Minneapolis Police Chief Concerned Over Rising Tensions with ICE

By now, you have no doubt seen many of the scenes from Minneapolis: immigration agents demanding proof of citizenship — even from some American citizens, protesters swarming as agents make arrests, the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer.

This past week, we went to Minneapolis and spoke with two men at the center of the crisis: the chief of police and the head of ICE’s deportation operation, both veteran law enforcement officers, with two very different views of what is unfolding.

Tonight, there are 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents in the Minneapolis area – that’s nearly five times the number of police on the city’s force, making it the largest ever deployment of federal immigration officers to an American city.

One week after an ICE officer shot Renee Good, this was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis: federal immigration agents, facing off against angry protesters.

It is exactly what Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara feared. He’s been tasked with rebuilding trust between the community and police in the wake of George Floyd’s murder nearly six years ago.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: We’re in this 2020 moment where all these tensions have been building, and I’m afraid we’re gonna have another moment where it all explodes.

Late Wednesday night, we witnessed the anger ourselves.

Cecilia Vega: We are just hours after meeting with the police chief here in Minneapolis, where he told us that tensions were so high he was worried that violence would take place, something else would happen in this community. You can hear flashbangs behind me, we are now just a few blocks away from where federal immigration agents have been involved in another shooting here in Minneapolis.

ICE says one of its officers shot a Venezuelan man in the leg after he and two other migrants attacked the officer with a snow shovel and broom handle. ICE says the three men are in the country illegally.

The Trump administration says the goal is to crack down on illegal immigration and weed out fraud. They call it Operation Metro Surge. Elected officials in Minneapolis call it an occupation.

Cecilia Vega: Administration officials are adamant that this action that they are undertaking in Minneapolis right now is making this city safer.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: Targeted, precise, preplanned operations on violent offenders that is a good thing. But I’m concerned that people in the administration don’t actually understand the reality of what’s happening on the street.

Chief O’Hara told us the city’s 911 system is overwhelmed by complaints about immigration enforcement.

Cecilia Vega: What are you seeing?

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: seeing multiple calls of people who have been subjected to tear gas, pepper spray

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: At least one case, the person was removed from a vehicle and the car wasn’t even placed in park and it was rolling down the roadway.

It is a city on edge. And as we walked with the chief, we heard it from a man in a passing car.

Male voice: — How dare you let this happen here? You should be f******g ashamed. You should be f*****g sick. F*****g pig.

Cecilia Vega: what do you want someone like that who just yelled at you and said, “You let this happen,” to know?

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: Well, I have been very publicly saying this has been a risk for several weeks. Trying to get anyone in a position of authority to understand that tragedy– tragedy was imminent.

The fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross has become a kind of rorschach test. Some see a senseless killing. Others see an officer defending his life.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: I’ve seen the videos, and It’s not clear to me why he appears to be in the path of the vehicle more than once. When you approach someone in a vehicle in a law enforcement encounter, there’s very basic steps you take to ensure the officer’s safety and to deescalate the situation.

But the day after the shooting, Vice President JD Vance put the blame squarely on Renee Good. Homeland Security officials have accused Good and her wife of, quote “stalking” immigration agents and impeding their work.

Top federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned in part, sources told CBS News, because they were told to investigate the actions of Renee Good and her wife, rather than officer Ross.

State investigators were blocked from the investigation altogether.

Cecilia Vega: Can Americans trust what’s coming out about the status of this investigation right now?

Marcos Charles: The rhetoric that’s coming out from a lot of our politicians is to not trust us, which is very odd to me, when a lot of Americans would rather believe what they see on TikTok– compared to a government agency.

We spoke to ICE’s Marcos Charles, who oversees arrests and deportations nationwide, including Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

Cecilia Vega: Could you see why some Americans might think that what’s happening on the streets of some of these cities leads them to see ICE is feeling emboldened right now–

Marcos Charles: I would tell those people or ask those people to become educated on what we do and how we do it and what our authorizations are and the laws in general.

Videos of confrontations between protesters and immigration agents seem to go viral nearly every day.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: They have a right to observe, record, and object to police activity.

Cecilia Vega: Do they have a right to get in an agent’s face and call them a Nazi?

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: People have a right to say disrespectful things. As a professional, I have an obligation not to take that personally and not to retaliate. However, they cannot physically obstruct law enforcement from performing a function. Those are– those things are illegal.

• Minneapolis police chief says video of ICE arrest “pisses me off”
• Top ICE official is asked whether Americans can trust investigation into Renee Good’s killing

This past week the Department of Homeland Security posted a message from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller telling ICE agents, “you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties”

Cecilia Vega: Does that mean that immigration agents can go into American cities and carry out immigration enforcement with no accountability, no consequences?

Marcos Charles: I’m not gonna comment on Mr. Miller’s statement– as far as in the context that you’re asking. However I will tell you that everywhere we go in the United States our officers are out there conducting enforcement actions, and they’re doing it lawfully and with professionalism.

