American citizens emerge as new threat to ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were trying to make an arrest in Los Angeles last month and had used two government vehicles to box in their target’s car when a tow truck rolled up on the scene and things quickly got weird.

Investigators say the tow truck driver, identified as Bobby Nunez, first used his truck to block one of the government vehicles’ doors. Then, after a brief altercation, agents turned their attention to another person trying to disrupt the arrest. That was when Mr. Nunez hooked up the ICE vehicle and towed it away, authorities said as they brought charges in federal court.

The bizarre incident joins a growing list of cases in which U.S. citizens have stepped in to obstruct an immigration arrest.

ICE experts said they are used to dealing with illegal immigrants resisting their own arrests but the growth of American saboteurs attempting a guerrilla war on the agency is a new extreme.

In California, two workers at a clinic were charged after using their bodies to block an ICE officer from getting to an illegal immigrant who had fled into their facility to avoid arrest. In Florida, a man and woman were charged with shoving an ICE agent, allowing the deportation target to flee.

In Dallas, 10 people have been charged with attempting an armed assault on ICE’s Praireland Detention Center.

Other agencies are also reporting violence.

In the District of Columbia, a woman stands accused of assaulting an FBI agent assigned to arrest an illegal immigrant who had just been released from the D.C. Jail.

The Border Patrol also has reported high-profile incidents, including an incident in Michigan. In one case, authorities said a man driving a BMW rushed to get in front of Border Patrol vans transporting illegal immigrants and then brake-checked them, almost creating a collision. In Maine, agents were working a rollover accident involving two illegal immigrants when a bystander drove straight at the agents, seemingly trying to run them over, authorities said.

Jonathan Fahey, a former federal prosecutor in Northern Virginia who served as head of ICE in the final days of the first Trump administration, said the trend is dangerous.

“That is definitely new. I’m sure it’s happened before, but the volume of it happening seems to be pretty high and growing,” he said. “The numbers are worse, but also the types of things being done to them are worse too.”

Some high-profile figures have become involved as well.

A state judge in Wisconsin has been charged with aiding an illegal immigrant. Authorities said she distracted ICE officers to allow a migrant to escape her courtroom without being arrested.

Rep. LaMonica McIver, New Jersey Democrat, was charged with assaulting an ICE officer after she was caught on video throwing her forearm into the back of an ICE employee during a scrum at a detention center in Newark.

The congresswoman pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss the indictment. She said the forearm strike was an attempt to repel an officer who was being pushed into her. In her court filings, she said she was the one assaulted by an agent who “violently shoved” her.

On Wednesday, five House Republicans joined Democrats to block a measure to censure Ms. McIver for her dustup with an ICE officer.

Mr. Fahey said rank-and-file resisters throughout the country are taking their cues from Ms. McIver and other national Democrats.

“It’s almost like you’ve green-lighted it,” he said. “A lot of the reason these ICE agents are under more danger is at least in part the politicians putting a target on them, making them more vulnerable,” he said.

Overall, the Department of Homeland Security said, assaults on ICE law enforcement personnel have increased 1,000%.

“It’s in large part due to the pro-sanctuary states’ and cities’ policies, and the language of elected bureaucrats and politicians that are reckless with their lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

ICE has declined to provide a breakdown of those numbers, so it’s not clear how many of the suspects were migrant targets and how many were U.S. citizen bystanders who decided to get involved.

Scott Shuchart, a senior official at ICE in the Biden administration, suggested that the 1,000% figure sounded more dramatic than it is.

He said Homeland Security’s standard for assault is low. He pointed to officers’ arrest of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander after he locked arms and tried to escort an illegal immigrant out of an immigration court building while ICE officers tried to arrest the migrant.

Agents tried to separate Mr. Lander from their target, but he resisted.

“I have no confidence that the standards for reporting an assault are consistent,” Mr. Shuchart told The Washington Times.

ICE, as the agency responsible for deportations and for arresting illegal immigrants from within the U.S., has been the target of protests and some level of violence for a decade.

In 2018, protesters in Portland, Oregon, launched an “Occupy ICE” effort that blockaded and shut down the agency’s office for more than 10 days.

A year later, a man was killed while trying to ignite propane tanks to set fire to an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. In San Antonio, a gunman shot out a window of ICE’s office building.

Protesters are back in Portland and notching dozens of arrests for arson, assault and possession of destructive devices.

Among them is Robert Jacob Hoopes, 24, charged with hurling rocks at the agency’s building and striking one officer in the head. He is also accused of using a torn-down stop sign as a battering ram on the door of the building. He has pleaded not guilty.

In July, a U.S. citizen tried to shoot his way into a Border Patrol building in McAllen, Texas, and then exchanged fire with responding police officers and agents. Agents killed him with a shot to the head.

In Arizona, two people were charged with assault on federal officers in June. Authorities said they chased after agents who had just arrested their relative on an immigration violation. At one point, they attempted to use a truck to force the agents off the road, according to court documents.

In Sacramento, California, a man was charged with slashing the tire of a vehicle that immigration officers were using to transport migrants they had arrested.

One ICE officer who spoke to The Times under the condition of anonymity said there has always been resistance. Still, the Trump administration has made a point of defending ICE and bringing charges against the perpetrators.

“The charge has always been there. The willingness to charge it by the U.S. attorney’s office has not,” the officer said.

The officer said the 1,000% increase is expected given that the number of at-large encounters — with federal officers and agents in communities making immigration arrests — is up “probably 4,000%.”

“If there is such a drastic increase in the number of enforcement actions and the rise in assaults is less than the rise in enforcement actions, I think that it’s anecdotal evidence that ICE is actually restrained in how we conduct the enforcement actions,” the officer said.

Mr. Shuchart said deploying the extra manpower is counterproductive for ICE and other agencies — the FBI, Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the like — that have been deputized to assist.

“Generations of ICE leadership complained about limited resources and focused on prioritization. Now everything is upside down, with the administration pulling, again, thousands or tens of thousands of criminal law enforcement officers off those missions, all to do civil enforcement,” Mr. Shuchart said in an email.

“So they’re much more in communities and interacting with the public, with rowdies, whatever. General peacekeeping is state/local police work, and ICE is scaring them away, refusing to cooperate with them, and otherwise ensuring they can’t do their important jobs, all so that [Enforcement and Removal Operations] can parade around in their ‘Duck Dynasty’ cosplay.”