Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Inside ICE: Recruitment, Congressional Accountability, and Absolute Immunity

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

This episode was recorded before Border Patrol agents shot and killed Twin Cities nurse Alex Pretti. What happens when the people enforcing the law no longer seem bound by it? Our contributor Elise Labott reports on ICE’s expansive recruitment campaign and training program. Sharon is then joined by MN Representative Angie Craig to discuss the escalating situation in Minnesota and what Congress may, or may not, do in response. Plus, do ICE agents have absolute immunity, as JD Vance claims? Our guest, former DOJ attorney Liz Oyer says absolutely not.  If you’d like to submit a question, head to thepreamble.com/podcast – we’d love to hear from you there. And be sure to read our weekly magazine at ThePreamble.com – it’s free! Join hundreds of thousands of readers who still believe understanding is an act of hope. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson (00:00:00) What’s Drawing Recruits to ICE? (00:15:52) What is Congress Doing About ICE? (00:31:18) Do ICE Agents Have Absolute Immunity? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get into today's episode, just a quick note. This interview was recorded two days before Border Patrol agents shot and killed Twin Cities nurse Alex Pretty. Welcome to the Preamble podcast. This week, we're joined by Elisa Labett for our lead story. Elise is a journalist who has covered global affairs and politics for more than two decades and is a regular contributor to the preamble magazine. This week, she's looking into ICE recruitment. Who is being drawn to these positions, and why do so many of the ads look like Norman Rockwell paintings? And ahead, I'll speak with Congresswoman Angie Craig of Minnesota. She says Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem should be impeached over what's happening in her state.

Plus, my interview with former Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer. She says the idea of absolute immunity for ICE officers is just not true, despite people like J.D. Vance saying it is. I'm Sharon McMahon, and this is the preamble podcast. Here's Elise. In September, the Department of Homeland Security began posting recruitment ads for immigration and customs enforcement, also known as ICE, on social media. The images evoked warm nostalgia for an idyllic America. Norman Rockwell's 1946 working on the Statue of Liberty paired with slogans like, protect your homeland, defend your culture, and Calvin Coolidge's remark that, quote, those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit, what to not settle in America.

Each post includes a link, join ice.gov. There, a Civil War era Uncle Sam, points at the viewer, intoning, America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need you to get them out. Another post from December depicted a pristine beach scene with a vintage Cadillac and no people, overlaid with the quote, America after 100 million deportations. The caption described this as the peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world.

It was the public face of what ICE officials internally call wartime recruitment, an $100 million campaign to hire 10,000 employees and reshape how Americans understand immigration enforcement. According to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, ICE planned to, quote, flood the market with advertising across television, streaming platforms, social media, and influencer partnerships. The strategy targets people interested in conservative news and politics, patriotic lifestyles, gun rights organizations, and tactical gear bans. The campaign uses geo-fencing technology to pinpoint these potential recruits, sending messages to anyone whose phones enter military bases, NASCAR races, gun shows, or college campuses. ICE allocated $8 million for deals with online influencers,

former agents, veterans, and pro-ice creators, expected to host live streams, attend events, and post content to Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, X, and YouTube. The result was over 220,000 applications and 12,000 new hires, a hundred and twenty percent increase to the workforce, according to a DHS announcement in January. Norman Rockwell's family objected to the use of his work in the campaign. Between August and December, DHS posted at least four different Rockwell paintings to its social media accounts, each paired with nationalist slogans.

In a USA Today op-ed, the family wrote that Rockwell would be, quote, devastated to see his art marshalled for the cause of persecution towards immigrant communities and people of color, given his personal commitment to civil rights. They asked federal agencies to stop using his work, but DHS ignored the request. The posts remain online as the recruitment campaign grows increasingly explicit about its vision for America. Beneath the administration's language lies imagery linked to extreme right-wing ideologies

in some of the darkest chapters of 20th century propaganda. In August, DHS put the caption, Which Way American Man, along an image of Uncle Sam standing next to a group of street signs pointing in different directions. Observers immediately recognized the reference to William Galey Simpson's 1978 manifesto, Which Way Western Man? The book, published by Neo-Nazi National Alliance, includes passages like, quote, let me preface what I'm about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews hold on our throat

is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip. Earlier this month, the Department of Labor posted a video montage of idealized American scenes with the caption, One homeland, one people, one heritage. Remember who you are American.

