Fireworks, flashlights and snipers: Attacks on immigration facilities put law enforcement on edge

CNN

a day ago

On the night of July 4, a group of assailants mounted a coordinated attack on an immigration detention facility near Fort Worth, Texas, using vandalism and fireworks to draw officers out and into the sights of two shooters positioned in a line of trees across the street, authorities allege.
Barely three days later, a Michigan man opened fire at a Border Patrol facility nearly 500 miles to the south in McAllen, near the US-Mexico border. The man was able to fire dozens of rounds at officers, one of whom was struck in the knee, before being quickly killed by returning gunfire.
The attacks don't appear to be directly connected. But amid the continued backlash the agency faces in the wake of the Trump administration's deportation efforts, they have put officials on edge, prompting them to increase the presence of security officers at the front of Department of Homeland Security facilities, federal officials told CNN.
The administration points to the violent incidents as part of a broader trend of immigration enforcement personnel under siege and a growing anger that officials say has been stoked by critics of Trump's policies.
Some of the administration's critics, while not condoning violence, contend the ramp-up in immigration raids, masked agents and use of the National Guard have served to spark fear and increase tensions.
The DHS has warned of dramatic spikes in assaults on its officers, saying earlier this year incidents had risen over 400% in May and now, just two months later, to over 800% when compared to the previous year.
As of mid-July there had been 93 assaults on officers this year. During the same period in 2024, that number was 10, an ICE official told CNN.
The attack on the immigration detention facility outside of Fort Worth is markedly different, however, than incidents during arrests and raids by ICE officers — an environment primed for confrontation — and shows a level of coordination not often seen in attacks on federal agencies in the US.
'It makes me really upset,' ICE's Acting Director Todd Lyons told CNN of the attacks, noting that he started his career in nearby Dallas. 'It makes me very mad. It makes me scared.'
Lyons said his biggest fear in the job was losing an officer.
'Right now, that's the thing that keeps me up at night the most,' the acting director said, 'I'm very scared because of all the threats and the rhetoric that I'm going to lose an ICE agent or officer because of this craziness that's going on.'
John Sandweg, who served as an acting director for ICE during former President Barack Obama's second term, told CNN that previously, DHS officials were concerned about general officer safety when executing an arrest or search warrant, not necessarily with targeted attacks.
'I haven't seen anything like this, and I don't know how to explain it. There's certainly no justification for it,' Sandweg told CNN, adding: 'This is different. This is political violence.'
According to charging documents, a group of roughly a dozen people dressed in all black began shooting fireworks toward the Prairieland Detention Facility late at night on July 4, with two in the group eventually breaking off to spray paint cars and a guard post with slogans including 'Ice Pig.' and 'F**k you pigs.'
A corrections officer called 911 and several other officers started to approach the group while one of its members began signaling to others with a flashlight, according to court documents.
Just as this was unfolding, the documents say, a local police officer responding to the emergency call pulled up in the parking lot and, when he exited his car, was shot in the neck by someone lurking in the woods.
Miraculously, the officer survived.
The person signaling to the others with their flashlight began shooting at the correctional officers from a line of trees across the street before fleeing. No one else was hit.
Detectives would later determine that both rifles used in the shooting were purchased by ex-Marine Benjamin Hanil Song, who has been charged with attempted murder of a federal officer.
A total of 14 people have been charged related to the shooting, some of whom allegedly tried to hide Song after the incident. None of the defendants have entered a plea in the case, and court records say that others, who have not been named or charged, are cooperating with investigators.
While police were able to arrest the majority of those allegedly involved shortly after the shooting — some who fled on foot through some nearby trees, another who had stuck to walking alongside the roads and another who drove off in their car — Song evaded capture for the next 11 days.
'They were dressed in black, military-style clothing, some had on body armor, some were covered in mud, some were armed, and some had radios,' the charging documents say.
One of the individuals carried a 'Faraday bag' meant to block cell signals with two phones inside along with a pistol in her backpack. Another person had a disassembled rifle in a backpack. The firearms, authorities say, were purchased by Song, including the rifle, which he allegedly purchased from a pawn shop 10 days prior. The individual with the rifle also had a pistol tucked inside his waist band.
CNN has reached out to attorneys representing those charged in the case.
Another alleged member of the group was stopped by a police officer who had been radioed a description of their car. Inside the car, police say they found a pistol, two Kevlar ballistic-style vests, a ballistic helmet, two rifles and a loaded magazine.
