Attorney General Pam Bondi said late Friday she has ordered Justice Department agents to guard Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities — and directed counterterrorism task forces to look into attacks against federal authorities.
The move by Bondi came after one detainee was killed and two others were injured in a shooting at an ICE field office in Dallas on Wednesday, the latest shooting or threat targeting an ICE facility or immigration agent in recent months.
“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 wrote on X.
It’s not clear which federal law enforcement agencies will be deployed to ICE facilities. The Justice Department oversees the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
ICE has said attacks on its agents have spiked this year, as the Trump administration uses the agency to dramatically increase arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants. In recent months, ICE operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and elsewhere have drawn tense protests and clashes between agents and demonstrators.
Bondi also floated a broader crackdown on “repeated acts of violence and obstruction against federal agents.” She directed the Joint Terrorism Task Forces — which are regional entities scattered throughout the country that work with the FBI and with state and local police — to look into what she described as “domestic terrorism.”
“The Department of Justice will seek the most serious available charges against all participants in these criminal mobs, including conspiracy offenses, assault offenses, civil disorder offenses, and terrorism offenses,” the attorney general wrote Friday.
A day earlier, President Trump signed a memo calling for investigations into “political violence and intimidation,” led by the Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The White House pointed to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month, last year’s assassination attempts against Mr. Trump, and an increase in attacks on ICE officers.
The president also penned an executive order labeling antifa a domestic terrorist organization. The move’s legal implications aren’t clear. Antifa, short for “anti-fascist,” generally refers to a loose collection of largely left-wing activists, not a cohesive organization with a leadership structure. Also, domestic terrorism isn’t a chargeable offense under federal law, and the government doesn’t have a formal list of domestic terrorist groups, unlike with foreign groups.
