What official investigations exist into alleged ICE use‑of‑force incidents since 2018?
Executive summary
Since 2018 the official investigative landscape around alleged ICE use-of-force incidents has been a patchwork of federal internal reviews, referrals to local prosecutors, occasional state or federal criminal probes led by the FBI, and ad hoc congressional oversight — but transparency gaps and agency control of evidence have limited public accounting [1] [2] [3]. Reporting and public records obtained by journalists show specific local prosecutions or reviews (for example Maricopa County in 2018) and high-profile FBI-led inquiries (notably the Minneapolis case), while DOJ pattern-or-practice scrutiny and comprehensive independent oversight have been sporadic or curtailed [1] [4] [3] [5].
1. DHS’s new reporting requirement — a first step that only reaches back to 2018
In response to a May 2022 executive order, the Department of Homeland Security for the first time required its component agencies — including ICE — to report use-of-force data, but that reporting baseline was explicitly limited to incidents from 2018 onward, which shapes what official data and subsequent investigations are framed against [1] [4] [6].
2. FBI and state criminal probes in high‑profile cases: Minneapolis and similar incidents
High-profile lethal or near-lethal encounters involving ICE agents have sometimes prompted FBI involvement and joint inquiries with state investigative bodies — for example the Minneapolis shooting prompted an FBI investigation and initially a joint FBI–Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) posture before the FBI assumed sole control, while state attorneys general and county prosecutors also announced their own reviews in that case [3] [7] [8].
3. Local prosecutors and county-level reviews — the Mesa, Arizona precedent
Some shootings tied to ICE operations have been investigated by local prosecutors and county agencies rather than solely by ICE: the May 2018 Mesa, Arizona operation in which three agents fired 17 times was examined by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which declined to recommend criminal charges even after identifying procedural violations, illustrating how many use-of-force matters are handled at the local prosecutorial level [1] [4].
4. Internal ICE/DHS reviews, redactions, and FOIA battles that limit public scrutiny
ICE conducts internal reviews of critical incidents after initial responses by the agency or other investigative bodies, but the agency has often withheld use-of-force reports and heavily redacted policies under law‑enforcement exemptions to FOIA, forcing litigation and reporting projects by outlets such as Business Insider, The Trace and Type Investigations to extract records and document patterns [9] [2] [6] [4].
5. DOJ, congressional oversight, and accountability gaps — investigations that haven’t materialized or have been curtailed
Civil‑rights enforcement mechanisms that could yield broader probes, such as DOJ “pattern-or-practice” investigations, have been uneven: reporting indicates the administration has halted many such investigations into police and is unlikely to launch similar ones into ICE despite spikes in shootings, and legal observers note DOJ has so far not brought criminal charges in many high‑profile ICE use‑of‑force incidents even when public evidence raised Fourth Amendment questions [5] [10].
6. What the official record does — and does not — show
Public records and reporting establish that since 2018 the official investigative architecture has included DHS-mandated data reporting (from 2018 forward), local prosecutor inquiries (e.g., Maricopa County 2018), FBI and state criminal probes in select fatal incidents (notably Minneapolis), and repeated internal ICE reviews whose documents are often withheld or redacted, while congressional oversight efforts compile incident dashboards and press for further investigation; reporting also makes clear there is no single, consistent independent investigative mechanism that systematically reviews ICE use-of-force across jurisdictions, and available sources do not provide a complete catalogue of every official inquiry [1] [4] [3] [11] [2].