The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is hitting back at Billie Eilish after the singer reshared a series of posts on her Instagram Story calling ICE a “terrorist group” in light of the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis earlier this week.
In a statement shared with Billboard late Friday night (Jan. 9), DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin began, “Clearly, Billie Eilish has not seen the newly released footage, which corroborates what DHS has stated all along — that this individual was impeding law enforcement and weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to federal law enforcement.”
Sharing a link to a video on X of the Jan. 7 shooting — seemingly taken by the officer who pulled the trigger, later identified as Jonathan Ross — McLaughlin said that Ross had been “in fear of his own life [and] the lives of his fellow officers and acted in self-defense,” adding, “The American people can watch this video with their own eyes and ears and judge for themselves.”
The assistant secretary’s statement aligns with previous remarks from the DHS, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who have all insisted that Ross was simply defending himself when he shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her car during an ICE operation in Minnesota. Seconds before her death, Good had tried to drive away from the confrontation — as seen in the footage from the day — but the DHS has claimed that she’d been attempting to “run over” the officer with her vehicle.
In her statement to Billboard, McLaughlin went on to share a defense of ICE’s protocols and cited an internal investigation into the alleged “increase in vehicle rammings” against immigration enforcement officers, which the DHS published one day after Ross shot Good.
“ICE does not separate families,” she said. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement. It’s garbage rhetoric from the likes of Billie Eilish that is leading to a 1,300% increase in assaults and 3,200% increase in vehicle rammings against our brave law enforcement.”
Billboard has reached out to Eilish’s reps for comment.
Though the singer herself did not comment on what happened in Minneapolis prior to McLaughlin’s response, Eilish did share a number of posts from other creators onto her Story on Friday. One of them called ICE a “federally funded and supported terrorist group” that is “tearing apart families, terrorizing citizens, and now murdering innocent people” under the Trump administration.
Another post Eilish reshared on her Story called on the U.S. to “abolish ICE,” while a third post encouraged people to contact their representatives in Congress to demand that Ross be arrested and charged for killing Good.
The nine-time Grammy winner is far from the only person who was horrified by the footage of Good’s death. Backlash to ICE’s ongoing crackdown on immigrant communities has reached a fever pitch in the days since it was shared, though the agency’s actions have repeatedly come under fire throughout Trump’s first year back in office. Previously, artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Tyler, the Creator and more slammed the various raids that have taken place across the country.
In the aftermath of Good’s death, countless Minneapolis residents have rallied together to grieve her loss and protest ICE’s presence in their city. The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, also demanded that the enforcement officers “get the f—k out of Minneapolis” during a press conference on Jan. 8, adding, “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
And during a press meeting in the Oval Office the day prior, even Trump seemingly struggled to justify what happened after watching a video of the shooting in front of reporters, according to The New York Times. “Well … I — the way I look at it …,” the POTUS reportedly said after playback. “I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”
