Attacks on DHS Facilities Underscore Risks of Anti-ICE Rhetoric

In late spring, I warned violence would ensue unless opponents of the president’s immigration policies dialed back their more heated anti-ICE rhetoric. The demagoguery hasn’t abated as temperatures have risen, and attacks on DHS facilities have now left two local cops injured, even while a high-ranking Democrat describes ICE as a “terrorist force”. This business has quickly gotten out of control.

“He Was Loaded for Bear”

On the morning of July 7, 27-year-old Ryan Luis Mosqueda showed up at a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, allegedly sporting tactical gear and carrying a rifle.

He fired “dozens of rounds”, according to reports, and agents responded in kind. One local McAllen cop, Officer Ismael Garcia, was shot in the knee after he responded to the scene, and a second officer and a Border Patrol agent were injured.

Mosqueda was killed, but the law enforcement officers are injured but otherwise fine, Deo gratia.

Speaking of Latin, Mosqueda’s car had Cordis Die (“Heart Day”) spray-painted on it. As CNN noted, the phrase “appears in a ‘Call of Duty’ video game, according to a local law enforcement official and a source familiar with the matter”.

I am not a big gamer, but according to the “Call of Duty Wiki” website (I don’t account for the source), “Cordis Die is a populist revolutionary movement and the main antagonistic faction in Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Call of Duty: Strike Team. It is led by Raul Menendez.”

That said, it’s also a 2012 song on the “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” soundtrack, a rather angry twitter handle that hasn’t posted in eight years, and a defunct non-trading company in the United Kingdom, but NewsNation reported that McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez was unable “to explain a connection between the phrase and the shooting”.

Chief Rodriguez did, however, note that Mosqueda “was loaded for bear” after officers found “another rifle and other assaultive weapons” in his car.

I’ve been to the Border Patrol McAllen sector annex in question, and while Mosqueda’s motive may be “unclear”, if he hadn’t arrived intending to kill agents, it’s a big coincidence that he picked this spot.

For its part, the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents agents, tweeted:

“Organized Ambush” on ICE Detention Facility

That attack followed a July 4 shooting outside of ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility in Johnson County, Texas, during which an Alvarado police officer was shot in the neck.

The local NBC affiliate in Dallas reports that Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy Larson, “described the encounter as an ‘organized ambush’ carried out by armed individuals dressed in black military-like clothing who reportedly first detonated fireworks outside the federal facility”.

Why an “organized ambush”? As per Fox News:

Authorities said 10 to 12 people in black military-style clothing began shooting fireworks at the facility. … One or two others broke off from the group and began to damage vehicles and spray graffiti. Officials said the graffiti read “ICE pig,” “traitor” and profanity.

Officials believe the activity was meant to draw ICE detention officers out of the building. Ten people were arrested and charged with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer.

The wounded cop was responding to a nearby report of a “suspicious person” when shots rang out from adjacent woods, and thereafter: “Another person across the street then shot 20 to 30 rounds at unarmed ICE detention officers, authorities said.”

Reports indicate that after the suspects were rounded up: “Twelve sets of body armor, flyers, spray paint and a flag saying ‘Resist Fascism. Fight Oligarchy’ were eventually found. … In addition, authorities found masks, goggles, gloves, weapons, fireworks and more.”

Portland Protests

That Prairieland attack followed an earlier July 4 incident in which protestors in Portland, Ore., “clashed with federal officers” outside a local ICE facility there.

The demonstrators told the local CBS outlet that they “took to the streets … in response to intensified ICE raids and detentions”.

It wasn’t the first incident at an ICE facility in the area. On June 14, local police declared a riot after “demonstrators used objects to break through a door” at an agency office there, and as the local NPR outlet explained:

The ICE building has been the site of persistent protests in Portland since Trump took office, but the demonstrations have escalated over the past week, spurred by Trump’s decision to deploy thousands of National Guard officers and hundreds of U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in response to protests there.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wasn’t itching for the July 4 protest to follow a similar pattern, taking to X (formerly Twitter) on July 5 to warn:

“Snitching on ICE Goes Mainstream”

On July 6, the Free Press published an article headlined “Snitching on ICE Goes Mainstream”, which detailed various online efforts to obstruct immigration enforcement and dox officers.

One online blogger referenced in the piece, Dominick Skinner, lives in the Netherlands but runs what he describes as an online “accountability project” that publishes “the names, photos, and social media profile links of” immigration officers (including a CBP photographer “labeled a propagandist”), though he refused to describe his efforts as “doxxing”.

The Free Press noted:

Skinner is hardly alone. What began as a frenzy of ad hoc social media posts has turned into apps, hotlines, neighborhood-focused groups on Nextdoor, and websites like People Over Papers, which are allegedly trying to expose the identities and locations of ICE agents — and even the hotels where they are staying, to provoke protests and shame the hotel operators.

…

Sherman Austin, a software engineer in California, has raised nearly $25,000 through a GoFundMe page to build and run Stop ICE Alerts, which sends text messages triggered by photos and videos that are uploaded to the website. A description of one sighting last week said: “Ice agents appear to be staying at the four points sheraton in rancho cucamonga.” Someone replied: “Get some ppl together and make noise. no sleep for ice.”

I was quoted in the article, and referred the reporter to 18 U.S.C. § 372, which makes it a Class D federal felony to “conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof”.

The ICEBlock App

Not that Attorney General Pam Bondi or her tens of thousands of lawyers need my legal help.

On July 1, she appeared on Fox News’s “Hannity” and criticized a CNN report, headlined, “‘I wanted to do something to fight back’: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings”, which highlights the utility of the ICEBlock app.

The app’s designer, Joshua Aaron, described ICEBlock as “an ‘early warning system’ for users when ICE is operating nearby”. Aaron claims that he launched the app “in early April after watching President Donald Trump’s administration begin its immigration crackdown”.

Interestingly, CNN was quick to add: “ICEBlock comes with a disclaimer, telling users not to interfere with the federal agency’s operations or to incite violence”, though the outlet does note that it’s available only on Apple’s iOS platform “because Aaron says the app would have to collect information that could ultimately put users at risk to provide the same experience on Android.”

In a similar non sequitur fashion, I’ll add that 18 U.S.C. § 111 makes it a federal crime (a class A misdemeanor up to a class D felony, depending on force) to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with” any “any officer or employee of the United States or of any agency in any branch of the United States Government … while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties”.

A CNN spokesperson defended its reporting on ICEBlock, telling Fox News Digital that it had simply “reported on a publicly available app, which is generating attention across the United States”.

In that vein, I am simply referencing a “publicly available” federal criminal statute, which may soon be “generating attention across the United States” should attacks on federal officers continue.

Lyons vs. Jayapal

Why are attacks on immigration officers becoming so common? Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has his own take on the question.

In response to a July 2 Instagram post by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) describing ICE as a “terrorist force”, Lyons argued that ICE officers “are facing a nearly 700% increase in assaults in part due” to such rhetoric.

Cause and effect aside, public figures should likely tone their immigration rhetoric down a notch. The law is clear that aliens without status — criminal aliens in particular — are to be removed from the United States. The ICE officers charged with enforcing that law should not risk injury or death in doing so.