The phrase echoes, Invoque, in Reich, in Fuhhe, one people, one country, one leader, which the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum identifies as one of the central slogans used by Hitler and the Nazi party. ICE had previously posted an ad featuring mass agents storming buildings, training attack dogs, and brandishing assault rifles, all set to gothic lettering reminiscent of the typeface used by Nazis in publications and on the cover of Mankind.

The caption, Hunt Cartels Save America. Another post, also from earlier this month, featured an image of a cowboy on horseback beneath a B-2 bomber captioned, We'll Have Our Home Again. To most Americans scrolling past, the imagery might register as patriotic nostalgia. But to those steeped in white nationalist communities online, the references were recognizable.

We'll Have Our Home Again is the title of a song by the Acapella Group, Pine Tree Roots. Its members are affiliated with the Manor Bund, which describes itself as a fraternity for right-wing men, and is listed by the Southern Poverty Laws Center as a white nationalist organization. These posts come as the nation grapples with the fatal ice shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. When ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Good, an incident captured on video showing

he had positioned himself in front of Good's car, and that Goods seemed to be turning away from him as she attempted to leave, the administration's response was to double down. Homeland Security Secretary Christine Ome defended Ross, saying he followed his train. Two days later, DHS posted the We'll Have Our Home Again recruitment video. The song has become an anthem for the right-wing extremists and self-described Western Chauvinist group, Proud Boys. As journalist Gabe Stutman documented, Proud Boys sang the song at a November 2020 rally in Sacramento.

The lyrics also opened the manifesto of Ryan Christopher Palmeiter, a 21-year-old white supremacus who killed three black people in a Jacksonville Dollar General in 2023. Open measures, which monitors extremist social media activity, found over 450 posts sharing the song on Telegram since 2020, nearly all from white supremacist channels. Emma Connolly, a research fellow at University College London, explained the psychology of the ICE recruitment campaign like this. Social media algorithms thrive on anger and fear, she said. Simplified forms of storytelling that rely on moral binaries, good versus. evil, us versus them, and are especially effective at capturing attention and encouraging sharing. When you look at this one DHS post in the context of all others, it's not an accident.

Those are the words of Bill Braniff, Executive Director of American University's polarization and extremist research and innovation lab. But when confronted on CNN about the recruitment post referencing the song, DHS Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin described the concerns as, quote, fake outrage. Beyond social media, ICE has spent over $6.5 million on television advertising, targeting police officers in cities that include Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Seattle for recruitment. It spent more than $850,000 in Seattle alone. The 30-second spots open with the familiar city skylines and a narrator announcing, attention law enforcement, you took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city safe.

But in sanctuary cities, you're ordered to stand down why dangerous illegals walk free. The ads invite officers to, quote, join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst, drug traffickers, gang members, predators. They promise signing bonuses up to $50,000, student loan repayment up to $60,000, and enhanced benefits. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell called the ads insulting to the oath that officers took when they raised their hands and swore to uphold the Constitution. The Office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warned the administration's desire to poach officers from the Chicago Police Department has a potential to decrease the number of officers serving on the streets of Chicago and would only undermine their public safety efforts. Now, the administration doesn't make propaganda just to recruit agents. It also creates it to celebrate their actions. After ICE descended on a Chicago apartment building in December with a Black Hawk helicopter

and flashbang grenades to arrest 37 Venezuelan immigrants, DHS immediately released professionally filmed footage of the raid. The video strategy mirrors tactics used by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization which used social media videos mimicking video game aesthetics to recruit fighters before Vladimir Putin's invasion. of Ukraine. DHS's social media channels feature fast action shorts with energetic music, including one titled, Break the Law, We Regulate, that shows masked officers pulling someone from a car and shoving him to the ground. There's a blaring gap between ICE immigration

