United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons said Monday that his agents were facing an “uptick” in threats from drug cartels.
ICE facilities in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, have been the scene of multiple riots as opposition to the agency’s operations targeting illegal immigrants has intensified. Lyons reacted to reports that Chicago police were ordered not to assist ICE agents who were ambushed Saturday.
“It is sad. All law enforcement will respond to any other brother or sister in law enforcement that’s in need,” Lyons said. “That’s what didn’t happen here in Chicago. You had 30 or 40 border patrol agents who were being swarmed, pinned in and attacked. “You have a domestic terrorist that was doxxing agents and officers. She had a firearm in the vehicle, they had to return fire, yet officers of the Chicago PD are told to stand down.”
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“It shows where we are with the sad state of law enforcement in Illinois is the fact that you had other federal officers under attack, yet because of politics and the way people feel about immigration enforcement, they did not aid federal law enforcement officers,” Lyons continued.
Some of the rioters in Chicago called for the ICE agents to be arrested or shot in a video posted online during one of the riots.
“You also have bounties now, according to the Secretary of Homeland Security, against some of your officers, as well?” “Fox and Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones asked.
“We are, yeah. I can’t really get into it because of criminal intelligence in some of the cases we’re working,” Lyons said, “But we have seen an uptick in actual bounties, photos of agents and agency leadership being targets of attacks by gangs and cartels. It really just has to stop.”
Two people were killed during a shooting at the ICE office in Dallas on Sept. 24, with the gunman taking his own life. In Texas, there were two previous incidents where shots were fired at ICE or Border Patrol facilities since July 4, with ten people being charged with attempted murder in connection with the former incident.
“Again, all the men and women of ICE are doing is going out there, and enacting the laws Congress has written. It is a law enforcement mission we do everyday, we’ve been doing it for decades,” Lyons said. “Yet right now, the men and women of ICE are in the cross hairs of some of the most extreme leftist terrorists.”
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