On Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020, because of the potential threats of harm to me and my family, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) installed surveillance cameras at my residence in Virginia.
On Sept. 8, while working as the Acting Director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump administration, I watched in disbelief, on those very same cameras, as radical leftist protestors descended upon my home to threaten my wife and children.
At this point, President Donald Trump and his team had already endured years of abuse and vilification at the hands of individuals spewing violent rhetoric to undermine his immigration policies and intimidate the brave law enforcement officers who enforced them.
The rhetoric hasn't stopped, and neither has the violence.
If anything, it has escalated.
On Sept. 24, 2025, I awoke to horrific news that a shooter attempted to assassinate ICE officers by indiscriminately shooting into an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas.
Fortunately, the men and women in law enforcement that I once had the honor and privilege to lead were unharmed. Tragically, two detainees were murdered and another hurt.
The targeting of our federal immigration authorities must stop.
The same vitriol that led to death threats and brought criminals to my door five years ago, has now pushed criminals to commit heinous acts of violence today.
The rise in acts of violence committed against our ICE law enforcement personnel throughout the country may not appear connected at first.
However, these acts are far from random, and are the result of continued vilification of our president and the men and women of ICE. Minnesota Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz called ICE officers the "modern day Gestapo."
Governor Walz's comparison is a disgusting and dishonest attempt to equate immigration officers to the brutally violent secret police who propped up Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime (1933-1945).
The governor's comparison recalls horrific events carried out by a genocidal tyrant whom the United States sacrificed more than half a million soldiers to defeat.
However, Governor Walz is far from the only radical left politician playing with the lives of our law enforcement officers. Governor J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., says the United States is becoming "Nazi Germany."
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, likened ICE officers to the radical neo-Nazi group NSC-131.
Reps. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and John Larson, D-Conn., have compared ICE officers to Nazis conducting "Gestapo operations."
Vitriol spewed by other members of the left would take too long to list.
These attacks are part of a coordinated campaign to demonize ICE agents by sowing fears that there is no difference between a law enforcement officer protecting Americans by capturing criminal illegal aliens and Nazi henchmen, and that both should be obstructed, attacked, and even killed.
While radical liberal politicians paint ICE as the ultimate enemy, violent criminals go after anyone they perceive to be associated with the atrocities of fascist rule.
The shooter in Dallas wrote "ANTI-ICE" on the bullets he intended for officers; Charlie Kirk’s killer wrote "Hey, fascist! Catch!" on his.
The vicious attacks on ICE agents must end, and those pushing it must be held accountable. The results have been catastrophic.
From violent protestors besieging an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon to assaults against officers in the Prairieland Detention facility in Alvarado, TX to a failed assassination attempt of ICE officers in Dallas, the consequences have become far too real.
The men and women of ICE are tasked with enforcing the immigration laws of our nation and should not be victims of domestic terrorism committed by the radical left.
These are brave men and women who protect our communities and the sovereignty of our nation by upholding the laws passed by Congress.
After the targeting of my family and despite my own anger, I worked to de-escalate an already tense political environment to ensure our officers' safety.
I encourage everyone else with a voice in the political ecosystem to do the same. Failing to do so will inevitably create an untenable environment in which our law enforcement officers and their families will continue to be harmed.
Tony Pham serves as Senior Fellow for Homeland Security and Immigration policy at the America First Policy Institute. Pham served as the Acting Director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump’s first term and subsequently as the Assistant Secretary for Border Security and Immigration Policy under President Trump’s second term. He and his family escaped Vietnam in April 1975, at the end of the war in Vietnam.
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