enforcement tactics and the narrative the administration is trying to accomplish. The messaging frames ICE operations as targeting, quote, the worst of the worst, a phrase repeated in ads, post, and official statements. But the data contradicts that narrative. According to the transactional records access clearinghouse, which aggregates immigration detention information, more than 73 percent of people held by ICE nationwide have no criminal record. At the Northwest Ice Processing Center, that number is closer to 60 percent. Even many of the convictions are for minor offenses like traffic violations or for decades old cases. Videos showing ICE agents pinning a target employee to the ground with a knee on their neck,

hunting down a door dash driver as she hides terrified inside the home of a person who ordered from her and threatening people who filmed them reveal a different reality from the administration's heroic narrative. The administration hasn't left narrative control to official channels alone.

It cultivates right-wing influencers by taking them on ice ride-alongs and holding special briefings where they receive access to cabinet members. The influencers then amplify DHS messaging and create content portraying ICE operations as righteous crusades. When protests erupted in Minneapolis, DHS posted videos of Secretary Nome filmed during ICE operations, content that conservative influencers amplified to their millions of followers.

Pro-Trump influencers posted clips of it, urging the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. As Trump threatened to do, exactly that, unless Minnesota's, quote, corrupt politicians stopped the professional agitators and insurrectionist from attacking the Patriots of ICE. The combination of white nationalist imagery, promises of sweeping enforcement power, and celebrations of violence

raises an obvious question. Whom exactly is ICE trying to recruit? Democratic lawmakers have voiced concern about the agency's vetting process, particularly whether ICE is hiring individuals with extremist ties, including January 6 rioters and proud boys members. The Minnesota ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging racial profiling by ICE agents in the case.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary Nome, quote, demanding records and information whether any individuals connected to the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol, have been hired by ICE. Raskin also noted that ICE is, quote, unique among all law enforcement. agencies and all branches of the armed services because its agents conceal their identities wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms. He asked, why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force,

and Marines all routinely work on masked while ICE agents work masked? Sarah Saldana, ICE director during the Obama administration, expressed concerns that framing ICE jobs as part of a war, tends to, quote, inculcate in people a certain aggressiveness that may not be necessary in 85% of what you do. Former ICE agent Eric O'Donnes sees that aggression on display. He said use of force in our district was very rare when he was talking to a Minneapolis TV station. And now it seems to be happening almost daily. He said the tactics he observed would not be professional by any law enforcement agency. The Trump administration is building an enforcement apparatus with military-style tactics, recruited through appeals to racial resentment and imagery

celebrating a nativist vision of an America that needs defending from foreign invaders. It's creating both a propaganda system that defines immigrants as existential threats and recruiting a workforce with specific receptiveness to that worldview, people who will be entrusted with the lawful use of violence to accomplish government goals. In working on the Statue of Liberty, Norman Rockwell painted workers of all backgrounds together, a vision of America where immigrants contribute to the country's promise. Uncle Sam called on Americans to defend democracy against fascism. This iconography is now being hijacked to recruit Americans to pursue 100 million deportations and create a nation no longer besieged by the third world. Under the Trump administration,

these tactics are not likely to change. What's uncertain, is whether Americans still want Rockwell's inclusive vision of that country, or will accept the warping of that vision to justify the abuse and removal of some of the very kinds of people Rockwell celebrated. When we come back, a six-month-old baby needed CPR after being tear-gast, and an elderly man was forced out of his house in just his underwear in sub-zero temperatures. I'll talk to Congresswoman Angie Craig about what's happening on the ground in Minnesota, Next.

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Listen to and follow Undomesticated and Odyssey Podcast, available wherever you get. You're joined now by Congresswoman Angie Craig. She represents the second district in Minnesota, which includes the Minneapolis suburbs. There are so many people who are listening to this right now who are going to be listening to this, who want to know what is actually happening with ICE in relationship to Minnesota. We've seen so many headlines.

