America's Talking - Attacks Against Ice up 700%, 10 Arrested in ‘Planned Ambush’ in North Texas

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

(The Center Square) – Ten people have been arrested so far in a “planned ambush” of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in north Texas. On July 4, the Alvarado Police Department announced that one of its police officers had been shot in the neck after responding to a call without stating the incident occurred outside of an immigration facility. It was the first of two officer involved shootings outside of a federal immigration facility in Texas this week, The Center Square first reported.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/article_a0a1ea2f-c61f-4311-8846-0726c9175e9b.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire service. As President Donald Trump continues to fill his campaign promise to close U.S. southern and northern borders from illegal immigration and deport those who illegally entered the country under the Biden administration with a focus on violent offenders, the political rhetoric over those policies continues to heat up and attacks on border agents continue to increase. Joining me to discuss this is Sarah Roder Fitch, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Sarah, there are so many different tackles to this story, but why don't we start with the story you reported on this week? As Congressional Democrats propose new laws requiring immigration and customs enforcement agents to show their IDs and remove their face coverings, violent threats against ICE agents and even their families have increased sevenfold. The White House this week put out a fact sheet this week highlighting those increases. Tell us about it. Yes, and as we speak, those are even increasing.

And with another incident that happened in California in Ventura County, which is north of L.A., where ICE agents were shot at. And it was reportedly, they were cracking down on some stuff was going on. There's some child labor stuff that was happening there. It was apparently at a report say it was at a pot farm, in fact. But yes, there have been two incidents in Texas where actually some law enforcement agents were shot. And then also in Portland, Oregon, where officers were assaulted, kicked and everything of that. Not to mention different equipment facilities were defaced with graffiti, targeting them. This seems to be now kind of like a common occurrence this past week has been happening sort of more frequently.

And yes, it sort of follows the White House. It's pointed out a lot of the sort of rhetoric coming from some of the Democrats, not just calling for the face cut, you know, for them to unmask themselves, but also with ICE agents being compared to Nazis and brown shirts and the Gestapo. And so the White House is, it's really fighting back at this point. Yeah. So despite these threats and these attacks, ICE says it's a. agents, its officers, need to protect their identities because of these threats and these attacks, even so far as anti-ice protesters identifying those without masks and posting information about them and where they live and leading to threats against family members. Yet despite that, Democrats in Congress,

for they say it's a lack of transparency. They should be forced to unmasked. They should be forced to have IDs with their names and whatnot on it. It just seems when there's where there's this public danger against law enforcement officers, particularly ICE agents, that that's dangerous. What do you think? It's interesting to sort of draw a parallel, really, to, you know, Democrats and both, really both sides, bipartisan have been really strong about. like protecting judges, for instance, or people that, you know, the judicial system about protecting their identities and where they live and have taken action to sort of do that. But when it comes to law

enforcement, yes, they want them unmasked. They want to be able to see who they are because they're saying, well, this is along the lines. This is what the Gestapo did. This is what brown shirts did. They're saying, hey, we want their names on their uniforms. We want, we want to be able to see, you know, their identification where their badges are and whatnot. As far as I know, I mean, from what I have seen and what has been reported, there is, they do have identification as far as like what they're with. I mean, they would have to identify themselves. But yeah, with their own identity, that's kind of a new, sort of a new frontier with these. But yes, the families have been doxed.

These members have been doxed. It's hard to say where does it sort of stop at this point and where are they going to draw the line? why the Democrats are so, why on a personal level they are, it's interesting that they're sort of really going after them on sort of a personal level instead of, they just, you know, can't accept, okay, well, they're with this agency. Why does it matter? You know, those questions haven't been really asked, I think, is something Democrats is why is it, why is important to know who they are personally, I think, and sort of what's behind that and their reasoning. Going back to one of these incidents in Texas. This was a targeted attack on ice agents near an ice detention facility in

North Texas. Law enforcement this week announced that there's a total of $35,000 in rewards being offered from information leading to one of the suspects who is at large right now. They say he's armed, could be armed and dangerous and asked the public not to confront him. or approach him. But they essentially, a group of people targeted this ice facility, lured ice agents out and attacked them. A local police officer, not an ice officer, was shot in the incident. And now there's a manhunt on for one particular person.

I mean, when you get to that level, this could get worse. It could blow up. Absolutely. And that's what the White House, especially borders are Tom Homan have been saying. You know, they have been warning that this will escalate. I mean, when you have officers being shot, and it's not just ICE agents that these are being targeted, it is local law enforcement. Because there's a lot of local law enforcement in some of these states now that are cooperating and working with ICE. They've been deputized.

so they are working side by side. So again, it's not just, so that kind of leaves them even more open to this because they are in these communities. So they may be known, which is really even frightening. But yes, I mean, the White House and Tom Homan have warned, you know, that this is, there's, that there may be killings that are going to be happening that's going to be happening that's going on. And kind of looking at is there sort of a network that is happening behind the scenes. it certainly raises a question of where, you know, where are they getting the leads on these? How are they getting, you know, heads up of where these rates are going to be at, where there's going to be, you know, where there's violence.

We saw that in California. We've seen it in the Northeast and whatnot. Is they've, they're no, people are being tipped off. People are being tipped off for this. And then all of a sudden there's a huge crowd of people there and it turns violent. And it certainly does open the door for that. And when you have, I mean, these officers that were shot or hurt, they weren't killed. Miraculously, they weren't killed.

But at the rate that it's sort of going right now, it's scary to think that that prospect may, you know, very much come true. Sarah, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.