Canvassing the area of the shooting, police also found the two AR-15 style rifles allegedly used against the officers, court records say — including one equipped with a device that modifies the trigger, allowing the shooter to rapidly fire bullets. The rifle had a bullet jammed in the chamber, a problem that can arise when shooters use the binary trigger device.
Officers also found two body-armor plate carriers loaded with ammunition for the rifles as well as one magazine clip designed for a pistol.
During the course of the investigation, police also found flyers saying, 'FIGHT ICE WITH CLASS TERROR' and 'FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS' in the backpack of one of those arrested.
According to court records, authorities believe Song hid in a wooded area nearby the facility overnight to avoid arrest, based on cell phone location data, until an associate of Song's could pick him up the next day, supplying him with clothes from Walmart.
Song was later arrested on July 15 after making the Texas top 10 most wanted fugitives.
In chats on the encrypted messaging platform Signal allegedly used by the group, agents found 'evidence that the group had performed reconnaissance' at the detention facility, 'including detailed descriptions of the area and photographs,' the criminal complaint says.
Members of the group also used Signal to shuttle Song along to others in the group for shelter while he was running from police and discussed deleting messages and removing Song from certain chat groups, the complaint says.
Two people have been arrested and charged with helping Song avoid arrest.
One unnamed member of the chats told agents they had been invited to join a few years ago during a protest. Court documents don't specify the reason for the protest.
According to the FBI agent who was part of the investigation into the shooting, the group of assailants had used one of their homes in Dallas as a staging area for the shooting.
Days after the shootout in Dallas, 27-year-old Ryan Luis Mosqueda opened fire on officers outside a Border Patrol facility near the Texas-Mexico border, hitting one in the knee. Mosqueda was able to fire off dozens of rounds before federal agents quickly shot and killed him.
Mosqueda had another rifle and other weapons in his car, according to local law enforcement.
Earlier that morning, Mosqueda's father told police his son had gone missing around 3:48 a.m. and had a mental deficiency. The FBI is investigating the matter.
A DHS spokesperson has blamed the increased attacks on 'crazed rhetoric from gutter politicians' while Democrats have said the department is not allowing them to access detention facilities and are subjecting immigrants to extremely poor conditions.
Prosecutors in New Jersey filed charges against a Democratic lawmaker after a brief melee outside a detention center there when ICE officers arrested the mayor of Newark for entering a gated area of the facility.
Critics of the agency say the tactics of many ICE agents, wearing masks and plain clothes when arresting people, paired with constant raids – at one point sweeping through a public park – and, at times, mistakenly detaining US citizens have created an explosive and fear-laden environment that the Trump administration has spearheaded.
'This role can shape an individual's actions and how they respond, particularly when they're scared,' Missouri Rep. Wesley Bell said of ICE during a congressional hearing Wednesday on unaccompanied immigrant minors in the US.
Bell pointed to several stories over the past few months in which people impersonated ICE officers to rob and harass others, noting how easily it was given the agency's use of masks and plain clothes to arrest people.
Lyons said that the increased number of assaults on ICE officers was 'following that trajectory' of the uptick in ICE raids and arrests but added that 'a lot of the comments and rhetoric being directed towards ICE and its mission is really firing up certain groups; these kind of lunatic factions.'
Sandweg told CNN that 'some of the uptick in assault on officers is a direct byproduct of those arrests, in the sense that the nature of the arrests have shifted.'
The former acting ICE director said that as arrests become less targeted and include larger swaths of people, like several ICE raids seen recently in California, the risk for agents and officers on the ground increases.
'I'm just saying it's a reality that when you have a large number of agents making an operation in a public setting, in an urban environment, it increases the risks dramatically of these kinds of things happening,' Sandweg said of protests where individuals have assaulted and thrown rocks at officers.
DHS has had to deploy twice the number of ICE agents for certain arrests than they normally would because of the increase in protests and individuals attempting to intervene in arrests.
'It's not because of the threat of the alien,' Lyons said. 'It's because we need that other five to six officers and agents to provide security' for those agents conducting the arrest.
Lyons noted that 'it's usually not other migrants or illegal aliens' who 'want to inject themselves into a law enforcement situation, which could be dangerous for everybody.'
ICE's budget is set for a massive cash infusion after Republicans delivered Trump an agenda-laden spending bill earlier this month, giving the agency $75 billion to expand enforcement and removal operations.
While a large chunk of that cash will go toward building detention facilities to hold the influx of deportees, ICE will be able to spend large sums on recruiting and training up new officers to bolster the number of daily arrests, something the Trump administration wants to significantly increase.
When the increased budget is fully deployed, Sandweg said, it 'is going to fundamentally change immigration enforcement in a way we've never seen. It's going to double almost the number of agents ICE can put on the street.'