We've seen so many videos. The government says one thing. J.D. Vance is out here saying, well, I never said that. But then there's video that he said that ICE agents have unlimited. immunity, what's happening on the ground seems to be very different than the official version of the story. So I'd love to hear it from you. What is going on? So let me first say that the Trump administration is lying to us. And don't believe me, obviously, a Democrat from Minnesota, believe the videos that we are seeing every single day coming out of Minnesota. I detained a five-year-old

two days ago. A five-year-old, and they used that five-year-old to lure his father out of the house. And guess what? They took them both and sent them out of the state. Believe law enforcement. I couldn't believe my eyes this week. I've never been so proud of local law enforcement in Minnesota, who stood up at a press conference and said they are racially profiling Minnesotans. And how do we know? they're doing it to our off-duty police officers. Anyone black or brown is being racially profiled. Believe the videos. There are no judicial warrants.

They're knocking down front doors and they're removing people from their homes in very little clothing in minus 50 degree weather. What's happening in Minnesota is horrific. And frankly, every single one of us should be standing up and saying, this is just wrong. Of course we want a secure border. Of course we want criminals off of our streets, the worst of the worst. No one would fight that. What we are fighting is the indiscriminate targeting of our immigrant neighbors and even U.S. citizens taking them in the dead of the night and removing them from Minnesota. We have never seen anything like this, frankly, in my lifetime, at least. You know, I've said many times, and I'm going to keep saying this.

that you can want every single immigration law on the books enforced to the highest possible level. And it will still not involve peer-gassing babies. It will still not involve dragging elderly United States citizens out of the house in their underwear in sub-zero temperatures without a warrant. Those are things that are illegal. You cannot violate the law to enforce the law. That's the bottom line. You're exactly right. And what we're seeing now is really another level of lawlessness from Donald Trump's and Christy Noem's ICE. You know, I filed articles of impeachment last Wednesday against Kristineau because she is violating the law. And I've just never seen an agency that is supposed to be law enforcement behaving so different than actual law enforcement would behave. from starting with just rolling up on a scene like they did when Renee Good was killed and escalating the scene so quickly.

Law enforcement is actually trained to de-escalate a situation. That is what they are there for to serve and protect. And what we're seeing in Minnesota is the opposite of that from ICE. They are simply harassing our neighbors, and it's creating such fear in our communities that many of our communities are at a complete standstill from a school community, which you know so well. Absences are up dramatically in many of our schools. ICE agents following students and families home from school and detaining them at their homes. And these are not people who have been identified as violent offenders who have. have somehow committed a criminal offense, these are just our neighbors.

People really want to know what is Congress going to do about it? We all feel like we're trying to get off the sidelines, and we need some people who have access to the levers of power of government, the people who are funding ICE, the people who give ICE their salaries and their equipment and authorize them to go out and do these things. What is Congress going to do about it, Representative Craig? Well, sadly, today, in Congress, there was a vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security. I voted hell no on the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but it passed.

And the truth is, unless we can find four patriots in the Republican Party, which frankly, I can't find any at this moment in time on immigration issues because every single Republican that I work with has become an acolyte of the Trump administration. They're either afraid to speak out because they don't want to be primary by people in their own party or they're afraid to speak out because they're actually afraid of the security risks that their families might face if they speak out and do the right thing. And to my Republican colleagues who refused to stand up and push back to this administration's horrific policies, I say, you're in the wrong job. You don't deserve to be here in the United States Congress because

you are serving the Trump administration instead of the Constitution of the United States. We had four funding bills today on the House floor. I voted against every single one of them because I do not believe that we can continue to work with these folks when they are not working with us in good faith. And literally, they are terrorizing the people of Minnesota. And until they stop terrorizing the people of Minnesota, I cannot support any part of the Trump funding agenda, any of these agencies. I hear from thousands of people on a daily basis. And one of my largest groups of followers is from the state of Minnesota. And there are many people here who are concerned about what's happening here.

