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JD Vance doubled down on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics on Thursday, one day after a federal agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The US vice-president lashed out at “leftwing radicals” and the “corporate media” for inflaming tensions over the shooting, while defending the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot the woman.
“This was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order,” Vance said. “This was an attack on the American people.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation”, he added in a fiery exchange with journalists in the White House.
“That woman is part of a broad leftwing network . . . a group of leftwing radicals have been working, tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques, to try and make it impossible for the president of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do, which is enforce our immigration laws.”
Vance added: “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
The shooting has sparked protests across the country and reignited tensions between the Trump administration and Democratic leaders who contend that the woman was unlawfully killed by a reckless officer.
Videos that appeared to show the shooting went viral on social media and raised fresh questions about the administration’s law enforcement tactics as President Donald Trump presses ahead with his crackdown on illegal immigration across the US.
The White House has insisted that the masked ICE agent was acting in self-defence when he shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in her car in Minneapolis on Wednesday. The woman had been protesting an ICE raid in the city.
Trump, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and other top administration officials have described the woman — later identified as Renee Nicole Good — as a “domestic terrorist”.
In social media videos that appeared to show the events, a Honda SUV blocked traffic on a residential street before several masked law enforcement officers approached the car. The driver reversed the car and then began to drive forward. One officer fired several shots at the driver at close range.
Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, called the shooting a “brazen use of force” on Thursday as he implored the Trump administration to remove federal officers from his state.
“Let us breathe. Look, we’re exhausted. We’re exhausted as Minnesotans. We’re exhausted as Americans. And this relentless assault on Minnesota for whatever reason, is just cruel,” Walz said in a press conference. “Now it has reached cruelness. So please just give us a break. And if it’s me, you’re already getting what you want.”
Walz on Monday announced he was suspending his re-election bid amid a federal investigation into allegations of widespread fraud in Minnesota’s state welfare programmes.