Joshua Jahn shot three migrants at a Texas immigration centre before killing himself. Photo / Supplied
The gunman who shot three migrants at an immigration centre in Texas before killing himself was once arrested for dealing marijuana.
Joshua Jahn was named by United States media as the sniper who killed at least one migrant before turning the gun on himself at an immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas, Texas, today.
The 29-year-old from Fairview, Texas, was perched on top of an immigration lawyer’s office 200m from the ICE facility when he opened fire.
He was the son of Democrat and Republican parents but family members said Jahn showed little interest in politics.
However, bullet casings found next to his body were scrawled with the words “anti ICE”, prompting figures in the Trump Administration to condemn the attack as an act of radical left-wing violence.
The Department for Homeland Security said all the victims were illegal migrants and that the gunman had fired indiscriminately at the building and at a van in the entryway.
Vice-President JD Vance branded the suspect a “violent left extremist”.
Speaking at an event in North Carolina, he said: “We know this person was politically motivated ... they were politically motivated to go after law enforcement. They were politically motivated to go after people who are enforcing our border.
“And I think that is the most disgusting thing.”
Since President Donald Trump launched his immigration clampdown, ICE agents have increasingly been accosted by left-wing demonstrators.
Jahn’s background offers few clues as to why he carried out the attack.
Raised in Allen, Texas, Jahn pleaded guilty to dealing marijuana in 2016. A mugshot shared online apparently reveals him to be a white man with brown hair and brown eyes, who was 6ft tall and weighed 95kg.
Collin County arrest records seen by the Telegraph show he was given 100 hours of community service and fined US$500 ($860).
He was registered as an independent voter and last voted in the 2024 presidential election, according to NBC.
Jahn’s brother said he was not interested in politics and had not aired any views about being opposed to ICE with his family.
“He didn’t have strong feelings about ICE as far as I knew,” Noah Jahn, 30, Joshua’s older brother, told NBC.
Noah Jahn described his brother as “unique” and said he never would have guessed he would carry out a politically motivated shooting.
“I didn’t think he was politically interested,” Noah Jahn told the outlet. “He wasn’t interested in politics on either side as far as I knew.”
Noah Jahn added that his parents owned a rifle, and that Jahn knew how to fire it but “he’s not a marksman, that’s for sure”, he told NBC. “He would not be able to make any shots like that.”
The brother said he last saw his sibling two weeks ago at his parents’ house at which time nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
Jahn grew up in Allen, Texas, where he enrolled in the local Boy Scouts group. Facebook pictures from the profile of his father, Andy, a registered Republican, show them going fishing together when he was a child.
Jahn worked a series of odd jobs as a teenager, including as a cannabis packer at a company in Washington state, before attending the University of Texas for a year where he studied mechanical engineering, according to a LinkedIn profile that matches personal records seen by the Telegraph.
He then studied computer science at Collin Community College before earning a certificate at Imagine Solar, a renewable energy firm in Austin, Texas.
His brother told NBC that Jahn had done coding work but was currently unemployed and planned to move to their parents’ property in Oklahoma.
Jahn’s parents, Sharon and Andy, both 65, studied at the University of Kansas, according to their Facebook profiles.
She is a Democrat who used to run a massage parlour and has previously called for tighter laws on gun control.
Following the Uvalde school shooting in 2022 in which 19 students died, Jahn blasted the state’s Government for taking action to “open up gun laws”, saying they were responsible.
“Governor Abbott, Senator Cornyn and Senator Cruz ... how does it make you feel that your action to open up gun laws is responsible for the Killing of 21 more people,” she wrote on Facebook.
On the day before today’s attack, Trump touted the success of his border and deportation policy during a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
“Our message is very simple,” he told an audience of diplomats and world leaders.
“If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail, or you’re going back to where you came from, or perhaps even further than that.”
The US President and his allies have accused liberal organisations of fomenting unrest and encouraging violence against the right.
In Texas, a police officer was shot in the neck on July 4 at an immigration detention centre.
Prosecutors said attackers dressed in black military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Centre in Alvarado, south-west of Dallas, and at least 11 people have been charged.
Days later, a man with an assault rifle fired at federal agents at a border patrol facility in McAllen.
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