A woman in Minneapolis was fatally shot by an immigration officer Wednesday, a case described by the Associated Press as at least the fifth death tied to the Trump administration’s aggressive U.S. immigration crackdown launched last year.
The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired in self-defense as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Goodtried tried to run down officers with her vehicle. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said video of the incident showed it was reckless and unnecessary.
The shooting occurred as the federal government escalated immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, with officials anticipating deploying about 2,000 agents and officers, according to AP’s report.
AP also pointed to a broader pattern of deaths that immigration authorities and local officials describe differently. The news agency said last September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement fatally shot another person outside Chicago, and that two people died after being struck by vehicles while fleeing immigration authorities. It also cited a California case in which a farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during an ICE raid last July.
No officers or agents had been charged in the deaths, AP reported.
In the Chicago-area case, AP said ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González on Sept. 12 during a traffic stop. Relatives said the 38-year-old line cook from Mexico had dropped off one of his children at day care that morning.
At the time, the Department of Homeland Security said federal agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who entered the country illegally, and AP reported that Homeland Security alleged Villegas González evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle. The agency said the officer opened fire fearing for his life and was hospitalized for serious injuries, while AP said local police body camera videos showed the agent walking around afterward and dismissing his own injuries as “nothing major.” Homeland Security said the death remained under investigation.
AP also recounted a non-fatal shooting and subsequent legal case in Chicago. The report said Marimar Martinez survived being shot five times by a Border Patrol agent and was charged with a felony after Homeland Security officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. AP reported that the case was dismissed after videos emerged that her attorneys said showed an agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s truck.
In southern California, AP said immigration authorities were rounding up dozens of farmworkers July 10 at Glass House Farms when Jaime Alanis fell from a greenhouse roof and broke his neck. The 57-year-old laborer from Mexico died at a hospital two days later, AP reported. Relatives said Alanis had spent a decade working at the farm and that he would send his earnings to his wife and daughter in Mexico. AP also reported that during the raid, Alanis called family to say he was hiding.
Homeland Security said Alanis was never in custody and was not being chased when he climbed onto the greenhouse.
AP said another death occurred on a California freeway after a man ran from immigration authorities outside a Home Depot store. Police in Monrovia northeast of Los Angeles said ICE agents were conducting enforcement operations when the man fled on foot to Interstate 210, where AP reported he ran across the freeway’s eastbound lanes and was struck by an SUV traveling about 50 or 60 mph. AP said the man died at a hospital and was later identified by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez of Guatemala. AP reported that Homeland Security said Montoya Valdez wasn’t being pursued by immigration authorities when he ran.
In Virginia, AP said a pickup truck fatally struck Josué Castro Rivera on an Interstate 264 highway in Norfolk on Oct. 23 while he was trying to escape immigration authorities during a traffic stop. AP reported that Castro Rivera, 24, of Honduras, was heading to a gardening job with three passengers when ICE officers pulled over the vehicle, according to his brother, Henry Castro.
State and federal authorities said Castro Rivera ran away on foot and was hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 264. Homeland Security said the vehicle was stopped as part of a targeted, intelligence-based operation and that Castro Rivera resisted heavily and fled. AP reported Henry Castro said his brother came to the U.S. four years earlier and worked to send money to family in Honduras.