Leaked emails reveal ICE knew far more before Minneapolis, and the numbers are too big to ignore

Internal emails have revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) leadership was fully aware of a large rise in agents’ use of force during enforcement operations, months before the fatal shootings in Minneapolis. The emails, sent in February and March 2025, show that senior ICE officials were informed about a sharp increase in reported use-of-force incidents compared to the year before.

Use-of-force incidents in early March alone had quadrupled year-over-year. In the first two months of 2025, officers reported 67 incidents, nearly four times the 17 incidents reported during the same period in 2024. American Oversight, a nonprofit organization, obtained these emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

According to Newsweek, Executive Director Chioma Chukwu stated that “these records paint a deeply troubling picture of the violent methods used by ICE.” He added that ICE’s own data showed a spike of nearly 400 percent in use-of-force incidents in just the first months of President Trump’s administration.

ICE leadership knew about rising use-of-force incidents well before Minneapolis operations came under scrutiny

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded by saying their officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force needed and receive regular use-of-force training. A DHS spokesperson said their current use-of-force policy is the same as it was in 2023 under President Biden. DHS also outlined 23 separate incidents where federal agents were allegedly attacked or injured on duty, including an image of an officer’s finger that a protester was accused of biting off in Minneapolis.

Former acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello received briefings confirming that leadership knew about the increased use of force well before Minneapolis. On March 20, Vitello was informed of the rise in incidents, and an email from that same day noted “the huge increase in LEO [Law Enforcement Officer] assaults,” suggesting training on prosecuting such assaults be shared with the workforce.

These disclosures coincide with Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which saw federal officers shoot and kill two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, sparking public protests and congressional inquiries. Writers and public figures have also weighed in on ICE’s increasingly deadly enforcement tactics. President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have insisted that ICE agents are following their training, blaming Democratic leaders for the violent clashes.

During a Senate hearing, Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed acting ICE Director Todd Lyons about agents entering immigrants’ homes without a judicial warrant. Blumenthal stated that ICE agents cannot “bash down doors and barge into people’s homes, terrorize their children, detain and arrest people without a judicial warrant.”

A leaked memo authorizing warrantless home entry had already drawn significant attention before this hearing. Chukwu added that these records “demonstrate a stark disconnect between the constitutional standards on which ICE claims to train its officers and the abusive and deadly enforcement practices we see detailed in these incident reports.”