Attacks against ice officers
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says assaults on ICE law‑enforcement surged dramatically after January 2025, reporting increases in assaults, vehicular attacks and death threats compared with 2024 [1]. Independent reporting and data analysts caution that those headline percentages require context — the raw numbers are small, agency reporting practices changed, and national law‑enforcement assault data do not clearly mirror the magnitude DHS claims [2] [3].
1. DHS’s headline figures and examples
DHS public statements and press releases during 2025 and early 2026 quantified sharp percentage jumps — for example, 275 reported assaults in the first year of the Trump administration versus 19 in the comparable 2024 period (a 1,347% increase), 66 vehicular attacks versus two the prior year (3,200% increase), and an alleged 8,000% rise in death threats — and DHS framed those numbers as evidence that “sanctuary” rhetoric encourages attacks on ICE [1] [4] [5].
2. What the raw numbers look like and why percentages can mislead
DHS’s arithmetic rests on very small baselines: comparing dozens or hundreds of incidents to single‑digit counts makes percentage changes appear extreme even when absolute counts remain modest, a critique reflected in reporting that national law‑enforcement assault data do not show comparable spikes and that per‑officer assault rates remain far higher across local police agencies [3] [2]. CPR’s review found that broader federal court and law‑enforcement databases did not corroborate the magnitude of DHS’s percentage claims and warned that aggregate national data painted a different picture [2].
3. Credible specific incidents cited by DHS and media
DHS and other outlets documented specific, violent episodes: a vehicle ramming in San Antonio that allegedly struck ICE vehicles and nearly ran over an officer, with the suspect later arrested by ICE [5]; accounts of agents being struck, bitten or suffering concussions during arrests cited by DHS [4] [1]; and DHS’s description of multiple vehicular attacks and targeted threats in 2025 [1] [5]. These incident reports show that ICE personnel have been subject to dangerous encounters even if the aggregate magnitude is debated [5] [1].
4. Context: ICE’s enlargement of operations and footprint in 2025
ICE more than doubled its workforce in 2025, expanding to over 22,000 officers and agents from about 10,000 a year earlier and dramatically increasing arrests and detentions — operational intensification that plausibly raises exposure to confrontations and thus reported assaults even without a change in per‑interaction risk [6] [7]. Increased raids, workplace enforcement and publicity campaigns also multiply the number of interactions that could yield incidents [7] [8].
5. Messaging, political framing and media amplification
DHS and ICE public‑affairs strategies during 2025 consciously amplified enforcement actions through social media and traditional press to shape public perception and recruitment, a shift criticized by reporters as turning operations into political theater; that messaging both highlights agency dangers and may influence the political narrative about cause and culpability for attacks [9] [8]. Conversely, local and independent reporters have urged caution about the use of percentage frames and suggested some DHS briefings served broader policy and recruitment goals [9] [2].
6. Limits of available reporting and competing interpretations
Independent outlets like CPR and Mother Jones note data gaps and methodological issues that limit confidence in DHS’s extreme percentage claims, and they place ICE’s reported assault counts against much larger national law‑enforcement assault baselines to argue the phenomenon may be less exceptional than DHS presents [2] [3]. At the same time, ICE and DHS point to concrete violent incidents and the operational expansion that increases exposure; both sets of claims are supported by reporting but neither resolves all questions about trend magnitude or causation [1] [6] [5].
7. Bottom line
There is documented violence against ICE personnel, including vehicular attacks and assaults cited by DHS and covered in media accounts, and ICE’s rapid expansion in 2025 likely increased the number of risky interactions [5] [6]. However, the sweeping percentage increases publicized by DHS depend on small baselines and changes in reporting and operations; independent analyses and national datasets do not fully corroborate those headline figures, so the true scale and causes of the alleged surge remain contested in the available reporting [1] [2] [3].