Ex-ICE Director Calls Kristi Noem’s Shooting Statement ‘Incredibly Irresponsible’

Former ICE Acting Director John Sandweg criticized DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for making “incredibly irresponsible” comments after a Minneapolis woman was shot and killed inside her car by ICE agents on Wednesday.

Sandweg went on CNN right after Noem said the woman had perpetrated an act of “domestic terrorism” by “attempting to run [ICE agents] over and ram them with her vehicle.”

The ex-acting ICE director — who served in the role under President Barack Obama from 2013-2014 — said Noem was out of line and didn’t have enough information to make that statement.

“I find that to be an incredibly irresponsible statement,” Sandweg told co-anchors Boris Sanchez and Brianna Keilar.

He continued:

First of all, the information you get — even at [DHS] — the initial information is almost always wrong. It is very hard to know in Washington, D.C. what exactly happened. That is what investigations are for.

But there is no way that you can make those conclusions that this was an act of domestic terrorism, that this woman was targeting I.C.E. Agents. There’s no way that you can make those judgments at this time, given the absolute dearth of information that’s available, even to the secretary of DHS.

Sandweg added her comments do a “disservice” to everyone, including both ICE and the person who was shot.

“This undermines the credibility of the agency when you rush out and reflexively say, ‘We know what happened. We were right, they were wrong,” he said. “This is politicizing this. Not everything is political.”

His comments followed Noem’s statement on the shooting at a press conference. Noem said the ICE agents were stuck in the snow and attempting to push their vehicle out when a “woman attacked” agents by trying to run them over.

“An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively [and] shot to protect himself and the people around him,” Noem said.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called it a “ramming incident” in a statement to NBC News.

Watch Noem and Sandweg’s comments above via CNN.