Donald Trump and his administration have always known the time would come that they would have to protect one of their Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons – particularly if an agent killed an American citizen during one of their many ramped-up, hyper-militarized invasions in Democratic-led cities across the United States.

That time may have arrived, after one of Trump’s ICE agents murdered a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday. Video of the incident indicates she was attempting to drive away from agents and posed no obvious threat to them when one ICE agent began shooting. Minnesota officials have demanded a thorough investigation into the slaying, and the Trump administration is already blocking state investigators from participating in a federal probe into the slaying, claiming they have no jurisdiction.

The Trump administration is already blocking state investigators from participating in a federal probe into the slaying.

According to two administration officials and another source familiar with the matter, Team Trump – including the president’s chief policy architect, Stephen Miller – gamed out since early last year what to do if Democrats, or state or local prosecutors, ever moved to arrest or prosecute any ICE officers or other federal immigration personnel accused of crimes, even murder.

As one senior Trump administration official describes it, the mandate was clear: Don’t give an inch, and protect the accused agents “no matter what.”

Two of the sources add that within the past year, President Trump himself has privately said that if one of his immigration agents were ever subject to arrest or prosecuted, he and his administration could retaliate by refusing to hand over the officer, counter by federally charging Democrats or local officials with “obstructing” immigration enforcement or threaten to further cut off federal funding to the state in question.

After this week’s shocking news out of Minneapolis – yet another Democratic stronghold and great American city that the Trump administration is now terrorizing and invading – the American people are starting to see just how far this president and his lieutenants are willing to go to shield their forces from accountability. Trump and his senior officials have attempted to publicly exculpate the killer, while threatening dissidents and Trump’s political enemies and falsely smearing the victim as a domestic terrorist before her loved ones have even had a chance to grieve.

The mandate was clear: Don’t give an inch, and protect the accused agents “no matter what.”

Almost instantly after news of the fatal shooting began circulating on social media, the Trump administration and its close allies fanned out to insist to the American people that the victim had it coming, or that Democrats will only suffer more if they try to hold anyone accountable for the killing.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the victim, Renee Nicole Good, a “domestic terrorist.” It’s a label that, according to the FBI’s own definition, could more readily apply to the ICE agent who killed Good while enforcing a violent political project. That hasn’t stopped Miller or DHS from employing the same smear.

Mike Davis, a top MAGA lawyer and an outside adviser to Trump, similarly told Zeteo that what happened on Wednesday was a “justified shooting of a domestic terrorist who attempted to run over and murder ICE agents”, calling it “the deadly result of the Democrats’ pro-illegals, anti-law enforcement game.

“Any Democrat politician who thinks they can arrest federal ICE agents for doing their jobs will end up in federal prison for assault, kidnapping, obstruction and conspiracy,” he added. “Fuck around and find out. They will share a cell with Maduro.”

A military policy official told Zeteo that it felt inevitable that “some form of blatant state violence” would occur in Minnesota after the “Nick Shirley shit”, referring to a pseudo-journalist’s faux exposé targeting Minnesota’s Somali population. The narrative about welfare fraud has been amplified by the White House and MAGA influencers, and helped form the pretext for the administration’s decision to send 2,000 immigration agents to Minnesota this week.

What concerned the military source further, they say, was Noem so readily moving to defend the murderous ICE agent.

“Never has bode well historically once the state stops pretending to care about some level of institutional respect and acts without regard for the public backlash,” they said. “Only makes me worried about what it’ll do next.”

Miller, the most powerful official in Trump’s administration, has publicly asserted that ICE agents “have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties”, while pledging that any officials who attempt to hold ICE agents accountable “will face justice.” Vice President JD Vance, for his part, claimed Thursday that ICE agents have “absolute immunity.”

Vance and Miller may want to grant ICE agents immunity, but the law does not work that way. As the American Prospect points out, the Supreme Court held nearly a century ago: “Federal officers and employees are not, merely because they are such, granted immunity from prosecution in state courts for crimes against state law.”

Federal officers and employees are not, merely because they are such, granted immunity from prosecution in state courts.

“States can prosecute anyone for violations of state law, regardless of their rank or authority,” the Prospect added. “Murder is a felony in the state of Minnesota, as it is in every other state.

But while the state of Minnesota can move to prosecute the ICE agent, the Trump administration may be primed to retaliate.

Like Davis, other Republicans have been quick to circle the wagons. Florida Rep. Randy Fine squawked that “if you get in the way of the government repelling a foreign invasion, you’re gonna end up just like that lady did”, referring to the murder victim, Renee Nicole Good.

Five years after the Trump-incited Jan. 6 insurrection, some Republicans, like Illinois Rep. Mary Miller, have called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to arrest Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has issued a warning order to the National Guard.

Such an order, as one former National Guardsman explains, is an order to “be prepared to be prepared.”

It remains unclear what role the National Guard would play in Minnesota – be it crowd control, or actively defending Minnesota residents from the threat of the lawless, and now murderous, ICE agents.

The guardsman told Zeteo that they received no such preparation for such a situation during their enlistment, and that so much of their training related to this kind of armed situation would be in the context of a foreign country.

“There is no type of training for any sort of these situations in the domestic space.”

Conversely, the guardsman noted, whatever “training” ICE agents have received shows exactly how the nation arrived at this point at all. They referred back to another shocking incident months ago in Maryland, when an agent dropped his firearm, and scrambled in a panic to retrieve it.

“As he picks it up, he points it at the man taking the video,” the guardsman said. “If you’re pointing at somebody, that tells me that you intend to shoot somebody who’s, again, just exercising their First Amendment right to videotape you.”

The source compared the episode to Wednesday’s shooting.

“The fact that he shot three times at somebody who was trying to drive away – like you can see, she’s waving them by, because she’s letting them through. And he just shoots her three times,” they said, noting the officer seemed to fire two shots even after her vehicle had passed.

“The weapons training, the trigger discipline is completely fucked up,” the guardsman added. “And again, that’s also just lower down the list of issues.”

Which is to say, it was only a matter of time before an outcome like Wednesday’s shooting. And the Trump administration had apparently long accepted such an outcome, and prepared accordingly.

— Originally published at Zeteo.com Edited for style.