As Trump's immigration crackdown turns deadly, FBI moves ICE agent cases to HSI: Report

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will reportedly no longer take part in investigations into cases involving alleged assaults on immigration agents; instead, the agency will defer such cases to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Citing sources, CBS News reported the development on 19 July, saying that FBI field officers were informed of the changes on 16 July.

HSI is an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both of which are overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), implying that the immigration enforcement agency would become responsible for probing incidents involving its own agents.

However, the agency does not typically investigate officer-involved shootings and lacks the resources needed to carry out key aspects of such inquiries, including ballistic and forensic analysis, firearm examinations, video evidence review, and extensive witness interviews.

Shooting incidents involving ICE officers rise

The development comes amid a spate of fatal shootings by immigration officers, with the latest reported in Texas and Maine earlier this month. On 7 July, an ICE officer shot and killed a Mexican national who had been living in Houston and had resided in the United States for decades. Days later, another incident was reported in Biddeford, Maine, where immigration officers shot and killed a Colombian man.

Earlier this year, the FBI increased resources in Minnesota to investigate alleged assaults on immigration officers tasked with carrying out enforcement operations in Minneapolis. According to the report, some of those cases were later dismissed after prosecutors reviewed the evidence. However, the issue became a flashpoint following a deadly encounter between an ICE officer and Renee Good. Later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) directed the FBI and prosecutors to treat the investigation as an assault on an officer rather than a civil rights investigation into Good's killing, prompting several prosecutors and an FBI agent to resign.

Trump's immigration crackdown turns deadly

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was on his way to work in Houston, Texas, with his brother and two other passengers when immigration agents began following his vehicle. After pulling the car over, an agent fired through the open passenger-side window, fatally shooting him.

Six days later, in Biddeford, Maine, 26-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was driving through his neighbourhood when immigration agents stopped his vehicle at an intersection near a laundromat he regularly visited with his three-year-old daughter. He was also shot and killed.

The two fatal shootings, which occurred less than a week apart, have sparked grief and anger across the United States. Protesters gathered in both cities, renewing calls for ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing US President Donald Trump's deportation agenda, to remove its agents from their communities.

According to The Guardian, to deliver on Trump's promise of mass arrests and deportations of immigrants, ICE officers armed with military gear have been violently detaining immigrants across the country, at traffic stops, outside department stores, at bus stops, warehouses, farms, schools and churches.

Since Trump took office in January last year, Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero became the 29th and 30th people to be shot by immigration officers. Last week, another man fleeing immigration agents in Florida died after being hit by a truck. At least 22 people have died in ICE custody this year, including inside immigration detention centres.