Number one, because they care. Number two, they see the writing on the wall that it's happening into you. It's going to happen to me. And I have a very profound sense that the American public is deeply tired of Congress's in action. that they are deeply tired of Democrats going on Sunday morning TV shows and making videos and talking about how bad ICE is, how bad the Trump administration is, and feeling like all they have is talk and no action, that nobody is standing up and doing anything, that all we're doing is just deriding them, but not actually stopping them. What tools do, members of Congress,

who want to make a move on what is happening with ICE or any other issue for that matters. What tools do members of the minority party have in Congress to actually do something? More tools in the Senate than we have in the House, because in the House, as we well know, it's a simple majority vote. So House members, we are outgunned.

We're outnumbered by Republicans here, and they seem to be very good at getting their folks in line. And I'm going to stop and just say to all of your viewers, the only way we're actually going to stop the Trump administration from committing the atrocities that we view every single day is by winning majorities in the House and in the U.S. Senate. The Senate has more tools than the House does because typically with the filibuster, in many cases, they have to get to 60 votes. And so I'm going to say this to people who may identify as Democrats. When you have a candidate as a Democrat who can win an election, we need to put the people in these races who can win because we cannot stop them unless we are in the majority. We have to take the majority back in 2026.

We get oversight, leadership, if we do that, we get subpoena power in 2026 if we take back the House of Representatives, we get a lot more tools. But the trace is, in a presidential election, for example, if a candidate can't win the seven battleground states that we have to win to get the electoral votes to actually win the presidency, then that's the wrong candidate. I'm sorry to be so focused on winning down elections, but candidly, I'm still pissed off about 24. We should be in the majority in the House of Representatives. And look, you go back to the feelings of voters in 2024. A lot of my independent voters, the ones who decide an election in a state like Minnesota,

a lot of my independent voters felt that the Biden administration had not been strong enough on letting folks cross into the border from an asylum perspective. There was a lot of criticism. We all remembered that. But those same voters right now feel like the Trump administration has gone way further than what they were asking for. So at the end of the day, Sharon, there's tools, there's oversight, there's subpoena power. In the Senate especially, there's the filibuster that requires Republicans to get to 60 on most votes. And, you know, what's done is done for some of these senators.

but for me, I'm not going to enable their agenda, not any of it, from a funding perspective at this point. I voted against every single funding bill that was on the House floor this week. And I think we have to start considering how are we going to fight back harder with our vote? I would imagine that most of the people who are listening to this right now intend to vote in November of 26. the new Congress will not be seated until January 3rd of 2027. People listening to this right now are like, we don't have a year. And feeling like, so I'm just just to sit by and watch all of this go down for a year because my party doesn't have the majority in the House.

I do understand what you're saying. I am a government teacher. I do understand about how majorities work in the House, the billabuster works in the Senate. What you're saying is not incorrect. But I'm telling you that there are a lot of people who feel like something needs to happen now. Otherwise, this entire situation is going to spiral so far out of control that we're going to have irreparable consequences. That's truly how people feel.

Given that it appears as though the house has so few tools at their disposal to gain the leverage of power against what is happening. What can citizens do now? We're all going to be voting in November. We agree with you on that front. What can we do tomorrow? What happens if we live in a district that is represented by somebody who does not share our views about what is going on? That's exactly where I was going with this, Sharon. You know, I don't know if any of your viewers saw a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't realize that my exchange on the health floor with Tom Emmer was being captured by C-SPAN, but I took him directly head-on. And I think every American who lives in a Republican congressional district right now has got to have a call to action to peacefully protest at their congressman's office, to call their congressman's office, to email their congressman's office to make their lives so difficult when it comes to hearing from the opposite view of what they are hearing from the Trump administration or just. from Fox News viewers. And I need all of you. I'm doing it, right? I'm going to do town halls in each of my Republican Hill districts

throughout the rest of this year because they need to feel the pressure of American opinion. So if you live in our district that is represented currently by a Republican, you've got to get off the sidelines. You've got to get active. You've got to make sure

