Photo: Alamy
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday directed several federal law enforcement agencies to deploy officers and agents to defend Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and personnel following a series of violent incidents in Dallas, Portland and Chicago.
Bondi’s order was issued in a memo to the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. She instructed the agencies to arrest “every person suspected of threatening or assaulting a federal law enforcement officer.”
“The DOJ is deploying agents to protect ICE facilities, arrest violent agitators on the spot, and bring the strongest federal charges possible,” Bondi said in a post on X.
Her directive follows a series of recent clashes at ICE facilities. In Portland, repeated protests outside the ICE building have escalated into riots, with demonstrators breaking windows, attempting forced entry and engaging in nightly confrontations with officers. Federal and local authorities have made multiple arrests, and the city has boarded up parts of the building in anticipation of further unrest.
In the Chicago area, the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” has intensified ICE enforcement, sparking frequent confrontations downtown and in surrounding suburbs. At the Broadview ICE processing center, agents have used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters, and federal officials reported more than 200 rioters gathered outside the facility days after a shooting in Dallas.
The Dallas incident left one detainee dead and two others critically injured after gunman Joshua Jahn opened fire from a rooftop at an ICE complex. Jahn later died from a self-inflicted wound. Authorities said he targeted both the building and a transport van, and investigators found an unused bullet with “ANTI-ICE” written on it.
“Enough is enough,” Bondi said, adding that her order authorizes agents to act wherever ICE personnel come under threat, including in Portland and Chicago.
“Our officers will suppress all unlawful rioting and arrest every person suspected of threatening or assaulting a federal law enforcement officer or interfering with federal law enforcement operations,” she said. “I am further directing the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the District of Oregon and Northern District of Illinois to charge all such persons with the highest provable offense available under the law.”
Bondi also announced the creation of a “temporary ICE Protection Task Force,” which will include state and local law enforcement officers assigned to safeguard federal facilities.