A Minnesota prosecutor is seeking the arrest of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
It appears to be the first such case where local authorities have charged a federal immigration officer tied to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
During a press conference Thursday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that the ICE agent now faces two counts of second-degree assault after he allegedly flashed a gun while passing a driver on the highway. There is now a warrant out for his arrest.
The Minnesota State Patrol received a 911 call in February from the alleged victims, who said a driver pulled up next to them on the shoulder of a highway and pointed a gun at them, Moriarty said.
The ICE agent appeared to be trying “to bypass slower traffic” at the time, the county attorney claimed. The other driver “briefly moved their vehicle into the shoulder to slow him down,” she said.
Moriarty said that the federal agent “was driving a rented SUV with no markings or other features to indicate that it was an ICE vehicle.” When the victim moved out of the shoulder, the agent “pulled alongside the victim’s vehicle,” before he “visibly slowed his vehicle to match the pace of the victims’ vehicle, opened his window, and pointed his duty weapon directly at both victims in the other vehicle while continuing to drive illegally on the shoulder,” she said.
The driver then called 911 while the passenger began recording the incident on video, according to Moriarty.
State troopers later identified an ICE agent as the driver and interviewed him at the agency’s office in Minneapolis, the county attorney said.
The agent “admitted that he was driving the rented SUV and he and his partner were headed to the Whipple building to end their shift” and “that he drew his firearm after the victims’ vehicle had already rejoined the normal flow of traffic,” Moriarty said.
In his statement, the agent also allegedly said “he yelled ‘police’” at the victims. But the windows of the victims’ vehicle, Moriarty said, “were rolled up and they couldn’t hear” it.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) didn’t respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment on the charges.
The typical jail time for each of the charges against the ICE agent is 36 months in prison, Moriarty said.
The charges follow the federal withdrawal of hundreds of federal immigration agents from Minneapolis. President Donald Trump sent his border czar Tom Homan to initiate the drawdown in January, replacing the former Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who was known for his aggressive tactics.
Homan’s arrival came after the fatal shootings by federal immigration agents of anti-ICE activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis that sparked weeks of protests. The shootings also resulted in the mass mobilization of ICE watch groups that followed federal agents and outed their locations.
During Thursday’s press conference, Moriarty recalled the Good and Pretti shootings. She also said there’s no indication the victims were part of ICE watch groups.
Moriarty characterized the accused agent’s “conduct” as “extremely dangerous,” adding that it “could’ve led to another disastrous incident in a community that has already suffered too many.”
“Our community is still navigating the effects of the federal occupation,” she said.
Asked if she’s concerned about “federal blowback” over the case, Moriarty said “it’s not a concern of ours.”
