The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now carrying out a massive high-profile operation in the wake of the fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week. But one journalist is reporting that some federal agents are wary of the intense blowback against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following Good's death.
In a Monday post to his Substack, journalist Ken Klippenstein published leaked DHS documents urging agents to practice situational awareness when entering and leaving their hotel, and to "be mindful of [operational security] and officer safety." The document also encouraged DHS employees to "be mindful of what you post to social media" and "turn off your location settings and set page to private."
Klippenstein also reported that "opposition within the ranks" of ICE prompted DHS to issue a call for "volunteers" in Minneapolis. One document called for 200 more Border Patrol agents and 100 "processing coordinators" for the week of January 11. One unnamed ICE agent anonymously confided to Klippenstein that their colleagues are uneasy about deploying in the Twin Cities area, given the massive protests that have been underway since Good was killed.
"We do have personnel but some just don’t want to go," the agent said.
"There might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolas Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation," one source Klippenstein described as a "high-level career official at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington" said.
"There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around," they added.
An unnamed Border Patrol agent placed blame for heightened tensions in Minneapolis directly on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who proclaimed that Good was carrying out an act of "domestic terrorism" just hours after she was killed.
"There is a video and she just lied," the agent said.
Click here to read Klippenstein's report in full.