you're communicating with them. And as a member of Congress, I'm not going to let them get away with it. I'm going to call out their complicity at every turn. I'm going to get in a car and go to their congressional districts and invite their constituents to come here what I have to say as an alternative point of view because they are missing in auction and they have abdicated their responsibility to the Constitution of the United States of America. So if your listeners, your viewers, want to do something helpful right now,

support the Democrats who are standing up to their colleagues and to this administration, but also let's all of us make sure that Republicans who are representing their constituents, our communities, understand we're not going to give you a pass. You're not going to get away with abdicating your responsibility to the Constitution of the United States of America. Thank you very much for your time. And please do all that you can to protect. both citizens of the United States, immigrants in the United States, people are wanting their

representation in Congress to get off the sidelines in the same way that people in Congress want citizens to get off the sidelines. They want to see you out there. They want to see you doing something. So I'm encouraging you. That is what the people of Minnesota are looking for in this moment, is somebody to step forward in leadership and start doing more than just talk. So thank you so much for your time. Sure. Appreciate you. Thank you.

I appreciate you very much. And I would just say to your viewers, I had 50 semi-assault weapons in front of me two Saturdays ago at the Whipple Center in Minneapolis. And I'm a member of Damn Congress. So we all have to get off the sidelines out of our comfort level. These are not normal times. Thank you to Congresswoman Craig for joining us. J.D. Vance says ICE agents have absolute immunity.

My next guest, former Justice Department attorney says, no way. I'm joined now by former Justice Department pardon attorney, Liz Oyer. First of all, thank you for being here. Secondly, can you tell people what is absolute immunity? What is qualified immunity? When we hear these words sort of being tossed around the internet, what do these words even mean? And then walk us through how they may or may not apply to the actions of ICE. Yeah, it's so confusing. They are different types. of immunity. These words are being used in different ways by different people. And so I really welcome the opportunity to explain. So first of all, there is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents of any sort.

The Supreme Court said over 100 years ago that absolute immunity is not a thing, which we've been hearing from very high-level officials. J.D. Vamps has said it. Stephen Miller has said it. It's just not true. There are some limitations on the ability to hold federal agents accountable for their but they're not absolutely immune. And I kind of want to walk through what the legal framework looks like. It's complicated, but I'll try to make it as clear as possible. So there is a federal civil rights law that essentially prohibits the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers, whether they're your local police or federal agents.

And if a police officer uses excessive force, then that could be somebody they're trying to arrest, It could be a protester. It could be anybody. And typically, what would happen in that case is the Justice Department, which enforces federal laws, would investigate and potentially prosecute that person under this federal law. What we have going on here is the Justice Department has said that they're not going to investigate the shooting of Renee Good by this ICE agent in Minneapolis because they believe there is no basis for an investigation. It's very hard to understand.

how that could be the case, given what we have seen in videos and in a public domain already about this case. And in fact, there is a large group of career or Justice Department prosecutors who have quit over the refusal of the Justice Department to investigate. This is exactly the type of case that DOJ regularly investigates. And in fact, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division took the lead in investigating the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota by a police officer. and that officer was prosecuted under this exact same law that I mentioned. So that's what we'd expect to happen in normal times. But our leadership is saying there's no basis to investigate.

So the question then becomes, can the state of Minnesota prosecute these officers separate and apart from the Justice Department? That is tricky because there is an immunity doctrine that is called supremacy clause immunity. And essentially, a supremacy clause refers to part of the constitutional. that says that states can't interfere with the ability of the federal government to enforce federal laws. That is not absolute immunity, but it does make it a little bit more challenging for a state to bring up prosecution of a federal agent like ICE. If this were a state police officer, the state could prosecute in any way they saw fit, but because it's a federal agent,

there are some limits. And historically, the trap record of states successfully prosecuting federal agents is really pretty low. It's pretty discouraging in terms of success. And another problem here with the state prosecution is that the state is right now being excluded from the investigation of this killing by federal officers. If the state doesn't have access to all of the evidence, it makes it very hard for them to prosecute the case at any point in time because the dispensed will argue that, you know, the evidence wasn't collected. preserved in the proper manner necessarily by the state. So the investigation that's going on right now is really crucial to have any viable criminal prosecution in the future. And it's not clear that a

