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By Jenna Sundel
News Reporter
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A Democratic congressional candidate shared a video of his conversation with an ICE agent in Minnesota, in which the agent discussed his fellow officers' accountability in their line of work.
Matt Little posted the exchange he had with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on X.
“I’m a lawyer, trust me dude. I agree there’s some people that are not great in our profession too. But we all, like, I have to hold my profession accountable and you do too,” Little said.
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The ICE agent responded, “Yes, we do.”
The agent added that, “as far as policy changes and stuff goes, and training, we’re all about that.”
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.
"I think we've got to battle all fronts, so that means protests and rallies and ICE response, but it also means trying to get them to understand exactly what we are thinking and what we're seeing too, and so I think that's what prompted it," Little told Newsweek when asked about the discussion.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration is carrying out a series of immigration enforcement operations across several states. In Minnesota, enforcement operations have drawn scrutiny and sparked protests. Two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, were fatally shot by federal agents this month as they carried out immigration enforcement operations.
Pretti, an ICU nurse, was killed by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation on Saturday. DHS said on social media that he had approached Border Patrol officers on Saturday with a handgun. In videos of the shooting taken by bystanders, Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand. The footage does not appear to show him with a visible weapon. Pretti's family said he owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed firearm in Minnesota.
The shooting happened just weeks after Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE officer during a traffic stop in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis. State and local leaders disputed the claim that the ICE officer was acting in self-defense.
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What To Know
Little is running for the Democratic nomination in Minnesota's Second Congressional District. He said that if he is elected, "we will hold ICE accountable- every agent who abused their authority, pepper sprayed kids, or illegally broke into someone’s home."
He told Newsweek that he has been driving around the district with his team as they campaign.
"As we're doing that, we're also monitoring what ICE is doing," Little said.
He said that prior to the exchange he posted on X, he and his team were trying to identify who the ICE agents were. He said he "did not expect to have a conversation." The ICE agents told him they were doing surveillance on an individual with a criminal history.
"I said, 'Well, if you're telling me there's a criminal in this neighborhood next to an elementary school, then that does feel like my business doing, like you should have a warrant, and if you got a warrant, let's go get this person. We'll help you. We'll help you go get this criminal, you know?' And that's kind of how the conversation started," Little said.
Little wrote on X, "At first, ICE did not want to talk."
He continued, “This may be the only video of a real conversation with an ICE agent. After following them from an elementary school where they’d been circling to a parking lot, I was able to get a few words in. This is part of that conversation. As you’ll see, in a genuine conversation, even this ICE agent understands that they must be accountable.”
In the video, Little tells the ICE agent, “there’s some bad folks that joined to do some bad things.”
“Oh, 100 percent, and that’s in any profession,” the ICE agent replied.
The ICE agent later told Little, “I’ll be the first one to tell you, when things happen that go south, how can we make this better? How can we learn from it so this doesn’t happen again? We all try to do that, but it’s a dirty job and sometimes things happen in the moment and it’s insane.”
Little told the agent, “You guys gotta be right. You guys are pilots.”
The ICE agent said, “We do have to be right but, like I said, sometimes you only get one split second to make a decision.”
Little later told the ICE agent, “You have a voice. Don’t discredit your own voice to talk upward.”
“I would never. I would never,” the ICE agent said.
He added, “I’m not in the position to not speak out. You know what I mean? I’m the first person that will talk about change.”
What People Are Saying
Matt Little, a Democratic congressional candidate in Minnesota, on X on Thursday: “If you get the chance at a safe distance- even talk to an ICE agent– and make it clear that if they want things to change, they must be part of that change.”
The Department of Homeland Security wrote on X on Tuesday: "From getting out the Worst of the Worst from American communities, bringing integrity back to our immigration system, and achieving the most secure border in American history, the Department of Homeland Security has achieved major milestones under the Trump Administration to make America safe again."
Update 1/30/26, 5:20 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Matt Little.
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