Bondi Directs FBI, DEA, Other DOJ Agencies to Guard ICE Facilities

Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo Monday evening telling agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and other agencies to help guard Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.

The directive came days after a shooting at a Dallas ICE office, which has left two people dead and was the latest in a series of threats or attacks targeting an ICE facility or agents in recent months.

In a memo posted on X, Bondi said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is directing the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to “immediately direct all necessary officers” to guard ICE facilities and agents. She also announced the formation of a task force to protect ICE agents.

“The DOJ is deploying agents to protect ICE facilities, arrest violent agitators on the spot, and bring the strongest federal charges possible,” Bondi said. “The rule of law will prevail.”

Bondi wrote that the DOJ-directed agents “will suppress all unlawful rioting and arrest every person suspected of threatening or assaulting a federal law enforcement officer or interfering with federal law enforcement operations,” specifically referencing the cities of Portland and Chicago.

Her memo made references to the two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump last year, an incident in which an assailant allegedly tried to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, the firebombings of Tesla vehicles and dealerships, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

Citing recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accounts of protests in Chicago and Portland, her memo said that ICE agents have faced a more than 1,000 percent increase in assaults year over year.

“Charging priorities directed by this memorandum are not limited to those criminals who are caught red-handed committing acts of violence against ICE facilities and personnel,” her memo added.

Last week, Trump signed a memo that called for probes by the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices of “political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”

Trump also signed an order that labeled Antifa, a loosely organized anarcho-communist group, as a domestic terrorist organization. In the order, it called Antifa a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”

Authorities have said the gunman in the Sept. 24 Dallas shooting, identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, fired indiscriminately from a nearby rooftop. They said he hated the U.S. government and wanted to incite terror by killing federal agents. No ICE personnel were hurt in the shooting, and Jahn fatally shot himself following the attack, officials said.

ICE has been targeted elsewhere this year. On July 4, attackers in black, military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. One police officer was wounded. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack.

Days later, a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents leaving a Border Patrol facility in McAllen. The man, identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, injured a responding police officer before authorities shot and killed him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.