June 20, 2025.

Individuals in plain clothes with their faces covered and without badges or name tags

are snatching people off the streets and taking them away.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which is housed within the Department of

Homeland Security, claimed that such measures for anonymity are imperative because

ICE officers have seen a staggering 413% increase in assaults against them.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post looked into that claim and noted that by using a percentage, ICE avoids the question of just how many assaults there have actually been.

He points out that year-to-date assaults against Customs and Border Protection are currently

20% lower than they were in 2024, and that at least one ICE news release blurred the

distinction between threatening to assault and assaulting.

ICE would not provide evidence for their claims.

Bump concludes, we should not and cannot take ICE's representations about the need for its officers to obscure their identities at face value.

After Bump's article appeared yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media,

new data reveals that ICE law enforcement is now facing a 500% increase in assaults while

carrying out enforcement operations.

Bump noted that ICE has been eager to level dubious charges against Democratic legislators,

and the message from Homeland Security bears that claim out.

After claiming a 500% increase in assaults, it continued,

Make no mistake, sanctuary politicians are contributing to the surge in assaults of our ICE officers

through their repeated vilification and demonization of ice.

This violence against ICE must end.

...