Vance Says Some ICE Officers 'Really Screw Up' and the Administration Must Investigate Them

Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that some federal immigration officers "really screw up" and said the Trump administration has a responsibility to act against those who do.

Vance made the comments in a one-hour town hall in Michigan with "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil that aired Saturday. Michigan is home to one of the closely watched Senate races of the midterm cycle, between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. The exchange came during a discussion of immigration, in which Vance compared immigration agents with other law enforcement officers.

"Most of them are amazing people who are patriots and they wanna do a good job protecting their country. Sometimes you have some people who make mistakes. Sometimes you have some people who really screw up," Vance said. "And obviously, we have a responsibility to prosecute, investigate when people do screw up."

Dokoupil pressed him on specific incidents, noting that in some cases people talk about agents before they are investigated, and asked about the biggest mistakes in Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Vance declined to single out any case. He said the administration has responded when officers have been accused of misconduct. "There are a number of cases where we've investigated and either provided further training, or sometimes even provided disciplinary situations within ICE," he said. "We don't always advertise that stuff, as you know, Tony, because we believe that people have to be judged in a court of law and through a normal investigatory process."

Officers with ICE and Customs and Border Protection have faced criticism over their use of force since the administration stepped up immigration enforcement as part of the president's crackdown. Two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by immigration authorities during protests in Minnesota earlier this year. The ICE officer who fatally shot Good, Jonathan Ross, was placed on administrative leave shortly afterward. In May, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul questioned whether Ross had been reassigned to her state, and the Department of Homeland Security declined to say where he was working. No criminal charges have been filed in either case. The Justice Department opened an investigation into Pretti's shooting earlier this year.

Other incidents have followed during targeted enforcement operations. An ICE officer fatally shot a 25-year-old Colombian man in his car in Maine in July. In September, an immigration officer shot a Venezuelan man in the back in Austin, Texas. Earlier this month, ICE agents shot a man in New York, striking him in the neck, while trying to arrest Oscar Belgal, who is from the Dominican Republic, with a 5-year-old boy in the back seat. A vehicle driven by ICE agents also hit and injured a man near Houston.

The full town hall, titled "Things That Matter: A Town Hall With Vice President JD Vance," is streaming on Paramount+, YouTube, CBS News 24/7 and CBSNews.com.