The National Police Accountability Project (NPAP) condemns the shooting of two individuals by federal immigration agents in Portland, Oregon, on the evening January 8, 2026, and echoes the concerns raised by local and state officials who have called for an independent investigation into the use of force by agents operating under the Trump administration’s federal immigration enforcement operations.
According to federal authorities, the incident occurred during a vehicle stop in Southeast Portland involving U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who claim the driver attempted to use his vehicle as a weapon, prompting defensive gunfire. Both people shot were transported to the hospital with serious injuries. Local officials, including Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, have voiced deep concern over the incident and have called for a pause in federal operations pending a full review of the facts.
This Portland shooting comes just one day after a fatal federal agent shooting in Minneapolis, where Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, Minneapolis resident, and legal observer, was killed by an ICE agent during a ramp up of immigration enforcement—a killing that has sparked nationwide protests and a call for accountability.
“The unsettling pattern of federal agents using lethal force in civilian communities must be a moment of reckoning,” said Lauren Bonds, a civil rights attorney and Executive Director of the National Police Accountability Project. “Portland and Minneapolis should alarm us all: these operations, touted as public safety efforts, are resulting in severe injuries and death with too little transparency, civilian oversight, or accountability.”
Federal immigration enforcement operations—including ICE and Border Patrol deployments—have become increasingly visible in cities across the country, often outside of coordinated local law enforcement efforts and with limited public information about operational protocols or community impact. These aggressive federal incursions have been met with growing resistance and distrust from local officials and residents.
“This shooting, alongside the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, is part of a deeply troubling pattern of law enforcement violence that especially harms Black, Brown, and immigrant communities while ultimately threatening everyone’s safety,” said Juan Chavez, an attorney and the Civil Rights Project Director at the Oregon Justice Resource Center. “When federal agents use lethal force in residential neighborhoods with no transparency or oversight, it underscores how normalized violence has become in policing. Portlanders deserve full, impartial answers and real accountability—not secrecy, immunity, or cops investigating themselves.”
NPAP and the OJRC supports AG Rayfield opening a formal investigation and echoes Mayor Wilson’s request for a pause in ICE enforcement until these independent investigations are complete. NPAP further stresses that federal agents are neither trained nor equipped in the community-based policing or de-escalation practices that are standard—even if inadequately—among local law enforcement agencies, raising additional questions about the wisdom of uncoordinated federal enforcement action in civilian communities.
NPAP also echoes calls for independent civilian review of these incidents and for local prosecutors to examine available evidence to determine whether legal standards—such as whether the use of force was objectively reasonable and justified—were met.
“Communities deserve to be protected, not traumatized, by law enforcement—whether federal, state, or local,” Bonds added. “We stand with Oregon officials in calling for thorough investigations and real accountability. Federal enforcement activities will continue to have no legitimacy until they are transparent, restrained, and subject to independent public scrutiny.”