Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said on Wednesday that assaults on agents are up over 1,000%.
His comments follow an incident earlier in the day in which a man with a rifle opened fire from a nearby roof into an ICE location in Dallas, killing two detainees and wounding a third before taking his own life.
"You know, I've never seen anything like this in my law enforcement career," Lyons told CNN.
"I've never seen threats on law enforcement, specifically ICE, increased the way it is. You know, we're up over 1,000% assaults on officers right now.
"And really just a lot of the talk that's out there, a lot of the rhetoric is just the violence directed towards law enforcement officers just trying to do their job. And it just keeps — we just keep seeing an increase step by step.
"You know, like I said, we had that shooting at the El Dorado facility, which is right outside Dallas, July Fourth, where they ambushed officers in military tactical gear under the guise of fireworks. And now we have this, and it just seems like it keeps getting worse and worse, and it has to stop," he added.
In a news conference on Newsmax, the FBI said ammunition found at the scene contained "messages that are anti-ICE" near the suspected attacker. FBI Director Kash Patel released a photo on social media that shows a bullet containing the words "ANTI-ICE" written in what appears to be marker.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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