The Department of Homeland Security told the Washington Examiner it was investigating a woman from Kenmore, New York, who allegedly sought to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
DHS said that an unidentified woman tried to purchase a gun “on two separate occasions” in order to “to protect herself from ICE Agents, and also to kill ICE Agents.” The investigation comes after a significant increase in violence against federal officers in illegal immigration enforcement operations in recent months, including on Saturday, when a protester bit off part of the finger of an ICE agent in Minneapolis who was working on crowd control duties.
The investigation is being conducted by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and the New York State Police, with the agencies focused on the “purchase attempts which occurred in Kenmore, New York,” according to DHS.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin spoke to the Washington Examiner about the incident and suggested that the inflammatory rhetoric being used against federal law enforcement officers is at least partly to blame, saying such language has “consequences.”
“Every day there are more assaults, more vehicle-ramming attacks, more attempts to kill our officers,” McLaughlin said in an emailed statement. “Now, we have an American citizen purchasing a gun with the intent to kill our officers.”
“Comparing ICE day in and day out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences,” she added. “The men and women of ICE and CBP are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They get up every morning to try and make our communities safer. Like everyone else, they just want to go home to their families at night.”
The incident in New York is just the latest in a long string of attempted violence against ICE personnel. Protesters have regularly targeted employees of the federal agency since illegal immigration enforcement operations began since President Donald Trump started his second term.
In June, ICE officers had protesters throw Molotov cocktails at them during protests and demonstrations in Los Angeles. Also in Los Angeles in June, there were numerous reports of protesters throwing bricks and other large objects at ICE vehicles that were driving on public roads and highways.
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On July 4, over a dozen people plotted an attack to kill ICE agents at the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. Then, in September, a sniper tried to kill ICE agents at a detention center in Dallas, Texas. And in November, an envelope with an unknown white substance was delivered to two ICE officers in Texas. In several other instances, protesters reportedly weaponized their vehicles and drove them at ICE agents on the street conducting federal immigration enforcement operations.
“The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop,” McLaughlin said.