‘To Be Clear,’ Contrary to Vance’s Claims, ICE Agents Do Not Have ‘Absolute Immunity,’ Say Legal Experts

When Vice President JD Vance told reporters at a press briefing Thursday that Jonathan Ross, the federal immigration agent who was filmed fatally shooting Renee Good in Minneapolis, has "absolute immunity," he was not referring to any recognized statute in United States law, according to legal experts.

Instead, said Human Rights Campaign press secretary Brandon Wolf, "masked federal agents who can gun people down with 'absolute immunity' is called fascism."

Vance addressed reporters at the White House the day after Good was fatally shot at close range while serving as a legal observer of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) surge of federal agents in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration is targeting members of the Somali community in particular.

Widely available footage taken by onlookers shows ICE agents including Ross approaching the car and, according to at least one witness, giving her conflicting instructions, with one ordering her to leave the area and another telling her to get out of the car. The wheel of Good's car was seen turning as she began to drive away, just before Ross fired his weapon at least three times.

President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Vance immediately blamed Good for her death, saying she had committed an act of domestic terrorism and had tried to run Ross over with her car.

Vance doubled down on Thursday when a reporter asked him why state officials in Minnesota were being cut off from investigating Good's death—a fact that has left the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which had been planning to launch a probe, with few tools to bring a case to prosecutors.

The vice president said Minnesota prosecutors should instead investigate people who "are using their vehicles and other means" to interfere with ICE's operations before claiming that Ross is protected from being held accountable for his actions.

"That guy's protected by absolute immunity," said Vance. "He was doing his job. The idea that [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after him and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous."

Robert Bennett, a veteran lawyer in Minneapolis, told Mother Jones that he has worked on hundreds of cases regarding federal law enforcement misconduct.

"I’ve deposed thousands of police officers,” he said. “ICE agents do not have absolute immunity.”

He continued:

There’s plenty of case law that allows for the prosecution of federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE. And it’s clear under the law that a federal officer who shoots somebody in Minnesota and kills them is subject to a Minnesota investigation and Minnesota law.

Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, whose jurisdiction includes Minneapolis, appeared incredulous Friday when asked about Vance's claim.

"I can't speak to why the Trump administration is doing what it's doing or says what it says," she told a reporter before adding unequivocally, "the ICE officer does not have complete immunity here."

Constitutional law expert Michael J.Z. Mannheimer of Northern Kentucky University told CNN that more than a century of legal precedent has shown that state prosecutors can file charges against federal officials for actions they take while completing their official duties.

“The idea that a federal agent has absolute immunity for crimes they commit on the job is absolutely ridiculous,” Mannheimer said.

Should the state take up the case, Ross could attempt to raise an immunity argument if he were able to move the case to a federal court, where a judge would then conduct a two-part analysis—determining whether Ross was acting in his official capacity and whether his action was "reasonable" considering all the facts on the ground, gathered from video evidence and eyewitness testimony.

While holding Ross accountable may be an uphill battle, former federal prosecutor Timothy Sini told CNN, "officers are not entitled to absolute immunity as a matter of law," contrary to Vance's claim.

Gun control advocate David Hogg called the vice president's comments "insanely dangerous."

"Just so you all understand what our vice tyrant is saying here this means ICE is allowed to shoot and kill Americans with ZERO consequences," said Hogg. "It’s important to note that absolute immunity is something that basically no cop gets. It goes even beyond qualified immunity."

Police officers are typically shielded from liability for civil damages by qualified immunity, provided they can prove their actions did not violate "clearly established" constitutional rights. "Absolute immunity" is typically applied to judges, prosecutors, and legislators who are acting within their official duties.

On Friday, US Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) announced they would introduce a bill aimed at stripping ICE officers of qualified immunity.

Goldman noted that under current law, it would be difficult to prosecute an ICE agent because the legal standard "allows for the officer’s own view to carry a lot of weight.”

"So what this bill does is only for civil enforcement officers—not criminal enforcement officers who are dealing with real bad guys, not moms driving cars—it would say that it’s an objective test,” he said on a podcast by the New Republic. “And if you are acting completely outside of your duties and responsibilities, you don’t have immunity from a civil lawsuit, and you don’t have a defense from a criminal charge.”

Goldman added that the bill would make clear that ICE agents' "only authority is to investigate and civilly arrest immigrants for immigration violations."

“And so they should have never been in the situation they were in, where they were trying to take a woman out of a car," he said. "That was not part of what they should be doing. They could ask her to move if they needed to. It doesn’t look like from the video that she was doing anything that was obstructing them.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has expressed outrage over Good's killing and demanded that ICE leave the city immediately, called Vance's claims about absolute immunity "pretty bizarre" and "extremely concerning" in comments to reporters on Friday, and called on the press to "get to a point where we're not trusting everything that [administration officials] are saying."

"That's not true in any law school in America, whether it's Yale or Villanova or anywhere else," said Frey. "That's not true. If you break the law, if you do things that are outside the outside the area of what your job responsibilities require, and this clearly seems to be at the very least, at the very least, this is gray... This is a problem and it should be investigated."

Vance's comments, said political scientist Norman Ornstein, made clear that "we are in a police state."

"The notion expressed by Trump, Vance and Noem that there is absolute immunity for a cold blooded murder if it’s carried out by one of their agents is the final straw," he said. "If we do not turn this around, we are done for as a free society and a decent country."