AMERIKAN GESTAPO
The reported change would grant “pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things,” said one journalist.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and pro-immigration activists confront one another outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center on May 26, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.
(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Jul 19, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
New guidance distributed to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country in recent days said that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations that officers have with protesters or people who are subjected to immigration enforcement—leaving the agency to investigate its own violent encounters with the public following at least two recent killings by ICE agents.
The guidance pertained to claims of assault against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, but FBI investigations have gathered evidence that implicated agents themselves after they claimed to have been attacked.
According to the message sent to ICE officers, Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under ICE, would begin examining incidents in which an agent claimed they were assaulted.
HSI does not have jurisdiction to investigate allegations of civil rights allegations, so in cases in which a confrontation escalates to a use of force by an officer, the unit would be unlikely to investigate whether the agent violated the victim’s rights, The New York Times reported.
“The fox is guarding the hen house,” said American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the reported change.
Despite the guidance that was circulated to agents, the US Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, released a joint statement with DHS denying that the change would take place.
“The relationship between DHS and DOJ in investigating assault on federal officer cases has not changed, and FBI will continue to investigate in accordance with agency policy,” the statement said. “This administration has been clear, anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to a New York Times investigation, the Trump administration filed charges against more than 550 people who it said assaulted federal immigration officers. More than 400 of the cases had been resolved, and in nearly half of them, charges of assault had been thrown out or withdrawn, or the defendants had been acquitted.
As it’s filed such charges, the Trump administration has frequently repeated its assertion that federal agents are regularly facing violent attacks from the public—including in cases in which agents have killed US citizens and immigrants, including Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and earlier this month, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
The reported change was also made public less than a week after an ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.
Journalist Sam Stein said the guidance that was given to federal agents could grant “pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things.”
Employee at ICE Detention Center Run by Private Prison Company Shot Protester
GEO Group employee Brandon Booth faces attempted murder and assault charges for shooting a woman who sustained non-life-threatening injuries in Colorado.
A participant ties a red poppy to the fence outside the Aurora US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Aurora, Colorado.
Brad Reed
Jul 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Police in Aurora, Colorado on Friday announced that they had arrested an employee of a local US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center after he allegedly shot a woman protesting at the facility.
The Aurora Police Department said in a social media post that its officers on Thursday night responded to a report of a shooting and subsequently found two women on the scene, one of whom had been shot in her lower body.
Officers would soon after detain 42-year-old Brandon Booth, an employee of private prison firm The GEO Group, after pulling over his vehicle near the site of the shooting and finding a firearm in his possession.
The police found that, before the shooting, the two women were taking part in a protest at the Aurora ICE Processing Center where Booth works.
After the two women “initiated a verbal confrontation and took pictures of the employees’ vehicles before walking away,” police said, “Booth retrieved his personally owned pistol and fired a single shot in their direction, striking one of the women on her lower body” before getting into his vehicle and fleeing the scene.
After Booth was taken into custody, he was charged attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon.
Booth’s alleged victim was transported to a hospital where she was treated for her wounds, which police said “are believed to be non-life-threatening.”
The GEO Group told local news station Fox 31 that Booth “has been placed on unpaid administrative leave,” while vowing to “fully cooperate with law enforcement.”
Booth’s former sister-in-law, a woman named Destiny Winter, told The Denver Post on Friday that the alleged shooter “was not a good person at all,” and described an incident where he gave her a concussion by slamming her into a wall more than a decade ago.
“This is not a person who does the right thing or respects boundaries, especially of women and kids,” Winter explained. “This is not a person who is willing to hold himself accountable for mistakes.”
GEO Group employee Brandon Booth faces attempted murder and assault charges for shooting a woman who sustained non-life-threatening injuries in Colorado.
A participant ties a red poppy to the fence outside the Aurora US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Aurora, Colorado.
(Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
Brad Reed
Jul 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Police in Aurora, Colorado on Friday announced that they had arrested an employee of a local US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center after he allegedly shot a woman protesting at the facility.
The Aurora Police Department said in a social media post that its officers on Thursday night responded to a report of a shooting and subsequently found two women on the scene, one of whom had been shot in her lower body.
Officers would soon after detain 42-year-old Brandon Booth, an employee of private prison firm The GEO Group, after pulling over his vehicle near the site of the shooting and finding a firearm in his possession.
The police found that, before the shooting, the two women were taking part in a protest at the Aurora ICE Processing Center where Booth works.
After the two women “initiated a verbal confrontation and took pictures of the employees’ vehicles before walking away,” police said, “Booth retrieved his personally owned pistol and fired a single shot in their direction, striking one of the women on her lower body” before getting into his vehicle and fleeing the scene.
After Booth was taken into custody, he was charged attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon.
Booth’s alleged victim was transported to a hospital where she was treated for her wounds, which police said “are believed to be non-life-threatening.”
The GEO Group told local news station Fox 31 that Booth “has been placed on unpaid administrative leave,” while vowing to “fully cooperate with law enforcement.”
