Some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities are heavily secured, closed off behind metal fences, hardened doors and armed guards. Many are in federal buildings built with a focus on security. Detainees are often moved in and out of buildings through underground parking garages.
And in other cases, the outer perimeter is little more than a chain-link fence topped with a few strands of barbed wire.
That’s the situation in Dallas, where authorities say a gunman opened fire Wednesday on an ICE office from a nearby rooftop, spraying bullets into a transport van, killing one detainee and critically injuring two more.
The gunman then took his own life, authorities said.
John Torres, a former acting director of the agency and former head of what is now called its Enforcement and Removals Division, said ICE field offices — and the security around them — vary widely.
Torres noted that some facilities, like the one in Dallas, have exposed loading areas for detainee buses, which pose risks for escape and attack. Other potential vulnerabilities range from vantage points for snipers and long outdoor lines that are allowed to form without protection.
“I would assure you that ICE, after today, is going to be taking a hard look at physical security assessments for all of their facilities,” said Torres, now the head of security and technology consulting at Guidepost Solutions.
The range of offices can be startling: In San Diego, for example, ICE’s field office is on the second floor of a heavily secured federal building, with detainee buses loaded in a basement garage. In San Antonio, ICE shares a building with a bank.
Immigration facilities have seen a series of attacks in recent months, from a July 4 assault by attackers in body armor on a detention center southwest of Dallas to a man who fired dozens of rounds with an assault rifle at federal agents leaving a U.S. Border Patrol facility in south Texas.
At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the July 4 attack, which left a police officer injured. Authorities in south Texas say that attacker was shot and killed after injuring a police officer.
Shortly after the Wednesday shooting, Vice President JD Vance posted on the social platform X that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.”
Later Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered security tightened at ICE facilities across the U.S., according to a post from the Department of Homeland Security on X.
Security at immigration facilities tends to increase when threats become clearer.
In suburban Chicago, for example, federal authorities erected a fence around an immigration processing center after tensions flared with protesters in recent days. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in the Chicago area for weeks, resulting in hundreds of arrests. The center, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Chicago, has long been the site of peaceful protests. The brick facility, used to temporarily hold immigrants before they’re detained or deported, is being used as the “primary processing location” for the recent crackdown, according to village officials.
Ahead of the latest immigration operation, federal officials boarded up some of the center’s windows.
Federal agents’ response to activists has also become increasingly aggressive, using a chemical agent and physical force against people trying to block vehicles. Armed agents patrol the rooftop.
Sixteen people have been arrested outside the center, according to federal authorities who have characterized the activists as “rioters.”
Observers note that no matter the security level, it’s impossible to foresee every potential problem.
“This is absolutely horrible and it’s also the kind of thing that it’s really hard to protect against,” Deborah Fleischaker, an ICE chief of staff during former President Joe Biden’s administration, said of the Dallas attack.
“This is not the kind of threat that they have historically dealt with, and not a sort of bread-and-butter law enforcement security issue,” she said.
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Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this story.
