Fact-checking the Minneapolis ICE shooting

On Saturday, January 3, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro along with his wife, Cilia Flores. They’re being held in a notorious federal jail.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump doubled down on his claim that the U.S. will run Venezuela. Trump’s energy secretary said Wednesday that sales of Venezuelan oil will be "done by the U.S. government and deposited into accounts controlled by the U.S. government.” And before Maduro’s capture, Trump was pretty clear about wanting Venezuelan oil.

Foreign intervention and regime change generally erodes democracy in the places we’re intervening, sparks more wars, and fuels repression. That is the real-life impact of this, regardless of whether that kind of imperialism happens with congressional approval. But it’s still worth noting that this attack on Venezuela happened without the green light from Congress, even though federal law requires the president to consult Congress before a military action. Experts also say the attack violates international law.

Venezuelans have mixed emotions about all this. Many celebrated the removal of Maduro, who watchdogs have criticized as an authoritarian leader. Many also doubted that Trump’s involvement will actually help much.

Trump suggested the U.S. might carry out similar operations in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran and Greenland. The U.S. has similarly meddled in these countries before. Over the past century and a half or so, the U.S. has tried to buy Cuba, repeatedly occupied it, invaded it, trained repressive anti-communist forces there, and repeatedly tried to kill Fidel Castro.

As for Colombia, the U.S. supported a revolt that let us to build and profit off of the Panama Canal, threatened to send troops before the Colombian army notoriously massacred striking workers of a U.S. fruit company in Colombia, and trained Colombian military and paramilitary forces involved in human rights abuses.

In Iran, the U.S. helped orchestrate a coup, provided diplomatic and material support for its nuclear development before getting angry about that nuclear development decades later, supported Iraq’s invasion of Iran, infamously trafficked weapons to Iran in order to fund a Nicaraguan rebel group, shot down a civilian flight, and killed an Iranian general.

The U.S. went to war with Mexico to take its land, occupied a Mexican port and killed hundreds of Mexicans in the process, sent thousands of more troops into Mexico after that, created a law enforcement agency to patrol the border, gave millions of dollars to fund military and surveillance equipment in Mexico, and arrested and charged a former Mexican government official.

If Trump makes good on his threat to take Greenland, it could mean the end of NATO — a military alliance between 32 countries that includes the U.S. and many European nations. And the U.S. invading Greenland could set off a chain reaction that would obligate other NATO members to respond.

The U.S.’ capture of Maduro was the escalation of a months long pressure campaign against Venezuela that involved various boat strikes, killing 123 people. Experts largely called the boat strikes illegal. Amid this campaign, six senators released a video urging troops to resist illegal orders.

This week, Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth censured one of those Senators, Arizona Democrat and Navy veteran Mark Kelly, for making that video.

What does this censure actually do? It could reduce Kelly’s retired rank and affect his retirement pay. One Republican senator said it “has a chilling effect on speech”.

X users are using Grok to undress women and children. Lots of countries don’t have comprehensive AI regulations that would stop people from using this, or from using AI generated nudes to humiliate and harass victims.

But child porn is illegal — even Grok recognizes that. That doesn’t stop it from generating nude photos of children, though.

So, who’s responsible for this illegal act? Is it tech companies, executives like Elon Musk, or users themselves? One proposed piece of legislation in the U.K. would impose prison time and fines to people supplying this kind of tech. Officials in France and India are also trying to hold X accountable over this.

An ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis resident, at a protest there Wednesday. The Minnesota Star Tribune identified the agent as Jonathan Ross. Video evidence contradicted the Department of Homeland Security’s claim after the shooting that Good tried to run agents over.

In response to the shooting, immigrant rights advocates have called for Congress to block new funding for DHS, which oversees ICE. They’ve also demanded that ICE agents leave Minneapolis and other cities.

Why is ICE in Minneapolis, anyway? The Trump administration sent thousands of federal agents there following dubious claims that child care centers run by Somali Americans are committing fraud.

This isn’t an isolated incident. My former colleague Shannon Heffernan found that federal agents have fatally shot at least three other people in the last five months. And The Trace found that federal agents have shot or held people at gunpoint at least 30 times during Trump’s immigration crackdown.

What’s next? Activists continue to mourn and protest after the shooting. Meanwhile, the federal government will investigate this shooting by a federal agent, stopping state agencies from doing so.