Dallas shooting comes amid mounting violence around ICE

A fatal shooting at a federal facility in Texas on Wednesday is underscoring heightened threats to immigration officials, as well as detainees, amid a highly divisive rise in immigration enforcement.

Dallas Police told reporters that they received an “assist officer” call around 6:40 a.m. local time. After they arrived at the scene, police said they found a suspect had opened fire on the Dallas field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from an adjacent building. An ICE spokesperson told the Monitor that the shooter fired indiscriminately at the field office and at a transport van that held detainees.

The Department of Homeland Security said that three detainees were shot, and one is deceased. Two are in critical condition, according to DHS. Earlier, the department had released a statement saying that two detainees had died, but it later issued a correction. Authorities say the suspected shooter is also dead and that no law enforcement officials were injured in the shooting.

Many details around Wednesday’s shooting remain unknown. But referencing early evidence at a news conference, the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Dallas, Joe Rothrock, said rounds found near the suspected shooter “contain messages that were anti-ICE in nature.” FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on X of what he called “unspent shell casings” with “ANTI-ICE” written on one of them.

“There are people out there who are seeing what is being placed online, and they’re coming and they’re doing acts of violence against ICE employees,” said Joshua Johnson, acting field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Dallas, at the news conference. “The rhetoric has to stop.”

He noted that this was the second time he has had to speak with the media about a shooter at one of his ICE facilities.

“While we don’t know motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them. It must stop,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement. “Please pray for the victims and their families.”

ICE has field offices across the country. These are administrative spaces that have also been used, controversially , to temporarily hold immigrants. At the same Dallas Field Office in August, authorities said they arrested a suspect who arrived at the entrance and made a bomb threat.

Wednesday’s shooting comes as Homeland Security points to mounting assaults against immigration authorities nationally, including in Texas.

Beyond the Dallas bomb threat, a group of suspects was charged with attempted murder tied to an attack on a detention center in Alvarado, Texas, in July. That same month, several hundred miles to the south, a suspect was fatally shot by law enforcement after he opened fire at a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, injuring three law enforcement officials, DHS said .

ICE leadership says the agency is boosting security by increasing the number of personnel it sends out together based on such threats, especially in areas it considers “sanctuary” jurisdictions, where there is limited cooperation between local and federal authorities.

“Instead of sending the normal four to five officers to go make the arrest on the street, we now have to double that number, because the arrest teams actually have to have security,” Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told the Monitor in an interview this summer .

Critics of ICE say its officers and agents are using outsize force against protesters and subjects of arrest – often while hiding their identities behind face masks. Some on the left, including Democratic officials, have made comparisons between ICE and Nazis, which White House officials and allies have condemned.

“To every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing CBP: Stop,” said GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at Wednesday’s news conference. CBP stands for Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol.

“This has very real consequences,” said Senator Cruz. “Look, in America, we disagree – that’s fine, that’s the democratic process. But your political opponents are not Nazis.”

The American Immigration Lawyers Association, whose members often work to defend non-citizens from deportation by ICE, said immigrants deserve to be treated with dignity and freedom from violence. The group also called for more respectful dialogue.

“Today's tragedy underscores the urgent need for all of us – regardless of our positions on immigration policy – to engage in this national conversation with compassion, respect for human life, and a commitment to the safety and wellbeing of every person,” the association said in a statement.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect emerging developments.