Ex-ICE chief calls DHS rush to judgment after Minneapolis shooting 'irresponsible'

Amna Nawaz:

For more analysis, I'm joined now by John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director under President Obama.

John, welcome back to the show. Thanks for being with us.

John Sandweg, Former Acting ICE Director:

Yes, thanks for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

So, as you have seen, DHS is saying that the ICE agent here was acting in self-defense. The mayor of Minneapolis, others have dismissed that after they saw the video. Have you yourself watched the video? What's your assessment of what happened here?

John Sandweg:

I think the videos -- I have seen two videos now, and I think both of them raise troubling questions here.

But I think what concerns me is this rush to judgment, really on both sides, but I did find the DHS statement particularly irresponsible. This requires an investigation. This -- the video certainly raises concerns as to whether or not the officer had a reasonable basis to believe his life or the life of his fellow agents were in either serious danger of death or bodily injury.

But these videos are not -- they're not the entire story and they can be misleading. And so I think what will concern me is that we have all these people making these immediate rushes to judgment without first conducting a formal investigation, getting the facts we need and then drawing our conclusions based on a thorough assessment of what exactly happened.

Amna Nawaz:

You mentioned that DHS statement. It was very long and detailed, definitively coming out in defense of the ICE agent's actions.

What questions do you think need to be answered now to figure out what exactly happened here?

John Sandweg:

Well, first of all, I will tell you, I spent five years at DHS working for a secretary. And whenever something like this happens, the initial information you get is just not accurate.

You get all sort of people doing their best to provide quickly information to the department's leadership. And, just unfortunately, it just tends not to be -- you get this misleading or wrong information in the outset.

So I think that what's frustrating in part, and where I find that statement really irresponsible, is that you know better when you're in those positions to make rush, snap judgments based on that initial reporting.

But, secondly, Amna, look, this -- the videos certainly raise all sorts of questions, including, where was the officer located as the car started to take off, right? What caused the officer to get into that position? What was the distance between the officer and the -- and the driver of the vehicle or the vehicle itself, right?

What angle did the bullets come in? These are all questions are going to form that basis. Now, Amna, the analysis is from that of the agent himself. Did he have a reasonable basis to believe that his life or his fellow agents' lives were in jeopardy, right? That's the critical question.

But, again, although those videos absolutely raise troubling questions in that, and I think call all the more reason for us to have an investigation, they're not -- they're not alone sufficient. We're going to need to get more data than that to draw any real conclusions.

Amna Nawaz:

As you know, DHS often points out that ICE agents operating in Minneapolis and other places face protesters and people videotaping them. There's also been concerns about how quickly ICE has been staffing up to meet the demands of the president's mass deportation campaign.

Does any of that, you think, potentially play a role here?

John Sandweg:

No, absolutely.

I mean, one of the big questions I have here is, how experienced was this particular agent engaged in the shooting, right? Was this one of the new hires? We know a couple of things. We know the department's lowered their standards for hiring of ICE agents. We know they have shortened the training.

So I think critical questions here will be, did any of that have an impact or play a role in this shooting or really in any of the use of force incidents? At the end of the day, this is about training. This is about training and experience, right? And when you're putting officers on the street where you have lowered the standards and you have shortened the training, you increase dramatically the risks of incidents like this.

And I will say one other thing too is that this mass deportation mission, it's created a supercharged environment. And the tactics that ICE has had to adopt as a result of the administration's call for them to increase the number of arrests has created more vulnerabilities for the agents themselves and raised the tensions.

And I do think, unfortunately, that climate, that climate where we have these agents confronting these protesters and there's aggression and this kind of zero tolerance towards anybody who obstructs or gets in the way of the ICE mission, certainly, that kind of plays a role here as well.

But, again, this is why we need an investigation. We need to interview the officers involved. And all of that will inform what happened here and what do we need to do differently to prevent some like this happening in the future.

Amna Nawaz:

All right, that is former Acting ICE Director John Sandweg joining us tonight.

John, thank you. Always good to speak with you.

John Sandweg:

Thank you very much.