What exactly are American ICE agents and what can they do?

Photo: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP

Explainer - America has been in an uproar the past week over the actions of ICE agents - Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers - after the shooting death of a US citizen.

The death last week of 37-year-old Minneapolis woman Renee Nicole Good raised more questions about what exactly ICE agents are, and what they can do.

The shooting, captured on video, has fired up protests around America, strong defences of ICE agent actions by US President Donald Trump and others, and stirred concerns about accountability and the use of force. It's also signalled increased conflicts between federal - the broader American government - and state and local authorities.

Here is what we know about ICE agents and the powers they have.

Photo: MARIO TAMA / AFP

What are ICE agents? Are they police? Or are they soldiers?

They're neither, exactly. They are part of the US Department of Homeland Security and are immigration enforcement agents. That means they're federal law enforcement charged with investigating illegal immigration and removing violators.

Under Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, ICE has expanded significantly and carried out immigration enforcement activity in cities all around the country including Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles.

"ICE is a paramilitary organisation with powers of arrest and detention under its own set of rules," said Paul Buchanan, a New Zealand-based security and defence analyst.

Buchanan said there's nothing quite like ICE in New Zealand law enforcement.

"NZ has no equivalent, nor do many other countries that have gendarmes and/or military police because ICE does not engage in usual police activities such as crime-fighting, traffic law enforcement, etc," he said.

"Like the US Marshals, they act as uniformed bounty-hunters, minus the bounty and with immigran