US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) warned Tuesday that assaulting its officers constitutes a federal crime punishable by felony charges.
“Anyone – regardless of immigration status – who assaults an ICE officer WILL face federal felony assault charges and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law,” the agency posted on X. Embedded in the post was an image that read “think before you resist” with a clenched fist.
The post represents a direct public threat of prosecution, and the broad language could allow prosecutors to pursue federal assault charges for actions that would traditionally be classified as resisting arrest or even protest activities.
But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expanded its definition of threats to include filming Ice operations. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, defined “violence” in July as “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.”
One example of that has been the case of Spanish-language, Georgia-based journalist Mario Guevara, who was detained for more than two months after he filmed enforcement operations, despite his attorneys saying he had legal work authorization.
The message also follows the DHS’s claims in August that attacks on Ice officers have increased by 1,000%, though when pressed for examples, officials told the Prospect that incidents included trash dumped on an agent’s lawn and a profanity-laden sign targeting an agent by name. In one notable case, the FBI put out a $50,000 reward for someone who “appears to fire a pistol” at Ice during a raid on a farm in California.
Federal prosecutors have also filed assault charges against multiple protesters this year, with some cases involving actions that would traditionally fall under resisting arrest. In the suburbs of Chicago last week, an Ice officer fatally shot an individual during a traffic stop after the person allegedly dragged the officer.
Yet Ice operations appear to only be intensifying, as a supreme court ruling last week removed legal barriers that had limited agent authority in California, prompting DHS to vow it would “flood the zone in Los Angeles”.
The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
