United States

Minneapolis and beyond. What Ice is and why Americans are protesting

Between recent news, historical precedents and institutional conflicts, the federal immigration agency returns to the centre of the debate on security, civil rights and state powers in the US

by Angelica Migliorisi

9 June 2025

Un manifestante affronta la polizia fuori dall’hotel dove si ritiene alloggi Gregory Bovino, alto funzionario della polizia di frontiera, a Maple Grove, un sobborgo di Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, il 26 gennaio 2026. Bovino dovrebbe lasciare il Minnesota dopo che Alex Pretti è stata la seconda persona uccisa dagli agenti federali a Minneapolis questo mese. EPA/CRAIG LASSIG

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

What is Ice
Birth
The two souls of the agency
The entry into the political debate
Community impact
The conflict with cities and "sanctuary states"

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The death of Alex Pretti, the arrests of dozens of clerics, a series of lawsuits filed against the federal government for alleged constitutional violations. Ice is back in the news. The city of Minneapolis is currently the scene of heightened tensions after a federal agent killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, during a checkpoint operation related to a large deployment of federal immigration enforcement forces. The case reignited protests in multiple states, recalling other times when the action of Immigration and Customs Enforcement had already become a detonator of national mobilisations. As in 2018 with the policy of separating families at the border and, in 2020, during the deployment of federal agents in cities crossed by protests against police violence.

Once again, the street demonstrations were accompanied by the mobilisation of religious leaders and a flurry of lawsuits against the federal administration. Similar dynamics to those that occurred after the major raids on Mississippi workplaces in 2019, which had led to the arrest of hundreds of workers and raised widespread debate about the social impact of the agency's operations.

Manifestanti anti-Ice furibondi dopo omicidio Pretti a Minneapolis

What is Ice

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federallaw enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security (Dhs). Its main task is enforcing federal immigration laws within US territory, as well asinvestigating transnational crimes such as human trafficking, smuggling and fraud. Unlike the Border Patrol, which operates along the borders, ICE operates in cities, neighbourhoods, workplaces, and courthouses, directly affecting the daily life of local communities and the relationship between citizens, government, and federal authorities.

Birth

ICE was established in 2003, following the Homeland Security Act, the law reorganising the federal apparatus after the attacks of 11 September 2001. It was in that passage that the Department of Homeland Security was created and the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was dismantled, whose functions were divided between three new entities: the ICE, Customs and Border Protection (Cbp) and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (Uscis). The aim is to strengthen internal security by improving the coordination of controls, investigations and immigration enforcement.

Milano-Cortina, Sala: "Ice non compatibili con nostre modalità di sicurezza"

The two souls of the agency

Since its creation, ICE has been structured into two major divisions. The Homeland Security Investigations (Hsi) is the investigative branch, responsible for complex investigations into organised crime, trafficking and federal offences. The Enforcement and Removal Operations (Ero), on the other hand, is the branch responsible for identifying, arresting, detaining and repatriating people without legal immigration status.

With the passage of time, it is above all the work of ICE that defines the agency's public image. Arrest and detention operations are in fact those that produce the greatest media and social impact, while investigative work remains less visible, even though it constitutes a significant part of ICE's formal mandate.

The entry into the political debate

For several years, ICE remained little known to the general public. The turning point came in the second half of the 1910s, particularly between 2017 and 2018, when migration policy became one of the central issues on the federal agenda. The images of children separated from their families at the border and the increase in administrative detentions brought the agency into the spotlight. It was at this time that the slogan "Abolish ICE" entered the language of civil mobilisation.

The cases, meanwhile, multiply. In 2018 Roxana Hernández Rodríguez, a Honduran transgender migrant, dies after being transferred to Ice custody in New Mexico. Criticism of detention conditions, access to medical care and the treatment of vulnerable people in the agency's centres became increasingly vehement. One year later, Carlos Hernández Vásquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan citizen, also dies in an Ice detention centre in Texas. The autopsy and subsequent investigations reveal serious deficiencies in controls and surveillance.

L'Ice minaccia giornalisti italiani in Minnesota

The impact on communities

In subsequent years, the agency consolidated its role through large-scale operations, including workplace raids and coordinated interventions in multiple states. Some episodes, such as those in Mississippi in 2019, show how migration enforcement affects entire communities, impacting families, schools, parishes and productive sectors. It is also at this stage thatthe attention of civil rights organisations grows, as they begin to monitor arrest and detention practices.

The conflict with cities and 'sanctuary' states

Meanwhile, several states and large cities adopt policies known as sanctuary, limiting local law enforcement cooperation with ICE. In California, for example,laws such as SB 54 reduce the use of state resources for federal immigration enforcement. It is intended to prevent public services and municipal police from becoming indirect instruments of deportation, especially in the absence of serious criminal charges.

This opened up a structural conflict between Washington and local authorities, which over the years resulted in lawsuits, political stances and administrative decisions to limit the agency's role on the ground.

In the summer of 2020, after the killing of George Floyd, Portland, Oregon, becomes one of the epicentres of anti-Ice protests, with daily riots concentrated around federal buildings, starting with the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse. The Trump administration decides to deploy federal agents to protect government facilities. In the field are not only agents from the Justice Department, but also personnel from the Department of Homeland Security.

Formally, ICE is not the lead agency of the operation, but it is part of the same institutional ecosystem, and the intervention is perceived as a 'federalisation' of public order. Agents, on the other hand, often operate in tactical gear, without visible identification and using unmarked vehicles. Some protesters are stopped and temporarily detained away from the protest sites.

In California, however, the conflict soon becomes permanent: the 'sanctuary' policies adopted by the state and many cities limit cooperation with ICE and turn every federal immigration operation into an institutional tug-of-war between Washington and local governments.

From 2025 onwards, the focus on the agency grows again. The debate widens from immigration to limits on the use of force, to the transparency of federal agencies and democratic control over their powers.