Minneapolis Protests, Immigration Enforcement Shootings, Running Venezuela

Protests extended into a second day in Minneapolis after an ICE agent shot and killed a balloon. The federal government has taken over the investigation, leaving state officials shut out. I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News. A former acting director of ICE says immigration agents are pursuing different strategies than in the past. Tasking the agents with being the front line on the crowd control.

you're creating a toxic stew there is there some connection between the tactics and the number of shootings in the past year Also today, oil executives meet with President Trump after he said the U.S. would run Venezuela much longer than expected. What is the endgame? Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start today.

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We carry out reporting from across all of NPR's coverage, so you are always getting the biggest, most urgent stories. Listen to Trump's terms on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Two incidents this week. Call attention to shootings by federal immigration authorities. One was in Portland, Oregon. We have very limited information so far. The Department of Homeland Security says agents shot two people during a traffic stop and that the two...

drove away. DHS issued a statement casting all blame on the people who were shot. That is what the Homeland Security Secretary also did after a shooting in Minneapolis that was caught on video.

People in Minneapolis want immigration agents out of their city after an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Wednesday. NPR's Meg Anderson is in Minneapolis. Meg, you were at the protest we just heard from last night. So what's the mood there like?

Yeah, you know, it's been somber here and mostly peaceful, but defiant. At the march last night, the weather was awful. A freezing rain was coming down. A lot of the sidewalks were covered in a sheet of ice. And there were still hundreds of people there.

Community members were chanting, holding signs with messages like, ice melts under resistance. I saw one in Spanish saying, we scream for those who can't. Most of the protesters I spoke with told me the shooting on Wednesday made them more angry than afraid. People like Caitlin English, she lives in the Twin Cities. It's been sad, but it's also been uplifting because we understand what's right and what's wrong. Seeing community come together for this cause.

and uplift other places to be inspired. It's amazing. And you know, she told me she stood on this same street five years ago protesting the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and says she felt the same way back then. Okay, now what can you tell us about the shooting itself? Well, there's been two big developments in the last eight.

The first is that NPR has confirmed the identity of the ICE agent who killed Good as Jonathan Ross. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security have said that he is an experienced officer, not a recent hire. The second development is that the FBI took over the investigation, and state authorities say they do not have access anymore to evidence in the shooting. That means that the federal government is the only entity looking into a shooting committed by an agent.

of the federal government. Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls questioned whether that investigation would be fair. Do you know if federal officials have spoken much about the victim or any good? Yeah, a witness told NPR that they thought she was a legal observer, and federal authorities have used that to label her as an extremist. Here's how Vice President J.D. Vance described her.

That woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job. But, you know, that is just not how her family and friends have spoken about her. Oh, so tell us how they've been describing her. Well, a reporter from the Minnesota Star Tribune spoke with Good's mother. She described her as the kindest person she's ever known, said she was not involved in any kind of anti-government activity.

Good was the mother of three kids. The youngest is about six years old. We know she had a home repair business with her wife in Kansas City. We also found what appears to be her Pinterest page. And you know that page? put it simply, is filled with the things of a normal human life. Ideas for recipes and haircuts, plans for a garden, and tips on parenting, like how to soothe a child's anxiety and fun things to do with them in the summer.

All right, that's NPR's Meg Anderson. Meg, thank you. You're welcome. After a border agent shot two people in Portland, Oregon, city officials there called it a pattern of violence. So how much of a pattern is there? It can be hard to judge by one or two news events like we've had this week. Certain incidents get a lot of attention, others do not. So in this story, we will take a wider view.

Let's go to NPR's Sergio Martinez Beltran. Sergio, you've covered shootings by immigration authorities before. How often do they happen? You know, it seems like they're becoming more frequent.

According to The Trace, which is a non-profit news organization that focuses on gun violence, there have been at least 14 shootings in ICE raids since Trump took office last year. Now, NPR hasn't independently confirmed all of these incidents, but we've reported on some of them.

The Trump administration has definitely ramped up its immigration crackdowns in a big way. We heard Vice President J.D. Vance yesterday say immigration agents in Minneapolis were going door to door to find undocumented immigrants, which is unusual. Usually ICE operations are targeted, and these shootings could be a terrible side effect of this approach. Yes, tell us more about these shootings by Homeland Security officers.

Last year in Chicago, a Mexican immigrant was killed after attempting to drive away from immigration agents. Also in Chicago last year, Border Patrol agents fired at a woman while she was still in her car injuring her. So what happened in Minneapolis this week is something we've been seeing since President Trump launched his immigration enforcement operations. That's according to the...