proper investigation is being conducted because we've heard these suggestions by federal officials that there's absolute immunity for the ICE officers. One other third ball on the criminal liability front is that in theory, the president could pardon the ICE agents for any violations of federal law. So Donald Trump could decide before he leaves office that he's pardoning this specific agent or all ICE agents for any crimes in violation of civil rights laws that they might have committed, and that would foreclose the possibility of a future federal prosecution. One thing that a number of folks have asked is, could a future administration prosecute Jonathan Ross, even if this administration doesn't? And in theory, yes, for a civil,

rights violation resulting in death like this one, there's no statute of limitations. So a future administration could decide to prosecute, but the two big hurdles are, one, you know, if there's a pardon, then that forecloses even a future prosecution. And two is, if we don't get all the evidence collected and preserved now, it becomes very hard to prosecute in the future as well. That's kind of criminal liability, and I'll stop there. Yeah, I have a follow-up question. Then I want to hear more about being held.

responsible civilly. But one of the things people are asking about the Renee Good shooting is why can't the state of Minnesota just take whatever evidence is currently available and use that to prosecute Jonathan Ross? And I'd love to hear you tell people why that is unlikely to work. Yeah, so collecting all of the evidence is absolutely essential. We can tell that there were many people who had cameras, that we're filming those officers that day, and for a prosecution to be successful, all of that video needs to be collected from all of those people.

Additionally, all of the witnesses need to be interviewed because we need to understand the full picture of what happened that day, and right now, the federal government is not making the ICE agents who were on the scene available to state authorities to interview them and get their account of what happened that day.

Additionally, there's physical evidence that needs to be analyzed, including the car, the ballistics, you know, all of the evidence at the scene that will shed an additional light on what happened. And all of that evidence right now is in the possession of federal authorities. So without collecting that evidence and having access to that evidence, it will be very hard for the state to make a case. And certainly the dispense would argue that the evidence that's been made available is incomplete. And that would very likely be grounds to get the prosecution dismissed. So essentially, the federal government's withholding of evidence, not giving state authorities access, makes it impossible for them to proceed with a prosecution that is likely to stand up in court.

When federal law enforcement authorities investigate, they don't go into it thinking our goal is to prosecute this person. They go into it thinking, our goal is to figure out exactly what happens here. And the fact that the Justice Department is not allowing a full investigation right now is really pretty shocking, Because typically that's the job of the Justice Department to go to a crime scene like this immediately or to go to a shooting scene like this. I shouldn't say crime scene because they wouldn't presume a crime occurred. They would know that a death occurred. So it's very serious. A death at the hands of a law enforcement officer.

And they would want to get to the bottom of exactly what happened because that's in the interest of justice. But here we have people at the highest levels, including the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, saying that he doesn't see any basis for a civil rights investigation here, which is really pretty. pretty astounding. I want to ask about whether or not Renee Goods family can sue the federal government and can they sue ICE agents individually. Yeah, that's another really good question. So in terms of suing the agent individually, in theory, yes, the agent could be sued. There is a general sort of civil immunity that the federal government has from civil lawsuits that has certain exceptions. And there's an exception that says that law enforcement officers can be sued. But there is another exception to that exception, which is this doctrine called qualified immunity.

