Mayor to ICE After Fatal Shooting: 'Get the Fuck Out of Minneapolis!'

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a federal agent fatally shot a woman in his city on Wednesday: "To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis!"

"We do not want you here," the Democratic mayor said at a press conference. "Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart."

"Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy, are being terrorized and now, somebody is dead," Frey continued. "That's on you. And it's also on you to leave."

The woman killed has not been identified, but US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said she was a US citizen. The senator also joined Frey and other elected officials, including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), in calling on ICE to leave Minnesota's largest city.

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that "the largest DHS operation ever is happening right now in Minnesota," with 2,000 federal agents expected in the Twin Cities amid a fraud scandal involving some Somali residents.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office last year after campaigning on a promise of mass deportations, he has also sent large groups of immigration agents to other major Democrat-led cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago. In September, a federal agent fatally shot Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, while he was in a vehicle just outside the Illinois city.

As with the shooting in Minneapolis, video footage of the killing in Illinois undermined DHS claims. The department said Wednesday that the woman in Minnesota tried "to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism."

One witness told Minnesota Public Radio that she saw a federal agent confronting the woman, who "was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in—like, his midriff was on her bumper—and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times."

Frey also challenged the DHS narrative on Wednesday: "What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart. They're sowing chaos on our streets. And in this case, quite literally killing people."

"They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video... myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bullshit," Frey added. "This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying—getting killed."