Additional Coverage:
ICE Agent Fires Weapon After Violent Confrontation with Undocumented Immigrant in St. Paul
St. Paul, MN – An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent discharged his firearm Sunday morning during a chaotic encounter with an undocumented Cuban immigrant who allegedly struck two officers with an SUV and bit another while attempting to evade apprehension.
The incident, which unfolded outside the man’s St. Paul apartment, resulted in non-life-threatening injuries to the agents and comes amidst heightened immigration enforcement tensions in the Twin Cities.
According to Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, ICE agents located the individual, who entered the U.S. in 2024 through a now-discontinued Biden administration program for asylum seekers, as he entered his SUV. Agents identified themselves and ordered him to roll down his window. When he refused, they warned they would shatter it.
The situation quickly escalated as the man reportedly sped away, hitting one agent in the process. He then drove to his apartment complex’s parking lot, where agents again intercepted him and commanded him to exit the vehicle.
McLaughlin stated that the man then rammed his SUV into an ICE vehicle, striking a second agent, which prompted an ICE agent to fire his weapon. The shots did not strike the individual.
Following another collision with an ICE vehicle, the man reportedly exited his SUV and attempted to flee into his apartment but was tackled to the ground by agents. During the struggle, he allegedly bit an ICE agent.
All parties involved were transported to the hospital for evaluation. The man was unharmed, and the agents’ injuries were not life-threatening.
St. Paul police confirmed they responded to reports of shots fired, discovering it was an ICE agent who had discharged the weapon.
This incident follows closely on the heels of other confrontations in the area, including clashes between ICE agents and protesters in Minneapolis last week. It also comes days after a separate alleged assault on a federal agent in New Hope.
In that incident, Oluwadamilola Bamigboye, 24, a Nigerian national accused of overstaying his student visa, and Rekeya Frazier, 23, face charges for allegedly trapping a Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent in a car and dropping him off at the New Hope Police Department. Bamigboye, who denies agents showed credentials, claims he reacted due to PTSD from a previous kidnapping in his home country.