The three individuals who ambushed and violently attacked an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer during a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis on Wednesday were all illegal immigrants from Venezuela who entered the country under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.
Agents were attempting to arrest Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis when he fled the scene in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car and fled on foot, officials said. The agent pursued Sosa-Celis on foot and was able to catch up to him, at which point he began to resist arrest and violently assault the officer.
As the pair struggled on the ground, two more illegal immigrants came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the agent with a snow shovel and a broom handle, DHS said. The ambush allowed Sosa-Celis to escape restraint, at which point he too began striking the officer with either a shovel or a broom stick.
The officer, who DHS said feared for his life, shot Sosa-Celis in the leg, leading all three illegal immigrants to run back into the apartment and barricade themselves inside. However, ICE agents were able to arrest all three men and both the agent and Sosa-Celis were taken to the hospital for treatment.
“What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement. Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Mayor Frey and Governor Walz have to get their city under control. They are encouraging impeding and assault against our law enforcement which is a federal crime, a felony. This is putting the people of Minnesota in harm’s way.”
According to DHS, Sosa-Celis entered the U.S. illegally from Venezuela in August 2022 under the Biden administration. He was previously convicted for driving without a license and was also arrested for two counts of giving a false name to a peace officer. At the time of his arrest, he was released by Minnesota authorities before ICE could lodge a detainer, DHS said.
The two men who ambushed the ICE agent — Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma — both illegally entered the U.S. from Venezuela in May 2023.
Ajorna was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge after he failed to show up for his immigration hearing.
The incident was the latest in a string of ICE agent-involved shootings that have occurred in recent weeks as the agency continues to step up enforcement at President’s Trump’s direction, particularly in Minnesota, where Somali immigrants have defrauded taxpayers out of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
DHS on Wednesday said that the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good last week experienced internal bleeding in the torso after he was hit by her vehicle during the incident.
The severity of agent Jonathan Ross’s injuries remain unclear, though video of the incident shows Ross walking away from the scene and he was released from the hospital several hours after the shooting.
Video footage of the shooting shows Good behind the wheel of an SUV parked perpendicularly to the road to block off a street where ICE operations were taking place. Good drives the vehicle forward as an ICE agent approaches from the front. The agent opens fire as the vehicle approaches, firing once through the windshield and twice more through the driver’s side window.
The Trump administration has said the shooting was an act of self-defense, and has said Good was a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle” by driving towards federal agents.
In the wake of the shooting, DHS revealed Ross was seriously injured last year during an attempted arrest in the Minneapolis area when he was dragged by a car driven by an illegal immigrant. That incident left him hospitalized and he sustained injuries requiring 33 stitches.
And in an incident in Portland, an ICE agent opened fire after Luis David Nino-Moncada, a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua, allegedly rammed his car repeatedly into a Border Patrol vehicle during a traffic stop. Nino-Moncada was charged with aggravated assault of a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and depredation of federal property in excess of $1,000, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Department of Justice. The DOJ said that Nino-Moncada was previously deported in 2024.
Brittany Bernstein is the deputy news editor of National Review Online.
Reprinted with Permission from National Review - By Brittany Bernstein
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