In July 2026, two ICE tactical teams — one in Texas, one in Maine — shot and killed two people. This was not the first such incident in 2026. In January, two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis. The new shootings come only months after the Trump administration was forced into a major policy reset following the Minneapolis events — including replacing the Secretary of Homeland Security and tacitly acknowledging that the situation had slipped out of control. Now, before that political storm has settled, the same pattern has returned.
An Institution Nobody Likes: ICE's Crisis of Public Opinion
The analysis, drawing on a CNN long-form report and multiple polls cited by the Chinese commentary account Lingshi Xiantan (Consular Chats), maps where ICE stands in the public eye:
- Marquette University Law School poll (May): 61% of Americans hold a negative view of ICE, versus only 36% positive — roughly six in ten Americans disapprove of the agency.
- Reuters/Ipsos poll (June): 55% disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, with only 37% approval. 51% of respondents said immigration policy is "on the wrong track."
- Quinnipiac University poll: Trump's net-negative rating on immigration has narrowed modestly since February (from -21 points to -13 points), but remains firmly in negative territory.
What makes these numbers interesting is that ICE's unpopularity is not a product of recent events. Even before the Minneapolis shootings in January, ICE was already an agency with consistently poor approval ratings. The January shootings acted as an amplifier — pushing a pre-existing public aversion into the realm of active political crisis.
January 2026: Federal agents in Minneapolis shoot and kill Renee Goode and Alex Pretty — two protesters demonstrating against the administration's immigration crackdown. The incident forces a major policy reset, including the departure of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials.
First week of July 2026: ICE agents shoot and kill another individual in Texas.
Second week of July 2026: ICE agents shoot and kill yet another person in Maine. DHS did not even claim that the deceased man had threatened officers' lives — only that he was fleeing the scene and agents "feared for public safety."
Why "ICE Killed Again" Is Especially Dangerous for Trump
The political fallout from the Minneapolis incident had already demonstrated the destructive power of these events. Polling at the time showed that six in ten Americans believed ICE had "gone too far." The new incidents reactivate that narrative — and this time, the administration faces several additional complications:
The absence of video evidence. The Minneapolis incident gained its enormous public impact largely because protesters captured it on video. That footage not only contradicted the Trump administration's initial account but allowed the vast majority of Americans to conclude, at the level of established fact, that law enforcement was responsible. In this month's two new shootings, ICE agents appear not to have been wearing body cameras. Without video, the government has more room to shape the narrative — but the public, in turn, is even more inclined to distrust the official version.
Republican senators calling for a halt. Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins publicly urged DHS to suspend non-emergency vehicle stops, and joined with Independent Senator Angus King in calling for mandatory body cameras. When a senator from the president's own party demands "stop," the signal has far more penetrating force in a constituency than any criticism from Democrats.
Depreciated credibility. One lesson of the Minneapolis incident was that DHS made statements afterward that proved dubious or false. When the same agency faces a similar incident again, the media's default frame shifts from "what did the government say" to "can the government be believed."
From Campaign Asset to Political Liability
In the 2024 election, the promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants was one of the key issues that won Trump the White House. Against the backdrop of surging illegal immigration during the Biden years, a hardline approach was a campaign asset. But the governing record since then shows something the polls never captured during the campaign: the methods themselves have never commanded broad support.
From the forcible removal of individuals — without due process — to El Salvadoran prisons, to the enforcement blitzes in Chicago and Minneapolis, to the most recent shootings — each link in the chain has eroded public tolerance for immigration enforcement. Polling data consistently shows that the public supports the goal of deporting illegal immigrants, but not the means used to achieve that goal.
Reuters/Ipsos: 51% of respondents say immigration policy is "on the wrong track." Marquette University Law School: 61% of Americans hold a negative view of ICE.
This gap between ends and means is the structural ceiling of Trump's immigration agenda. He can continue pushing accelerated deportations, but each new incident of enforcement overreach will shift a segment of voters from "I support the goal" to "I question the method." As public opinion slides from one side of the scale to the other, every time ICE's weapons discharge, the motion accelerates.