Ice agent kills woman in Minneapolis, protests in several cities

The mayor of New York and leading Democrat Zohran Mamdani also spoke out on the issue: 'I don't know what the president will do but I can say what I told Trump directly, which is that these raids are cruel and inhuman and do nothing for public safety. What New Yorkers want is a city that is safe, where they feel safe leaving their homes. We will continue to say that this city stands by migrants and respects the norms of a sanctuary city."

Details are still fragmentary and neither version has been independently confirmed so far. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Dem and the first Somali-American elected to the US House - who has been in the crosshairs of Donald Trump's comments in the past - whose constituency includes the area of the shooting, described the victim as a 'legal observer' of the ICE operation that has mobilised over 2,000 federal agents in the city since yesterday.

The incident meanwhile drew numerous protesters to the area, just over a kilometre from the place where in 2020 a white policeman killed the afro-American George Floyd.

Thousands of people in Chicago, New York, Detroit, San Francisco and other cities across the country, as well as in Minneapolis of course, demonstrated in the streets. In Detroit, dozens of people gathered in front of the Ice building on Michigan Avenue in the city centre to protest against the agents. The protest was organised by the Comité de Acción Comunitaria, Detroit's Community Action Committee. The main organiser, Kassandra Rodriguez, denounced the 'abuse of power. I think this is something that should never happen and is totally unacceptable,' she said. "And I think it is up to our local administrations to take a tough stance against a situation like this and not allow Ice to do whatever it wants in our neighbourhoods."

Minneapolis is the latest target of the Trump administration's campaign against illegal immigration. Among those taking part in the action was Gregory Bovino, a senior official with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, known for being the face of anti-immigrant crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. "ICE agents are causing chaos," Frey said, calling on federal forces to leave the city immediately. The shooting marks a dramatic escalation in the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations conducted in major US cities. Minneapolis and its sister city St. Paul have been on high alert since the Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday the launch of the operation linked in part to fraud allegations involving residents of Somali origin and which prompted Governor Tim Walz (former vice presidential candidate with Kamala Harris) not to run for another term.