On Wednesday morning, a mass shooting at the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility left one person dead and several others wounded before the shooter took his own life. This tragic incident is not an isolated case; it echoes a similar shooting at the ICE Prairieland Detention Center just two months prior, on July 4.
What distinguishes these attacks is a clear ideological motivation: explicit anti-ICE hatred, evidenced chillingly by bullet casings engraved with the words "ANTI ICE," as FBI investigations confirm.
With the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, ATF, Dallas Police Department, and state authorities all collaborating on the probe, the stakes could not be higher. Early reports suggest the fatality was a detainee at the facility, though federal officials have yet to confirm this detail.
These violent episodes are the grim consequence of a stark and dangerous shift in political rhetoric. Attacks on ICE agents have soared by an unimaginable 1,000%, a surge that directly correlates with months of venomous language from prominent Democrats aimed at ICE and its personnel. The ongoing demonization has created a tinderbox environment where ideological extremism and violence have found fuel.
And we have the receipts.
“Every single ICE agent who's engaged in this aggressive overreach… will, of course, be identified. This is not the 1930s,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, comparing ICE agents to the Gestapo. His rhetoric implies that merely enforcing immigration law is a moral crime deserving of targeting.
Other Democrats have used similar provocative language. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) compared ICE agents to “secret police” using “Gestapo-like tactics,” invoking Nazi Germany imagery to paint a sinister picture. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz previously called ICE Trump’s “modern-day Gestapo.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal claimed ICE agents are “coming and kidnapping and disappearing people on the streets.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) chimed in, decrying “masked agents of the state in unmarked vehicles… terrorizing communities” and “disappearing people.”
And there are plenty more examples.
During a recent appearance on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) went so far as to label ICE’s efforts “authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government.”
And some of the worst rhetoric came from none other than Jimmy Kimmel over the summer. He delivered a furious rant aimed squarely at ICE, painting the agency as villains while justifying the anti-ICE riots.
Kimmel insisted that Los Angeles residents had a “responsibility” to protest ICE’s actions, describing them as “disgusting and unnecessary abuse of power.” He framed ICE enforcement not as law and order, but as oppression, telling his audience that agents were targeting innocent people, “the vast majority of whom have never done anything wrong.”
By portraying ICE as masked abductors terrorizing communities, Kimmel reduced the agency’s legitimate enforcement of immigration law to what he characterized as state-sponsored abuse, feeding into the broader left-wing narrative that immigration enforcement itself is illegitimate and immoral.
This rhetoric has real-world consequences. When public figures demonize ICE agents — the men and women enforcing the nation’s immigration laws — they fuel hatred and embolden extremists to act. The Dallas shooting is a chilling example of how reckless words can translate into violence.
Debating immigration policy is one thing; branding ICE agents as authoritarians or secret police is something else entirely. That kind of rhetoric doesn’t just distort the truth; it inspires bloodshed.
This tragedy should be a wake-up call. Demonizing law enforcement invites chaos, and those who fan the flames must face accountability for the violence their words unleash.