Booth’s former sister-in-law, a woman named Destiny Winter, told The Denver Post on Friday that the alleged shooter “was not a good person at all,” and described an incident where he gave her a concussion by slamming her into a wall more than a decade ago.
“This is not a person who does the right thing or respects boundaries, especially of women and kids,” Winter explained. “This is not a person who is willing to hold himself accountable for mistakes.”
Amid ICE Killings and Surge in Arrests, Mullin Brags DHS ‘Turning Up the Heat on the Streets’
ICE is already on track to arrest more people this month than any other month during the second Trump administration.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin speaks during a news conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 17, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Jul 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As scrutiny builds over two fatal shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in less than a week, US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the Trump administration was only going to keep ramping up its aggressive mass deportation push. Arrests have already reached a record high this month.
Mullin brushed off questions from reporters on Friday about the shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine—neither of whom was the target of ICE’s operations—which have generated calls for investigations and reforms to ICE’s tactics, including the traffic stops that led to the fatal shootings.
Earlier this week, acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis called on critical politicians and media outlets to “turn down the temperature” of their rhetoric towards ICE, which she claimed is “fueling vehicle attacks” against agents. The administration has claimed that both men attempted to “weaponize” their vehicles, but video and eyewitness accounts have not backed this up.
In light of the agency’s calls to “turn down the temperature,” a reporter asked Mullin whether he could assure Americans that ICE officers who violate the agency’s use-of-force policy would face consequences and whether he’d commit to making that determination publicly.
“Let me clarify. When I say ‘turn down the temperature,’ I mean turn down the temperature with you guys,” Mullin said, pointing at members of the media. “We’re turning up the heat on the streets.”
“We’re out there working harder than we ever have because we’ve empowered law enforcement to do their jobs,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is remove us from the headlines every single day.”
Mullin added that “everybody will be held accountable,” and that he would enforce the law “with our own agency” and “with the criminals on the streets.”
Facing pressure from senior White House adviser Stephen Miller to reach a quota of 3,000 arrests per day, ICE has overwhelmingly prioritized going after individuals without criminal convictions during President Donald Trump’s second term, despite the administration’s claims that it’s targeting “the worst of the worst.”
A leaked Department of Homeland Security report published in February showed that just 14% of the nearly 400,000 people taken into custody by ICE in 2025 had been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses, while 40% have never been charged with any crime.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that ICE is on track to arrest more people in July than any previous month of the second Trump administration. Arrests dropped for a short time in February after immigration agents shot two US citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—in Minneapolis, but spiked to a new high of over 39,500 in June.
None of the agents involved in January’s pair of fatal shootings have faced federal charges, and the Trump administration has actively sought to obstruct state-level investigations into the shootings by withholding evidence, some of which was finally turned over on Monday.
ICE is already on track to arrest more people this month than any other month during the second Trump administration.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin speaks during a news conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 17, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Jul 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As scrutiny builds over two fatal shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in less than a week, US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the Trump administration was only going to keep ramping up its aggressive mass deportation push. Arrests have already reached a record high this month.
Mullin brushed off questions from reporters on Friday about the shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine—neither of whom was the target of ICE’s operations—which have generated calls for investigations and reforms to ICE’s tactics, including the traffic stops that led to the fatal shootings.
Earlier this week, acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis called on critical politicians and media outlets to “turn down the temperature” of their rhetoric towards ICE, which she claimed is “fueling vehicle attacks” against agents. The administration has claimed that both men attempted to “weaponize” their vehicles, but video and eyewitness accounts have not backed this up.
In light of the agency’s calls to “turn down the temperature,” a reporter asked Mullin whether he could assure Americans that ICE officers who violate the agency’s use-of-force policy would face consequences and whether he’d commit to making that determination publicly.
“Let me clarify. When I say ‘turn down the temperature,’ I mean turn down the temperature with you guys,” Mullin said, pointing at members of the media. “We’re turning up the heat on the streets.”
“We’re out there working harder than we ever have because we’ve empowered law enforcement to do their jobs,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is remove us from the headlines every single day.”
Mullin added that “everybody will be held accountable,” and that he would enforce the law “with our own agency” and “with the criminals on the streets.”
Facing pressure from senior White House adviser Stephen Miller to reach a quota of 3,000 arrests per day, ICE has overwhelmingly prioritized going after individuals without criminal convictions during President Donald Trump’s second term, despite the administration’s claims that it’s targeting “the worst of the worst.”
A leaked Department of Homeland Security report published in February showed that just 14% of the nearly 400,000 people taken into custody by ICE in 2025 had been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses, while 40% have never been charged with any crime.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that ICE is on track to arrest more people in July than any previous month of the second Trump administration. Arrests dropped for a short time in February after immigration agents shot two US citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—in Minneapolis, but spiked to a new high of over 39,500 in June.
None of the agents involved in January’s pair of fatal shootings have faced federal charges, and the Trump administration has actively sought to obstruct state-level investigations into the shootings by withholding evidence, some of which was finally turned over on Monday.
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