A fatal shooting by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis has triggered a legal and political clash over federal officer immunity and investigative authority, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) demanding state involvement and the Trump administration insisting the matter remains exclusively federal.
Walz said Thursday that Minnesota “must be part of this investigation” into the Wednesday shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, accusing federal authorities of excluding the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from an investigation that initially was expected to be conducted jointly.
“The BCA has nonpartisan career professionals that have spent years building the trust of the community,” Walz said at a news conference. “There’s a BCA force investigations unit that was created by the legislature by the people of Minnesota to provide an independent, consistent, and trusted mechanism for investigating the use of force incidents involving law enforcement officers.”
“I will continue to press that we be part of the investigation, that we do the investigation, so that Minnesotans can trust what the outcome is,” Walz said.
Constitutional law experts, however, say Walz’s demands collide with long-settled principles of federal immunities enjoyed by law enforcement officers, which bars states from prosecuting or independently investigating federal officers for actions taken within the scope of their official duties.
“This is federal officer immunity,” Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, said. “Which means that state police cannot prosecute someone for engaging in federal duties. Only the federal government can do that.”
Blackman told the Washington Examiner local or state prosecutors would lack authority to indict a federal immigration officer for conduct undertaken during a federal enforcement operation, regardless of political pressure or public controversy.
The uproar among Minnesota officials, including the governor and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), escalated after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said it was removed from the investigation hours after initially being told it would participate in a joint inquiry with the FBI before it “reversed course,” according to BCA Superintendent Drew Evans.
Evans said the agency responded to the scene Wednesday morning and began coordinating investigative work “in good faith” after consultations with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. Later that afternoon, however, the FBI informed the BCA that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had changed its tune and that the investigation would be led solely by the FBI.
As a result, the BCA was denied access to case materials, scene evidence, and investigative interviews, prompting the agency to withdraw.
“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands,” Evans said.
But legal analysts say the shooting itself will be evaluated under the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard, outlined in a September 2018 Department of Homeland Security policy memo, which assesses federal law enforcement officers’ use of force from the perspective of a “reasonable officer” facing rapidly evolving and dangerous circumstances. Additionally, federal law dating back to the 1980s holds that when an incident involving a federal law enforcement officer occurs in any state, that state lacks the authority to bring any charges against a federal officer.
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, wrote in a post on X that video footage from multiple angles shows a legally justified use of deadly force.
I’ve now watched the Minneapolis ICE shooting from three different angles, and there’s no real question — it was quite obviously a legally justified use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer. That officer faced an unknown subject who, while ignoring lawful commands,…
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) January 7, 2026
“That officer faced an unknown subject who ignored lawful commands and pointed a 3,000-plus-pound vehicle at him,” Swearer wrote. “In real time, it’s reasonable to presume that a driver ignoring commands is about to floor the gas pedal, turn the wheel into you, and run you over.”
Swearer said attempts to analyze the encounter frame by frame after the fact distort the legal standard governing police use of force, which allows officers to make split-second judgments under tense and uncertain conditions.
Before more details had emerged about the incident, Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-NY) on Wednesday accused ICE of “murder” in a post on X and called on Congress to end qualified immunity protections for federal immigration agents, claiming video footage showed officers firing as Good was driving away from the scene.
ICE murdered an American citizen and legal observer in broad daylight today. The video of the incident clearly shows that officers fired shots as the victim was driving away from the scene and not towards law enforcement.
Congress must investigate this, end qualified immunity… https://t.co/FoO728fbxz
— Rep. Nadler (@RepJerryNadler) January 7, 2026
Legal experts have also said qualified immunity, which governs civil liability in lawsuits, is not necessarily at play in this situation, which is more about federal officer immunity and jurisdiction — a doctrine that limits the ability of states to prosecute or independently investigate federal officers for actions taken in the course of federal duties.
Under that framework, any criminal review of the shooting would fall exclusively to federal authorities, and any civil claims would still be evaluated under the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard, which gives wide latitude to officers making split-second decisions in dangerous situations.
Meanwhile, the White House has forcefully defended both the officer and the decision to keep the investigation federal.
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the legal precedent is “very simple.”
“You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue,” Vance said. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration stands “fully” behind ICE, describing the shooting as part of a broader pattern of hostility toward federal law enforcement.
The ICE officer involved is based in Minneapolis, has more than 10 years of experience, and serves on ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Special Response Team, a tactical unit trained for high-risk arrests and volatile encounters, CBS News reported Thursday morning.
VANCE DEFENDS ICE OFFICER WHO FATALLY SHOT WOMAN IN MINNESOTA: ‘ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY’
The officer was also involved in a more dire incident involving a suspect in a vehicle last June in St. Paul, in which a suspect attempted to flee during an arrest, dragging the same officer approximately 100 yards with a vehicle. That suspect was later federally charged with assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, and the officer suffered lacerations that required 33 stitches.
Despite calls from Democratic lawmakers and city officials for a state-led investigation, the administration has signaled the investigation will remain under federal purview for the time being.
