Police Officer Shot Outside Immigration Detention Facility in Texas

New York Times

a day ago

A police officer was shot outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas late Friday night and several armed people were taken into custody, the authorities said.
The shooting took place outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
The detention center, which is about 28 miles south of Fort Worth, holds people who are awaiting deportation or are accused of violating immigration laws.
Around 11 p.m. on the Fourth of July, officers from the Alvarado Police Department responded to a call about a suspicious person outside the detention center and saw someone who appeared to have a gun, the sheriff's office said.
One officer tried to talk to the person and then several other people opened fire on the officer, who was wounded in the neck and flown to a hospital. The officer was treated and discharged from the hospital, the sheriff's office said.
Several people tried to flee, but they were taken into custody by officers, the statement said. It was not clear how many people were taken into custody nor whether they were still being held on Sunday morning.
'At this time the motives of the suspects are unclear,' the sheriff's office said.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
The sheriff's office did not respond to questions on Sunday about how many people were arrested. The Alvarado Police Department also did not respond.
The Justice Department was monitoring the shooting, as well as another incident in Portland, Ore., the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on social media.
'The department has zero tolerance for assaults on federal officers or property and will bring the full weight of the law against those responsible,' Mr. Blanche said.
He did not specify what was being monitored in Portland, but there have been protests outside an ICE field office in the city for months.
The protests have been mostly peaceful, but they escalated last month after President Trump deployed members of the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
The Portland Police Bureau declared a riot during a June 14 demonstration at the building and arrested three people. One federal officer was injured during the protests but did not require medical treatment, the police said.
The Trump administration has intensified immigration enforcement, leading to overcrowding at detention facilities across the country.
People inside the facilities, as well as their loved ones and lawyers, told The New York Times that conditions inside these buildings were unsanitary and inhumane. The Department of Homeland Security denied all claims of overcrowding and poor conditions at its facilities.
President Trump's domestic policy bill, which was signed into law on Friday, includes $45 billion to expand the capacity of immigration detention centers, and $31 billion for ICE.