A Dallas Police Department vehicle sits near the scene of a shooting near a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Dallas, Texas, yesterday. Photo / Aric Becker, AFP
The shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas yesterday was the latest in a string of violent episodes directed at ICE facilities and officers, as the Trump Administration ramps up its deportation campaign and adopts more confrontational tactics during arrests.
The shooting was the second this year at an ICE facility in Texas.
In July, a police officer was shot outside an ICE detention centre less than 65km from the Dallas facility.
Last month, federal officials said a suspect had been arrested after making a bomb threat against the same facility in Dallas.
In recent months, demonstrations outside ICE facilities in Los Angeles, Illinois, and New York led to confrontations with law enforcement officers and arrests.
This month, an ICE officer fatally shot a man in the Chicago area whom immigration agents had tried to pull over.
The Department of Homeland Security said that the man was resisting arrest during the stop and that he dragged the officer as he fled in his vehicle.
Department officials have blamed such episodes on “hateful rhetoric”, calling in a statement last week for the “media, leftist groups and sanctuary politicians” to end the “demonisation” of immigration enforcement officers.
“We have to turn down the temperature before someone else is killed,” Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said in the statement. “This violence must end.”
Yesterday, a detainee was fatally shot when a gunman opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, injuring two others, investigators said.
Authorities suggested that the gunman — who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound — was targeting immigration enforcement agents.
The shooting was the culmination of months of rising tensions over the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, as federal officers use increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics to bring in detainees and reach arrest targets.
Anger in some cities has mounted as immigration authorities have conducted large-scale operations across the country, with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, saying this year the Administration would strive to hit 3000 arrests a day.
ICE officers have arrested immigrants at immigration court hearings. Federal agents have swept through parking lots of big-box stores in the Los Angeles region. Videos of homeland security agents and officers breaking windows of cars belonging to targets have proliferated on social media.
Protesters, including faith leaders, community groups, and liberal organisations, have held vigils, sit-ins and peaceful rallies at detention centres — though some demonstrations have turned volatile.
Federal officials also report a sharp rise in threats against officers.
ICE has alleged a “more than 1000% increase” in assaults against its officers this year, though the agency has not released detailed data of the episodes and it has not specified what it defines as assault. A spokesperson for Homeland Security did not immediately provide more specific information.
The agency has repeatedly highlighted examples of threats it says its officers have received, such as a menacing letter with a white substance sent to a New York field office in August and pictures of injuries it says its officers have sustained while conducting arrests.
It has also sought to impose stiffer penalties.
In a social media post, the agency warned last week that anyone who assaults an ICE officer would face federal serious assault charges and “prosecution to the fullest extent of the law”.
“We’re being compared to the Gestapo, to the Nazis, and that’s just not true and it’s dangerous rhetoric that puts us in situations like this,” ICE’s deputy director, Madison Sheahan, said in an interview with Fox News.
As the Government’s deportation campaign has accelerated and federal agents have homed in on liberal cities with policies aimed at protecting immigrants, protests have at times turned tense, leading to clashes with law enforcement officers.
In June, a federal building in downtown Los Angeles used by ICE to process immigrants became a central part of the protests that rocked the city, leading to instances of vandalism and the arrests of hundreds of protesters.
Last week, more than a dozen local Democratic officials were arrested at a federal building in Manhattan used by ICE after they blocked the garage doors and tried to get into the holding cells.
The officials cast their actions as urgent displays of civil disobedience.
ICE denounced them as obstructionist and dangerous, not just for the safety of its agents, but also for detained migrants.
The agency also said the building had to go into lockdown after someone called in a bomb threat after the arrests.
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who was among those arrested, said on social media at the time that officials were demanding access to the ICE field office because: “New Yorkers refuse to stand by while ICE abducts our neighbours”.
Yesterday, after the shooting, Lander said on social media that “surging political violence threatens all of us”.
“Whatever motivated the shooter, this act is heinous, and should be condemned by people regardless of ideology,” he said.
“The tradition of non-violence, which we practiced last week, is key to restoring our humanity, and making democratic coexistence possible.”
In May, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was arrested outside a new detention facility in New Jersey and briefly charged with trespassing, after a protest at the facility that also entangled three members of Congress.
The wearing of masks by ICE officers, which was not the norm before this year, has become a flashpoint among those opposed to US President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. Lawmakers in a handful of Democratic-led states have pushed for legislation banning the use of masks.
On Sunday, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed a bill that would prevent federal immigration agents from wearing masks in the state.
The move came after videos had spread online showing masked immigration agents handcuffing immigrants in Southern California.
Democrats and immigration activists have argued that officers have acted with impunity knowing that their faces were shielded.
Homeland Security Department officials condemned the state law and called it unconstitutional, adding that their officers would not comply with the legislation.
Federal officials have defended ICE officers’ use of masks, which they say protects them and their families from harassment or worse.
Federal officials have said that officers carry badges and credentials and identify themselves when required.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Madeleine Ngo and Luis Ferré-Sadurní
Photographs by: XXX
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