Hundreds more federal agents being sent to Minneapolis, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says
Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Sunday that hundreds more federal agents are coming to Minneapolis as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what officials are calling the "largest immigration operation ever."
Noem said on Fox News that more agents will arrive in the metro Sunday and Monday to help officers already there continue to do their work "safely."
The Minneapolis area now has one of the largest concentrations of Department of Homeland Security agents in any American city in recent years. There are more than 2,400 federal agents, more than double the number of local police officers.
Homeland Security kicked off Operation Metro Surge last month, which officials say led to more than 1,000 arrests. A week ago, the department announced the funneling of about 2,000 more federal agents into the Twin Cities metro area in a monthlong surge amid the state's widening fraud scandal.
"As we uncover more of this criminal activity, we're going to continue to surge resources to make sure this abuse of government funds and government power no longer continues in Minnesota," Noem said.
The announcement comes as the city is reeling from the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Police responded to a call reporting the shooting, which happened in a neighborhood in south Minneapolis, at about 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to the city. When officers arrived, they found that a woman, later identified as Good, had been shot in the head. She was rushed by firefighters to a Minneapolis hospital, where she later died, the city said.
Federal officials, including Noem, characterized the shooting as an act of self-defense on the part of the ICE agent who fired the weapon when the driver "attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle."
Statements from witnesses and local officials, who point to several videos of the encounter, dispute the accounts from federal officials of the circumstances that led up to the shooting.
The shooting has sparked anti-ICE protests across the Twin Cities and the nation.
Federal officials said the protests won't slow immigration enforcement.
"We're gonna have another large footprint coming here to ensure that we get that Title 8 mission under control and that we conduct very effective, unabated Title 8 immigration enforcement," U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino told CBS News.
Hear more from Bovino Monday on CBS Mornings, which starts on WCCO at 7 a.m.