Dallas ICE field office shooting a ‘targeted’ act: FBI official

(NewsNation) — The FBI is investigating a deadly shooting at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas as an act of targeted violence, officials said Wednesday.

Two detainees at the facility were killed and pronounced dead at the scene, a Homeland Security spokesperson told the Associated Press. One other detainee was critically injured. DHS said that the victims were shot near a van which was in the facility’s sallyport where the van was located.

NewsNation’s Ali Bradley confirmed through sources that the suspected shooter is 29-year-old Joshua Jahn from Collin County, Texas, north of Dallas. Police have not yet publicly identified the suspect.

Police believe the shooter opened fire from a nearby building at approximately 6:40 a.m. Rounds found near the suspected shooter had messages that were “anti-ICE in nature,” said Joseph Rothrock, FBI special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office.

No law enforcement personnel were injured, Rothrock confirmed. The suspect died by suicide, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

DHS officials said in a statement that a sniper fired „indiscriminately“ at the ICE field office from a nearby rooftop.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson asked everyone to pray for the families of those who lost their lives and the speedy recovery of those injured.

He also asked residents of Dallas to remain calm, stay patient and let law enforcement do their jobs in investigating: “Exercise a little bit of restraint.”

NewsNation crews observed SWAT trucks responding early Wednesday morning. The Dallas Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI agents are assisting, the agencies confirmed.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the shooting came as ICE personnel face a „1000% increase“ in assaults. The department has not provided hard data to back that number.

Vice President JD Vance called the shooting an „obsessive attack on law enforcement,“ and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott called it an „assassination.“

Threats, allegations at Dallas-area ICE facilities

A man threatened ICE officers and claimed to have a bomb at the same field office on Aug. 26, according to DHS. The suspect, a 36-year-old American citizen, was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats.

In recent months, federal lawmakers and activists have alleged „inhumane“ treatment of detainees at the field office, including the withholding of food, water, air conditioning or proper sleeping quarters.

About 40 miles southwest of Dallas at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, a July 4 “planned ambush” wounded a police officer and led to the arrests of 10 people involved.

The attackers set off fireworks, vandalized structures with phrases like “ICE pig” and “traitor,” and attacked a responding police officer.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a social media post that she has been warning politicians and media for months to „tone down“ anti-ICE rhetoric before someone was killed.

„These horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. Comparing ICE day in and day out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences,“ Noem wrote on X. „The men and women of ICE are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They get up every morning to try and make our communities safer. Like everyone else, we just want to go home to our families at night. The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop.“

NewsNation’s Ali Bradley contributed to this report