How many times has deadly force been used during ICE protests recently?
Executive summary
One fatal use of deadly force tied to the wave of anti‑ICE protests this month has been widely reported: the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, which catalyzed nationwide demonstrations [1] [2]. Multiple other shootings involving federal immigration agents have occurred in recent days — some wounding people, others nonfatal uses of force — but reporting shows only the Minneapolis incident as a confirmed recent death in this protest cycle [3] [4] [5].
1. The headline case: Renee Good’s killing and the protests it sparked
On Jan. 7, an ICE agent shot and killed 37‑year‑old Renee Nicole Good during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, an incident that federal and local accounts say prompted large demonstrations across the country [1] [6]. Video and contemporaneous reporting show agents confronting a vehicle and an agent firing multiple rounds as the car moved; the shooting drew federal and local investigations and a national outpouring of protests and vigils labeled “ICE Out For Good” [2] [3].
2. Other recent ICE/Border Patrol shootings were nonfatal but escalatory
In the days around the Minneapolis killing, other encounters involving federal immigration agents resulted in people being shot or wounded but not killed: Border Patrol agents in Portland shot and wounded two Venezuelan immigrants outside a hospital, and in Minneapolis agents shot a man in the leg during another detention attempt — both events fed the protests and heightened tensions but were reported as nonfatal [3] [4] [5]. Local and national outlets tracked these as separate incidents that compounded public anger but did not change the tally of deaths tied to the immediate protest wave [7] [8].
3. Broader pattern: deadly force by ICE and CBP across recent months
Independent reporting and watchdogs indicate a wider pattern of lethal and potentially excessive force by federal immigration officers beyond this single protest episode; The Marshall Project reported that Trace counted “more than a dozen” shootings involving ICE and Border Patrol officers in recent months, some fatal and some resulting in survivors with serious injuries [9]. That tally speaks to a broader trend critics and advocates cite when contextualizing the Minneapolis death, but those prior incidents are not all temporally or causally linked to the current protest mobilization [9].
4. Legal and political fallout affects how uses are counted and characterized
Courts and officials are already intervening in response to the unrest: a federal judge barred ICE and Homeland Security agents in Minneapolis from arresting peaceful protesters and from using certain nonlethal crowd‑control tools, reflecting concerns about escalation and clarifying what responses are permissible during demonstrations [10]. Political leaders, from local elected officials to the White House, have framed and contested the incidents in ways that can influence whether a shooting is labeled justified, excessive, protest‑related or part of routine enforcement — complicating any simple count [2] [10].
5. What “deadly force during ICE protests” means — and the limits of available reporting
The central ambiguity is definitional: whether to count fatal shootings that occurred during enforcement operations that then triggered protests, versus deaths that happened while agents were actively policing demonstrations. The available reporting is clear that one recent death — Renee Good’s — is directly tied to the enforcement action that sparked nationwide protests [1] [3], and other recent shootings in the same period were nonfatal [3] [4]. Sources also document a broader series of deadly encounters involving immigration agents over recent months, but they do not claim multiple recent protest‑period deaths beyond the Minneapolis case [9].
6. Direct answer and caveats
Based on the reporting provided, deadly force has been used in one recently reported incident tied to this protest wave — the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis — while other shootings in the same timeframe injured but did not kill people [1] [3] [4]. That conclusion carries two caveats: investigative tallies of ICE and Border Patrol uses of force span months and list multiple deadly incidents beyond the Minneapolis case [9], and ongoing federal and local investigations could adjust official counts or linkages as more facts emerge [7] [10].