John Sandweg, who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under former President Barack Obama, says Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem did herself and her agents no favors by announcing a conclusion in Minneapolis, Minnesota's ICE-related shooting before even initial investigations were underway.
“This is why you don't rush out and draw conclusions this early especially when you're the department,” Sandweg told CNN on Wednesday. “First of all, I just want to say you're doing a disservice to the agency itself. There's already a credibility gap forming between DHS and ICE and the public, and that impacts ICE effectiveness. It impacts its ability to have partnerships with state and local law enforcement. It impacts its ability to develop relationships in the community that can be critical in terms of providing information that leads to law enforcement operations. But at the end of the day, this is not one where truth is likely to be [quickly] known.”
Mere hours after dressing up in bullet-proof gear and joining ICE agents in patrolling Minneapolis streets, video emerged of an ICE agent firing into a woman’s vehicle and killing the occupant. The 37 year-old U.S. citizen's name has not yet been publicly revealed
Hours after the violence, Noem called the fatal shooting of the woman an “act of domestic terrorism,” claiming the driver tried to ram agents during an immigration crackdown.
“I think what's frustrating to me … here is that I feel like the department is so reflexive in terms of trying to protect the agency or the administration, but really, you're not only not doing the administration any favors, you're also not doing the agents favors,” Sandweg said.
“It doesn't mean you're attacking the agents themselves to say that a mistake was made here. … But the reality is they can make mistakes," he added. "And let's go ahead and be honest. All you’re supposed to say in this situation is ‘we're going to do an investigation and will be as transparent as we possibly can.’ Anything else really does a disservice to everyone involved."
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