Former President Barack Obama criticized the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as dangerous, adding that “this unruly behavior” is similar to what “we have seen in authoritarian countries” and “in dictatorships”.
The comments, which came during a wide-ranging interview with Brian Tyler Cohen on Saturday, are the former president’s latest example of his long-standing strategy of minimizing his public presence to allow the next generation of Democrats to emerge. Obama deliberately took a secondary role during former President Joe Biden’s term.
Barack Obama, who had previously criticized President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal agents to American cities, called the actions of immigration agents in Minnesota “deeply concerning and dangerous.”
The vast immigration control operation in Minnesota, which was attended by around 3,000 federal agents, was marked by numerous videos showing the aggressive tactics of federal agents and confrontations with the public.
“Paul, the way federal agents — ICE agents — were being deployed, without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of homes, tear gassing crowds that were just there, not breaking any laws,” Obama said.
The former president also added that American citizens should be commended for engaging in “peaceful protests and for drawing attention to the kind of behavior that, in the past, we have seen in authoritarian countries and dictatorships, but that we have not seen in America.”
Protesters attend a rally and march during the “ICE Out” day of protest on January 23, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January at the hands of immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis sparked outrage in the city and across the country. This week, the Trump administration announced that it will end its month-long immigration enforcement action in Minnesota.
Obama, who wrote a column in January that said Pretti’s death should be “a reminder” that America’s fundamental values are “under attack,” praised the response of protesters in Minnesota.
Protesters largely adopted a civil disobedience strategy in Minnesota, which included alerting communities to the presence of immigration agents by using whistles, car horns and shouting, and recording encounters with the agents.
“This kind of sustained, heroic behavior in freezing temperatures by ordinary people is what should give us hope,” Obama said in the latest interview.
Obama criticizes political “clown show”
The interview was Obama’s first since Trump’s social media account earlier this month posted and later deleted a racist video depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys in a jungle. Cohen, in mentioning the video, asked Obama how America can reverse the decline of civil discourse.
While Obama didn’t directly address Trump’s post, he said, “There’s kind of a clown show that’s going on on social media and on television,” adding that people “who used to feel like you had to have some kind of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect” don’t seem to be showing “any shame about it.”
Trump refused to apologize for the video, blaming an employee for the error and insisting that he had not seen the last few frames of the video that contained the offensive content.
“I think it is important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” Obama said. “It’s true that it attracts attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction.”
Obama argued that the United States can restore “norms, the rule of law (and) decency” by saying ‘enough is enough’, something he considered was now “happening everywhere”.
