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Attorney General Pam Bondi Deploys Justice Department Agents to Bolster ICE Security Amid Rising Tensions
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday the deployment of Justice Department (DOJ) agents to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities across the country. The move is aimed at safeguarding federal agents and property, as well as facilitating the immediate arrest of individuals engaged in federal crimes.
“At my direction, I am deploying DOJ agents to ICE facilities—and wherever ICE comes under siege—to safeguard federal agents, protect federal property, and immediately arrest all individuals engaged in any federal crime,” Bondi stated in a post on X.
Bondi further instructed Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide to investigate and disrupt “all entities and individuals engaged in acts of domestic terrorism,” specifically citing repeated acts of violence and obstruction against federal agents. She emphasized that the Department of Justice intends to pursue the “most serious available charges” against all participants in these “criminal mobs.”
This latest deployment follows a series of incidents targeting ICE and Border Patrol locations. Just days prior, a shooting at a Dallas ICE field office resulted in the death of one detainee and left two others in critical condition. This incident is one of at least four attacks or threats recorded against ICE or Border Patrol facilities in Texas this year.
Federal agents from the DOJ have been providing assistance to ICE since the Trump administration escalated immigration enforcement operations earlier this year. However, the recent announcement signifies a heightened level of direct intervention.
Tensions have been high at ICE facilities, with numerous protests accompanying the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on immigration. In May, a confrontation at an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, saw Democratic lawmakers clashing with Department of Homeland Security officers.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested during the incident, and two months later, Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal charges of impeding and interfering with immigration officers, to which she has pleaded not guilty.
Other incidents include federal agents deploying tear gas into a crowd of protesters outside a California farm in July after an intense standoff. More recently, last week, a Democratic mayor running for Congress in Illinois was teargassed during a protest outside an ICE facility in the Chicago suburbs.
Friday’s action is not the first instance of the Trump administration redirecting personnel to support ICE operations. Earlier this summer, the administration mobilized National Guard troops to assist at various ICE facilities.