#news: Dallas ICE agents stress focus on criminals during ride-along, day before shooting
ICE agents say they have seen higher morale during the Trump administration. To understand what their work looks like on the ground, Fox News Digital joined agents in Dallas and Houston, observing operations and hearing directly from them about the focus of their mission.
A Dallas ICE Assistant Field Office Director, who requested anonymity, said, "We're working under an administration that has our back."
The Dallas ride-along took place on September 23. Just one day later, a gunman opened fire at the ICE field office in Dallas, authorities confirmed.
At least three people were shot, one of whom was killed, in a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, Fox News confirmed.
The FBI said it is investigating the incident as a "targeted attack" against ICE, and multiple sources familiar with the investigation have identified the alleged shooter as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. Representatives for the FBI at a Wednesday morning press conference in Dallas said that preliminary investigations uncovered anti-ICE messaging on ammunition found near the shooter.
The shooting reportedly occurred as ICE officers were transferring detainees into the facility. The shooter died due to a self-inflicted wound shortly after the attack, authorities say. The three individuals who were shot were all detainees, and one of them died.
The Dallas agent noted that ICE's role is often misunderstood, particularly when encounters are shared on social media without context.
"We're also dealing with other issues as far as dealing with social media. We could be out in the streets targeting someone, making an arrest, and someone just drives by, records us, and within seconds, it's already all over Facebook or social media, and they put whatever title they want on it, and they don't have the facts of what we're doing, so who the individual is that we're targeting, their criminal history."
He emphasized that the priority of ICE is to keep the streets safe, saying, "We are targeting individuals with criminal history."
The Houston ride-along took place on Sept. 12. Houston Acting Assistant Field Office Director Tom Persad told Fox News Digital, "Our top priority is to remove criminals from the country."
Persad added: "We are supported by the administration, but I think the public and some social media outlets do scrutinize us a little more than the past administration."
Persad also said morale is now higher under the Trump administration because officers can focus on "enforcing our immigration laws."
"Now it's a different feeling in the office… I feel it all across the whole field office, from the guys that go out to make the arrest to the officers that are in the office, managing these individuals that we've taken into custody and managing their cases all the way through to the removal process," Persad said.
Persad emphasized, these are the types of arrests that they focus on daily.
"Child pornography, drug dealers, gang affiliations, gang members, known or suspected terrorists," he said. "Individuals from DWI onwards, upwards, right? Those are our focus, we want to make the community safer."
Following the shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said on X: "These horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences… The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop. We are praying for the victims and their families."
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned in a post on X that the shooting suspect allegedly used an app that showed the location of ICE agents, and slammed a news outlet for "irresponsibly" giving "free publicity" to one of these apps.
Leavitt continued in the X post, "the liberal media is complicit in the increased threats and violence against ICE."
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FBI Director Kash Patel said the shooter "downloaded a document titled 'Dallas County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management' containing a list of DHS [Department of Homeland Security] facilities."
"Further accumulated evidence to this point indicates a high degree of pre-attack planning," the FBI director said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reacted to the attack on Wednesday, framing it as an "assassination."
"Texas fully supports ICE," Abbott wrote. "Both the Texas Dept. of Public Safety & Texas National Guard work closely with ICE. This assassination will NOT slow our arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. We will work with ICE and the Dallas Police Dept. to get to the bottom of the assassin's motive. We will offer ICE additional support to assist their operations," he added.
Fox News' Greg Norman and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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