Mere hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot a suspect last month – wounding a member of the arrest team in the process – the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles effectively exonerated the agent who opened fire.

“PSA: A vehicle is a deadly weapon,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a social media post. “Using it against law enforcement justifies their use of deadly force in self-defense.”

Essayli alleged the man who was shot had rammed his car into vehicles driven by immigration agents trying to arrest him, “causing agents to worry for their safety,” and prompting one of them to discharge his weapon, wounding the man and, inadvertently, a deputy US marshal.

Under policy, immigration agents can use deadly force against someone who poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. Still, federal law enforcement agencies have historically spent weeks or even months conducting exhaustive investigations before deciding whether an agent’s use of force was appropriate.

But after recent high-profile use of force encounters, federal officials have rushed to offer full-throated defenses of immigration agents, raising questions about whether previously enshrined mechanisms meant to hold law enforcement accountable for wrongdoing have been all but abandoned in President Donald Trump’s second term.

The administration has argued agents are immune to prosecution by state or local officials. And any federal prosecutions seem unlikely due to Trump’s installation of political loyalists atop the Justice Department and FBI – the agencies traditionally tasked with investigating and prosecuting suspected civil rights violations by law enforcement.

And since many immigration agents typically do not wear body cameras — a point of contention th