Pinder Mayel, the executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota. This is really part of a broader pattern of misconduct. And the Trump administration has essentially emboldened federal forces. to act with impunity. That misconduct can be seen on the way ICE is arresting people, Mayol says. Others tell me it's palpable in the way agents deal with protesters. So on that, I mean, are ICE agents prepared? Do they know how to handle how to engage with protesters?

Crowd control is not the role of ICE agents. In fact, they are not trained to do it. That's what John Sandwick tells me he served as ICE's acting director during the Obama administration. The way in which this administration is deploying the agents, the way in which, you know, and especially with tasking the agents with being the front line on the crowd control, you're creating a toxic stew there.

And Sandvik tells me that ICE has made millions of arrests in nearly two decades, but this uptake in shootings is new. And it's a direct byproduct of this shift in tactics that we saw really beginning in March, where the administration started. promoting and the surges of agents and for these very flashy high-profile operations in cities.

And this is an important point, because, you know, people in law enforcement I've talked to say that publicizing in advance operations like the ones in Minnesota makes things dangerous for both the ICE agents and the public. And that's where we are right now. Yeah, and the administration, though, seems to be doubling down on this. Right, right.

You know, they're fiercely defending the agent who shot good. Vice President Vance yesterday downplayed the circumstances of the shooting, saying what you see is what you get in this case. Vance said the agent did it in self-defense. He also blamed good for the shooting.

even news organizations. But none of this seems to be stopping the administration's goal of arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants. DHS Secretary Kristi Noam has said her agency will continue carrying out enforcement operations across Minneapolis. the country all right that's NPR's Sergio Martinez Beltran thanks a lot you're welcome

Executives from United States oil companies will meet at the White House today to talk about the future of Venezuela. The Trump administration ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro this past week in an interview with The New York Times. President Trump seemed to say the United States could be running Venezuela, giving orders there for years to come. So what would that look like? NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben is here to update us on this. So, Danielle, tell us about the details we know.

Well, the overarching answer there is that there's just a lot we don't know. For example, we don't know what cooperation between the U.S. and Venezuela's interim president, Delce Rodriguez, even looks like right now. But now we know that the U.S. could be there for some time. Here's the exchange between Trump and Times reporters as posted on the Times website. How long do you think you'll be running Venezuela? Only time will tell.

Like three months, six months, a year, longer? I would say much longer. We have to rebuild the country, and we will rebuild it in a very profitable way. On that note, the administration said this week that the U.S. will take... 30 to 50 million barrels of oil, sell it, and oversee the money.

Press Secretary Caroline Levitt also said that the money will be dispersed, quote, for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people. But again, we don't know what that looks like. However, today Trump will meet with oil company execs to talk about all of that. So what else have they said about the Venezuelan oil? Well, Rubio has laid out three main phases to what comes next at Secretary of State Marco Rubio. First is to stabilize Venezuela.

Second, he said, is recovery, which involves opening access to the Venezuelan market. But also, he said that would involve reconciliation and rebuilding civil society. Third, he said, would be transition. But once again, there's a lot we don't know about that. For example, when he talks about civil society, is that nation building and how involved is that?

And there's one more thing left open-ended here. When the Times asked Trump what would prompt him to send ground troops into the country, he said he didn't want to answer that to a reporter. So Trump is leaving the possibility open for boots on the ground. none are there right now. Now, we did get more information overnight also. Trump posted that since cooperation is going well, he has canceled a second wave of attacks on the country, but that U.S. ships would stay nearby.

And so here's something else, too, because Trump has also threatened Venezuela's neighbor to the south, Colombia. And in the middle of that interview with The Times, he stopped to take a call from the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. So what's happening to the U.S. and Colombia?

Well, that call was off the record, so the Times didn't report what was said. But afterward, Trump posted on social media that it was an honor to talk to Petro. He said they talked about their disagreements and that Trump looks forward to meeting in the near future. But that...

turnabout with Colombia really underscores that Trump's foreign policy worldview is that he can do what he wants. The Times asked, are there any limits on your foreign policy powers? And he said, quote, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality, my own. Now, all of this is maybe not surprising, but still stunning. I mean, Trump is a staunch unilateralist, but not only that.

He's one for whom foreign policy can be personal and potentially affected by a phone call. Hi, that's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you very much, Danielle. Of course. And that's up first for Friday, January 9th. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Fear of civil unrest is driving a new group of people to the gun range. What I'm talking about is protecting myself. from a situation where there may be some kind of chaotic civil unrest and the streets become...

Something we don't recognize. This weekend on The Sunday Story, NPR's Frank Langfitt explains what's driving more liberals, people of color, and LGBTQ folks to exercise their right to own guns. Listen to the Sunday story right here on NPR's Up First podcast. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Gigi Duvon, Rebecca Metzler, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Milton Kavada, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zoe van Genhoven.

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