All Homeland Security officers on the ground in Minneapolis will be issued body cameras, Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday.
“Effective immediately we are deploying body cameras to every officer in the field in Minneapolis,” Noem wrote in a social media post. “As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide. We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country.”
Advocates and critics of the administration’s immigration operations have long called for Department of Homeland Security officers — including from ICE and Customs and Border Protection — to wear body cameras. DHS officers themselves have resorted, at times, to filming tense interactions with protestors on their own personal devices.
One of the most well-known instances was when the officer who shot and killed Renee Good filmed the incident on his cellphone.
After two officers shot and killed Alex Pretti in late January, investigators began reviewing over 30 body cameras worn by officers that day to piece together what had taken place in the moments before his death.
Customs and Border Protection’s internal investigation found in it’s initial report, which included a review of the body worn camera footage, that only the two officers had fired their own weapons.
CNN’s Alayna Treene pressed White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt last week on why the administration had not required DHS officers to wear body cameras in the wake of the shooting of Pretti, an ICU nurse.
Leavitt said conversations were ongoing. “I’ll leave it to them and the president to make that decision,” she added.
President Donald Trump on Monday said he was leaving decisions regarding the use of body cameras to Noem.
“Well, it wasn’t my decision. I would have, you know — I leave it to her,” the president said. “They generally tend to be good for law enforcement, because people can’t lie about what’s happening … But if she wants to do that, I’m OK with it,” Trump said.
Noem’s announcement also comes after Senate Democrats and Trump brokered a deal to temporarily extend DHS funding for two weeks as Republicans and Democrats negotiations over demands on the left to rein in ICE tactics continue.
The funding bill has cleared the Senate, with pressure now on House Republicans.
As Democrats continue to outline their demands on reforming or curbing the tactics of DHS immigration officers, some Republicans — even staunch backers of the administration’s immigration enforcement — have voiced support for mandating body worn cameras.
“I don’t have a problem with that personally,” Republican Senator and member of the Senate’s homeland security committee Ron Johnson told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.
Johnson said he opposes other efforts by Democrats, including to mandate judicial warrants in immigration cases.
“We have got millions of cases backlogged,” he said. “So demanding judicial warrants is their sneaky way of basically neutering our ability to enforce any immigration laws.”