And essentially, it says that unless there is a case on point telling the officer that the specific conduct that they engaged in was illegal, even if their conduct was illegal, they can't be held accountable for it. It's a doctrine that has existed for a long time. And over time, the Supreme Court has continued to make it more and more protective of law enforcement officers. There has been a huge amount of criticism of this legal doctrine called qualified immunity. I mean, it's really pretty much made up by courts to protect law enforcement officers. And it has gotten to the point where it's theoretically possible, but in practice, virtually impossible to hold an individual police officer accountable for a crime like this or an kill. like this because of qualified immunity. So there have been proposals at times by members of Congress

to eliminate or limit qualified immunity. And there have been judges who have been sharply critical of the results that they've had to reach in dismissing lawsuits because of qualified immunity. And it's really an important time to be thinking as a country about what reforms are needed in that space so that we can have accountability for families, like, the family of Renee Good in situations like this. I saw that Renee Good's family has retained an attorney and they're going to be exploring their legal options. What legal options does her family have, if any? Well, one option is to sue the United States government under a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, and that would be a way to potentially

hold the United States responsible. It's not liability for the specific officers, but really for the whole federal government. That is also a challenging road, but that's a situation where if the Justice Department wanted to, they could decide that the right thing to do is to settle the claim and make a payment out of our tax dollars to the family of Renee Good. They actually recently did that in a case involving one of the January 6th rioters. There's a woman named Ashley Babbitt who was killed by a capital police officer, and the Justice Department decided, to settle her family's lawsuit for $5 million, and her family got paid as a result of that decision to settle.

Now, the Trump administration is not going to settle this case with Renee Goods family. We, I think, know that because of the statements that have been made by people like J.D. Vance essentially saying that it was her fault. She was interfering with the ICE officers. But a future administration, if another president comes into power and sees it differently, a future Justice Department could decide that the right thing to do is to settle this case with Renee Goods family. People are also asking about the notion of absolute immunity in relationship to the recent Supreme Court decision that said that presidents have absolute immunity when it comes

to doing their presidential job. How does that relate to ICE agents having absolute immunity legally because it seems like the federal government is trying to take that Supreme Court decision and give ICE agents the same amount of immunity that the Supreme Court says the president has. Yeah, so the Supreme Court's decision was very specific to the president because of his role in responsibility. It has no application to ICE officers. So the ICE agents do not benefit in any way from that ruling. And neither do other people in Trump. cabinet. So, you know, J.D. Vance and Christy Knoem and others who have been very outspoken about what happened here, those people don't have that same type of immunity that the president has.

But if the president wants to, he can extend what's almost a form of immunity to these people by pardoning them, which would make it impossible to prosecute them federally in the future. That would not, however, affect the ability of the state government to bring state charges against ICE agents, but a lot of people are talking about the possibility that Donald Trump may before he leaves office broadly pardon ICE agents. And when you hear people like Stephen Miller go on television and say, you know, these agents have nothing to worry about, it does make you wonder, is that because the president intends to pardon them? Before we go, the big question that everybody wants to know, what can we do? What are we supposed to do with this information, knowing that

the Department of Justice has just decided there's nothing to investigate in the killing of Renee Good, or knowing that people are being pardoned in a pay-to-play scheme. What are we supposed to do with that? I think that we really need to keep making our voices heard, and it's exhausting, and sometimes it feels like there's no immediate payoff from those phone calls or letters, but it's really important that we keep making our voices heard, and I do think that it gets through on some level, I urged folks last week to reach out directly to the office of Todd Blanche and to the Civil Rights Division and demands an investigation of the killing of Renee Good. And within hours, Todd Blanche's email and phone number were disabled, I think, because he was flooded with messages. And so obviously that got through, even though it didn't make any immediate change.

And I think we need to be persistent in those types of efforts. And I think we also need to make sure that we are supporting those people who are taking risks and speaking out against this administration, who are putting themselves sometimes in harm's way to be able to speak out. And it's scary to do that. It's scary to be in that position. And we need to make sure that those people who are doing that, including those people who are still working inside the government, trying to do the right thing, know that the rest of us have their backs. Thanks to Liz for joining us. You can hear more from her over on Substack. Her newsletter is Loyalien. where. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer on a future episode, head to the preamble.com slash podcast. We'd love to hear from you there. And be sure to read our weekly magazine at the preamble.com. It's free. Join hundreds of thousands of readers who still believe

understanding is an act of hope. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. If you enjoyed this show, please like, share, and subscribe. These things help podcasters out so much. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. I'll see you. you again soon.