Tricia McLaughlin on ICE: ‘This was the mandate President Trump was given’

There is still chaos surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and nowhere is the anger more palpable than in cities like Minneapolis. Protesters insist they are exercising their rights, even as some cross legal lines. The distinction matters. Observing ICE is lawful. Obstructing ICE is not. And when citizens interfere with a federal operation, they risk serious consequences under federal law.

According to The Washington Post, “The fatal shooting of Renee Good last week, as ICE officers and residents faced off on a residential street here, has brought new attention to these activities. … Federal court rulings say citizens can observe and record police activity in public areas as part of their First Amendment rights, and many of the observers are doing nothing more than that. They say that they believe authorities are less likely to use force if someone is recording and that they are providing a public service by letting their communities know when federal immigration officers are nearby.

“But as officers and agents employ aggressive tactics, some activists have blown whistles to warn community members of approaching law enforcement, tried to follow immigration enforcement vehicles or used their own cars to block the roadways – entering murkier legal territory. Some legal experts said such behavior could in theory justify obstruction-of-justice charges, but they added that any such prosecution would be unusual.”

Against that backdrop, I spoke with Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. She emphasized that ICE’s “top priority” remains violent offenders.

“I see the reports every single day,” McLaughlin said. “And what we’ve seen is just flabbergasting as far as the number of criminals who have been allowed to walk around with impunity in this country.” She cited arrests of more than a thousand known or suspected terrorists in the past year, along with 3,500 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. “That’s why we have been flooding the zone,” she said, “to get these individuals out of our country.”

Critics argue that ICE’s visibility escalates conflict. But McLaughlin said the scale and openness of enforcement in cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is a direct result of sanctuary policies.

“What exactly does (a sanctuary city) mean?” she asked. “It means that these sanctuary city politicians are harboring these criminal illegal aliens, but it also means that our law enforcement is not permitted to work with them. … ICE law enforcement is not allowed into the jails.

“So if Chicago picks up a criminal illegal alien – maybe they picked up somebody who was convicted of rape and that person is in their jail – they’re not allowed to release them to ICE or coordinate their eventual release to ICE for eventual deportation. … So the reason that we have such a large law enforcement presence,” she said, “is because we can’t go into those jails to target those criminals, and so we have to really sweep the city.”

McLaughlin rejected claims that ICE enforcement represents authoritarian overreach. “This was the mandate President Trump was given,” she said, pointing to rising crime rates. In Minneapolis, she noted, homicides have increased roughly 50% since Gov. Tim Walz took office.

Turning to the Good shooting itself, McLaughlin stressed that context matters. “At 10:25 a.m. Central time on Wednesday, January 7, what happened was this individual had been impeding and blocking, in our eyes, law enforcement officers,” she said. “She had been doing that throughout the day, obstructing lawful operations, which is a felony.”

When officers attempted to arrest Good and ordered her to exit her vehicle, she refused, McLaughlin said.

“She hits the gas,” McLaughlin said, “and (the officer) was in fear of his own life, and he was in fear for the law enforcement who were around him. She weaponized her vehicle she used as a deadly weapon on an officer. He responded as his training instructs him to do. And unfortunately, there was a loss of life there. But our officer conducted himself in the way he should have. And he did save his own life.”

Democratic leaders have compared ICE to the Gestapo and warned of a creeping police state. McLaughlin dismissed those claims as reckless and legally unfounded.

“They’re clearly legally illiterate,” she said. “If people don’t like ICE enforcing the rule of law … these politicians should change the law. They can lobby Congress to change the law.”

Demonizing law enforcement, McLaughlin warned, has real-world consequences. According to her, DHS has seen a reported 1,000% increase in assaults on officers, including multiple vehicle rammings in just the past week. “These vehicles are deadly weapons,” she said. “And one of our law enforcement officers could easily end up killed if we don’t see a stop to this.”

McLaughlin also suggested that politics plays a role in Minneapolis becoming a “flashpoint,” citing large-scale fraud investigations underway by Homeland Security Investigations.

“There is a part of this where they’re trying to circle the wagons and really use this as a smokescreen so people stop talking about the fraud,” McLaughlin said.

What often goes unmentioned is that red states frequently deport more noncitizens than blue states. The difference, however, is cooperation. In states that work with ICE, operations tend to proceed with far less confrontation – and with sizable results. Deportations are not confined to blue cities, despite the rhetoric.

That rhetoric persists nonetheless. For many on the left, opposing the Trump administration takes precedence, even if it means vilifying federal law enforcement officers. In the process, nuance is lost, laws are ignored and the risks – for officers and civilians alike – continue to grow.