors called on the Trump administration to withdraw federal officers. These officers have been deployed largely in Democrat-led cities, a move backed by many of Trump’s supporters following his campaign pledge to deport undocumented immigrants.

Democrats and civil rights groups have criticised the intensified enforcement actions, describing them as an unnecessary provocation.

“When a president endorses tearing families apart and attempts to govern through fear and hate rather than shared values, you foster an environment of lawlessness and recklessness,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said.

Portland police said early on Friday that six people were arrested during protests near an ICE building in the city’s South Portland neighbourhood.

US officials claimed that both the Minneapolis and Portland shootings were part of a growing pattern of criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists using vehicles as weapons, although video evidence has at times contradicted these assertions.

In Minnesota, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nichole Good, a US citizen who, according to one activist, was taking part in a “neighborhood patrol” monitoring ICE operations. Federal officials alleged she attempted to run over the officer, while her supporters said video footage appeared to show she steered away from him.

In the Portland case, the Department of Homeland Security said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, tried to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over agents. DHS said that “an agent fired a defensive shot” in response, after which the driver and a passenger fled the scene. Portland police later said two people with gunshot wounds were found around two miles (three kilometres) away and taken to hospital.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Minneapolis on Thursday, chanting "shame" and "murder" at armed and masked federal officers, some of whom used tear gas and pepper balls on protesters.

"I feel like we're at a turning point. I can't say it enough, but things have got to change," said Minneapolis protester Rachel Hoppei, 52.

"We don't want you," she said of federal officers. "You have no right to be here. You're destroying our communities."

Minnesota officials complained they were denied access to the scene evidence, case materials or interviews. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in New York that Minnesota simply did not have jurisdiction.

Without access, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said it had withdrawn from the investigation.

The ICE agent who shot Good was among 2,000 federal officers the Trump administration has deployed to the Minneapolis area in what it described as the "largest DHS operation ever." Part of Trump's nationwide crackdown on migrants, the operation was also mounted in response to a politically charged investigation into fraud allegations against some nonprofit groups in the Somali community.

Vice President JD Vance, during a press briefing, repeatedly called Good's actions an "attack" on law enforcement and said the agent deserved "a debt of gratitude."

Vance said the same agent had been dragged by a car last year and suffered injuries that required 33 stitches. That description matched a case from June 2025, when a migrant living in the country illegally tried to drive away while ICE agents were attempting to arrest him in Bloomington, Minnesota, dragging one officer about 100 yards (91 meters).

The officer, identified in court records as Jonathan Ross, suffered wounds to his arm and hand that took a total of 33 stitches to close, according to prosecutors. The driver was convicted last month of assaulting a federal officer.

Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota-based Community United Against Police Brutality and a paralegal for the National Lawyers Guild, told Reuters she knew first-hand of Good's involvement as one of hundreds of community members taking part in neighborhood "observer" patrols, and "had been doing that" when she was killed.

Gross disputed assertions by Noem that Good "had been stalking and impeding" agents' work all day.

"There was absolutely no justification for deadly force," Gross said. "People are just exercising their First Amendment right to videotape police."

What remains very much in dispute among federal and state officials is what happened in the moments leading up to the killing of Good.

Bystander videos show two masked officers approaching Good's car, which was stopped at a perpendicular angle on a Minneapolis street. As one officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed at her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then began driving forward, turning to the right.

A third officer drew his gun and fired three times while jumping back, with the last shots aimed through the driver's window after the car's bumper appeared to have passed by his body.

It was unclear from the video whether the car came into contact with the officer, who stayed on his feet and could be seen walking after the incident. Trump said on social media that the woman "ran over the ICE Officer."

(With inputs from Reuters)