A series of shootings by federal immigration agents, including two deaths in Minneapolis, have galvanized intense local and national protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. Federal immigration agents killed Renee Nicole Good, 37 – a mother of three – and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, weeks apart in January 2026.

Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency on Jan. 20, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained thousands of people across the country, including U.S. citizens and legal residents. At least 11 people have been shot, including a Venezuelan migrant in Minneapolis on Jan. 14, 2026. Children and babies have been tear-gassed.

I am a political scientist who studies authoritarian regimes. I also lived through Argentina’s brutal military junta of the 1970s and 1980s. When I consider today’s ICE violence, I think of the state terrorism that tore Argentina apart – and how mothers became a potent force in resisting authoritarianism and ultimately restoring democracy.

U.S. federal immigration enforcement actions began raising human rights concerns starting in April 2025, when masked federal agents in plain clothes began detaining international students.

Historically in the U.S., police and other official state security forces have used face coverings almost exclusively during undercover operations to protect agent safety and the integrity of ongoing investigations, according to federal law enforcement sources.

The global human rights group Amnesty International has begun using the phrase “the Trump effect” to describe masking and other administration actions that it believes violate global human rights standards.

Meanwhile, violence by ICE agents also runs counter to international law – as does police violence more broadly.

Several United Nations principles require that police action be guided at all times by legality, necessity, proportionality and nondiscrimination. Any use of force that does not comply with these principles violates international law.

Amnesty International’s policing guidance is based on these standards. It explains that police must attempt to use nonviolent means first, such as verbal commands, negotiation and warnings.

When force is necessary, officers must use “the least harmful means........

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