Bondi Deploys Justice Department Agents to ICE Facilities After Dallas Attack

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Sept. 26 the deployment of Justice Department (DOJ) agents to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the wake of the Sept. 24 shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas that left one detainee dead.

Bondi stated on X that she has ordered DOJ agents to be deployed at ICE facilities to protect federal personnel and instructed them to arrest anyone found to have been involved in federal crimes.

The attorney general said the DOJ’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces have been instructed to investigate those who are found to be engaged in “acts of domestic terrorism,” such as repeated acts of violence and obstruction against federal agents.

The DOJ would pursue “the most serious available charges” against those involved in such crimes, Bondi added.

“I have witnessed the continued onslaught of violence perpetrated against ICE officers across our country. The Department of Justice will not stand idly by in the face of such lawlessness,” she stated.

Bondi noted that she has also directed law enforcement agencies to ramp up efforts to detain, prosecute, and deport illegal immigrants across the country.

The DOJ deployment follows the Sept. 24 incident in Dallas, when a sniper opened fire from a nearby rooftop at an ICE field office, killing one detainee and injuring two others. The gunman was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. No law enforcement personnel were hurt in the shooting.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Sept. 24 that law enforcement recovered an unspent shell casing engraved with an “anti-ICE” message following the shooting.

Two days after the Dallas shooting, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that more than 200 rioters blocked access to a gate in front of an ICE processing center in Broadview, Illinois, while dozens more crowded another gate, chanting “Arrest ICE, Shoot ICE.”

DHS said the rioters brought fireworks, N-95 masks, gas masks, goggles, protective gear, and large amounts of food and water. Law enforcement also confiscated a gun from one rioter who was apprehended.

“The men and women of ICE are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated on Sept. 24. “The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop.”

DHS stated that assaults on ICE officers have risen by more than 1,000 percent this year. On Aug. 25, a bomb threat was reported on an ICE facility in Dallas when an unknown man, identified as Bratton Dean Wilkinson, showed up at the entrance claiming to have a bomb in his backpack. Authorities later arrested the 36-year-old U.S. citizen.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.