By Jesus Mesa
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As fallout continues from two fatal immigration enforcement encounters in Minneapolis this month, a retired senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is warning that the agency may not survive in its current form.
“This was poorly planned from day one,” Darius Reeves, a longtime ICE field office director who served under four presidents, told Newsweek’s Carlo Versano on The 1600 podcast. “There’s no coming back from this.”
Reeves’ comments come days after the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse and U.S. citizen who was shot by federal agents during an immigration operation in Minneapolis. His death followed the fatal shooting of Renée Good by immigration officials earlier this month in the same city—two incidents that have fueled protests, political backlash, and renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
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Pressed on why the Minneapolis operation unraveled so quickly, Reeves pointed to the use of Customs and Border Protection agents in an interior city far from the border.
“Anytime you involve the Border Patrol into the interior of the United States, the wheels are going to fall off,” Reeves said. “Their training, their mindset, their mission—it’s different.”
He said interior ICE enforcement is constrained by constitutional limits that do not apply in the same way at the border.
“When you bring that type of mentality and training into the interior of the United States,” Reeves said, “you’re going to have the issues that we’re seeing play out before us.”
Watch Here: The 1600 Podcast Full Episode
Masks, Militarization, and Fear
Asked why similar enforcement actions during earlier administrations avoided widespread backlash, Reeves said ICE once prioritized discretion and planning.
“We took great pride in being known as the silent service,” he said of the enforcement work he and his colleagues did during the Obama years. “You had targets. You did your homework. You planned every possible scenario.”
The Minneapolis operation, he said, abandoned that model.
“You don’t flood neighborhoods,” Reeves said. “You don’t antagonize people. This is not how things are supposed to go.”
Reeves pointed to agents operating in masks and tactical gear without visible identification, saying the practice has undermined public trust and increased risk.
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He said masks were initially used to protect undercover agents from other federal agencies assisting early enforcement efforts, but the approach was never designed to become standard practice.
“All of this was poorly planned from day one,” Reeves said.
Pressed on the administration’s push for mass deportations—up to one million removals a year—Reeves placed the blame squarely on political leadership, calling the targets detached from operational reality.
“You’re not going to repatriate a million people a year,” he said. “It’s never going to happen.”
Numbers That Don’t Add Up
Reeves said the quotas reflect political demands rather than professional judgment, arguing that ICE lacks the detention space, transportation capacity, diplomatic relationships, and staffing infrastructure to sustain removals at that scale.
“Political appointees need to stop,” Reeves said. “They need to listen to the career professionals.”
He warned that pressure from above is also driving a rapid expansion of the workforce that is eroding standards inside the agency.
“You cannot water down standards,” Reeves said. “This job is too serious for that.”
After President Donald Trump appeared to signal a de-escalation of federal immigration operations in Minneapolis amid mounting backlash, attention has shifted from the immediate crisis to the long-term consequences for the agency carrying it out.
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Asked whether ICE can survive this moment intact, Reeves did not hesitate.
“No,” he said. “There will be a reckoning.”
While Border Patrol agents will eventually return to the border, Reeves said ICE’s enforcement and removal operations are likely to absorb the lasting institutional damage from the Minneapolis shootings.
“You’re going to have to rebuild it brick by brick, layer by layer,” he said. “But you can’t function under ICE after this.”
For Reeves, the deaths in Minneapolis represent more than a political or tactical failure. They mark a turning point for an agency he argues has lost control of its mission—and possibly its future.
“There’s no coming back from this,” he said.
Watch the full conversation between Darius Reeves and Carlo Versano in the video player above or on YouTube.
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