But scenes like this in Minneapolis, where one officer drags a woman and another points his gun at bystanders, have raised questions about their conduct.

Cecilia Vega: No one has been disciplined in any of these actions?

Marcos Charles: No, no.

Cecilia Vega: I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear you say that.

Marcos Charles: If you assault one of our officers, and assault would be puttin’ hands on one of my officers, spittin’ in their face, pushing them– you’re gonna get arrested.

Cecilia Vega: I don’t think most Americans would disagree with you on that. what concerns a lotta people is some of the images that they’ve seen. There’s a perception out there, that immigration agents in Minneapolis and many other cities are acting with impunity.

Marcos Charles: You’re not seeing the entirety of the situation. Not only that– mains– mainstream media is picking up those social media posts and putting them out as real news without looking at the whole story.

We did look into this story: six days after and two blocks away from where Renee Good was killed, Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen, was trying to get to an appointment at a traumatic brain injury clinic when she came upon ICE officers who were blocking traffic after arresting four people.

We reviewed footage of the entire incident. Rahman’s lawyer told us she was overwhelmed by conflicting commands from ICE.

Aliya Rahman (in video recording): I’m disabled. I’m trying to go to the doctor up there. That’s why I didn’t move.

In the chaos, you can hear her say she is disabled.

Aliya Rahman (in video recording): I am an autistic disabled person and I’m trying to go to the doctor.

Chief O’Hara hadn’t seen the video before we showed it to him.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: Oh my God. Oh my God.

Cecilia Vega: You were shaking watching that.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: Obviously, I don’t know why law enforcement officers initially approached the vehicle. It pisses me off to see that, to see men doing that to a woman who’s disabled. It pisses me off. If those cops worked for me, they’d have a problem right now.

Marcos Charles of ICE had a different take. He said Aliya Rahman was given repeated warnings. She was arrested but never charged.

Marcos Charles: Our officers are told that they give one warning to follow the ins– lawful instruction, to stop impeding. If she did not obey that lawful order, then she was gonna get arrested.

Cecilia Vega: You know, I showed this same clip to the Minneapolis police chief, and he said, “If those cops worked for him, they’d have a problem.”

Marcos Charles: And we’re not Minneapolis PD.

Cecilia Vega: Are you bothered by seeing American citizens getting detained in these operations?

Marcos Charles: I’m bothered by seeing people take action against my officers, using vehicles to try to ram them, assaulting my officers. Our officers are– are humans, you know. They’re people.

The Department of Homeland Security released these images of injured ice officers. According to the agency, attacks on ICE officers nationwide jumped from 19 in 2024 to 275 last year. In many cases those injuries were sustained as agents were carrying out what ICE calls “targeted enforcement.”

In Minneapolis, many residents say it seems to be less targeted every day.

American citizens are getting stopped and questioned, including a woman walking down the street, and this Uber driver.

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: people have been stopped for simply appearing to be Somali or appearing to be Latino or appearing to be foreign. And it’s concerning, because we also know we’re not getting these stories from Irish folks and Norwegian folks here.

Marcos Charles: Our officers are– are conducting targeted enforcement looking for the worst of the worst. If they encounter anybody in the area of which they’re operating, they are okay to talk to those people. They’ve been authorized to talk to anybody that’s around there and establish– citizenship.

Cecilia Vega: How is that targeted enforcement?

Marcos Charles: If they were in that area looking for a target, and they were en route or coming from that target and encountered that individual, they are authorized to talk to somebody and speak to somebody–

Cecilia Vega: I mean, what– what– how do you define the area? Officers are walkin’ down the street, drivin’ down the street. The entire city of Minneapolis is everybody potentially–

Marcos Charles: It– potentially as– as–

Cecilia Vega: –under suspicion?

Marcos Charles: No. Nobody’s under suspicion, but we’re looking for those targets. And, again, if we walk– encounter somebody– as we’re walking up to a building, as we’re en route to that building, that’s still part of the operation as they proceed to that target.

On Friday, sources told CBS News the Justice Department is investigating the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, and the state’s governor, Tim Walz, both Democrats. The allegation: that their public statements about ICE enforcement amount to criminal interference.

Frey and Walz called the investigation political intimidation.

Cecilia Vega: What could happen today, tomorrow to bring this temperature down out there?

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara: I think it requires the president to say, “We’re still gonna go after the worst of the worst, but we’re not gonna be treating American citizens in ways that risk destroying a beautiful American city.”

Produced by Andy Court, Annabelle Hanflig, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Michael Rey. Associate producer, Jaime Woods. Field associate producer, Trish Van Pilsum. Broadcast associates, Jane Greeley and Georgia Rosenberg. News associate, Ava Peabody. Edited by Warren Lustig and Michael Mongulla. Assistant editor, Aisha Crespo.