DHI agents fired upon in the USA since Trump took office 2025.
Executive summary
Since President Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, federal Homeland Security officials have publicly described a sharp rise in attacks on DHS and ICE officers and cited multiple incidents in which agents were fired upon, while independent outlets and trackers report a smaller but still significant number of episodes in which agents were shot at or hit during enforcement actions [1] [2] [3]. Reporting shows a mix of confirmed sniper and gunfire incidents directed at or near federal immigration facilities and enforcement operations, but precise, independently verified counts differ across DHS statements, national press investigations and nonprofit trackers [1] [4] [3].
1. The administration’s claim: big increases and specific incidents
The Department of Homeland Security has released statistics asserting dramatic year-over-year increases — a 1,300% rise in assaults and a 3,200% rise in vehicular attacks against ICE officers between early 2024 and 2025 — and DHS public statements list dozens of violent episodes including sniping at a Dallas ICE field office and other shootings during enforcement actions [1] [5]. DHS has repeatedly framed these data points as evidence that federal officers are being targeted in an unprecedented way during the nationwide surge in immigration operations [1].
2. Independent reporting: gunfire at agents, but smaller totals
National outlets and nonprofits corroborate that agents have been shot at in multiple events, but their tallies differ from DHS’s rhetoric: TIME and The Trace document cases including a sniper who fired on a Dallas ICE facility, an apparent shooting at immigration agents in Camarillo, California, and other incidents where agents reported being shot at during raids and traffic stops, with The Trace identifying 16 incidents where immigration agents opened fire and noting several instances in which agents were themselves shot at or faced gunfire [2] [3]. The Guardian and The Trace also catalog broader violence linked to enforcement, such as detainee deaths in custody and exchange-of-fire episodes, highlighting that the phenomenon includes both attacks on agents and lethal uses of force by agents [4] [3].
3. Confirmed, high-profile cases documented so far
Reporting identifies specific episodes in which federal agents were fired upon or confronted with lethal gunfire: a sniper attack on a Dallas ICE facility that wounded detainees and killed two, an incident in Camarillo where a protester “appeared to fire a gun” at agents, and a November episode in Chicago where shots were fired at DHS officers during an enforcement operation — all cited in national press summaries and DHS briefings [2] [1]. These high-profile episodes are repeatedly referenced by DHS and national outlets as emblematic of the risks agents say they now face [2] [1].
4. Why counts diverge: definitions, incentives and incomplete records
Differences between DHS’s dramatic percentages and the more modest tallies from reporters and trackers reflect definitional choices (what counts as an “assault” or “vehicular attack”), agency incentives to emphasize officer risk, and limits of public reporting: DHS aggregates broader categories like threats, doxxing and non-firearm assaults into its figures, while outlets such as The Trace focus on incidents where firearms were discharged or people were hit, producing lower but more narrowly defined counts [1] [3] [2]. Independent compilations and a crowd-sourced Wikipedia list similarly produce varying totals — for example, one public list tallies at least 24 shootings by immigration agents since January 2025 while noting six deaths, underscoring how different focal points (agents shot at versus agents shooting others) yield different headline numbers [6].
5. Political and legal fallout: competing narratives shape investigations
The spike in violent incidents, whether measured conservatively or by DHS’s broader metrics, has become a political cudgel: the administration uses the data to justify large deployments and to argue officers face “terrorist attacks,” while critics point to videos and local officials disputing agency accounts in cases such as the Minneapolis killing of Renee Good to argue that escalation and lack of transparency are driving harm [2] [7] [8]. Investigations, prosecutions and civil suits will turn on facts that are still being assembled, and public disagreement over what actually happened at key scenes complicates both accountability and DHS’s narrative [8] [7].
6. What reporting cannot yet say with certainty
Available sources document multiple episodes in which DHS or ICE personnel report being shot at and list several confirmed sniper or gunfire events, but there is no single, independently audited count reconciling DHS’s aggregated assault statistics with media trackers’ firearm-specific tallies — reporting to date therefore cannot definitively state a single exact number of times DHS agents “were fired upon” since January 2025 without further public release of incident-level data and third‑party verification [1] [3] [2].