By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Sunday, March 16, 2025

Federal officers are pursuing illegal immigrants, and the illegal immigrants are increasingly fighting back, according to court documents and officials who describe a surge in assaults on law enforcement.

Experts said the violence is driven at least in part by immigrant advocates who deliver know-your-rights briefings that seem to encourage defiance.

“It’s deliberately intended to fuel that,” Matthew J. O’Brien, a former immigration judge, told The Washington Times.

In California, a Russian migrant has been charged with chomping on the hand of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer hard enough to break his finger. In New York, an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua stands accused of roughing up U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who tried to arrest him at a jail.

In Denver, city authorities released Abraham Gonzalez into a jail parking lot, where he took on a half-dozen ICE officers, congressional Republicans said.

A senior ICE official told reporters last week that assaults on personnel had increased by 300%.

The Trump administration is prosecuting the cases.

“President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda is a top national security priority that this Department of Justice is prepared to vigorously defend,” the department said in a statement to The Washington Times. “Protecting the safety of all Americans is paramount, and we will continue to rid our homeland of dangerous criminal illegal aliens who seek to do us and our brave law enforcement officers harm.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, raised the Denver incident in a hearing with sanctuary city mayors this month.

Mr. Jordan said Denver’s policy of refusing to allow ICE officers into its jail meant Mr. Gonzalez was released into a parking lot, where the federal officers were waiting. The Venezuelan migrant, whom Mr. Jordan identified as a gang member, fought the ICE officers and assaulted one of them. The officers used Tasers to subdue him.

In Rhode Island, a Venezuelan became violent during an arrest outside a courthouse, authorities said. He refused to let ICE handcuff him and grabbed for one officer’s utility belt, almost reaching his gun, according to court documents.

Officers used pepper spray to subdue him.

Two ICE officers were injured in the scuffle.

Federal prosecutors won an indictment this month against a dozen illegal immigrants who they said assaulted two officers at an ICE detention center in Texas.

ICE declined to provide more information on its calculation of a 300% increase in assaults.

The increase could be tied to the pace of arrests. In late February, ICE was arresting people at about 2½ times the rate of a year earlier during the Biden administration.

Mr. O’Brien blamed part of the increase on groups he said were trying to undermine immigration law by encouraging migrants to resist cooperation with ICE.

“The major problem is there has been a deliberate effort to undermine enforcement of immigration laws,” said Mr. O’Brien, now with the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

That effort has spilled over into the general public.

A video that surfaced in Washington state last week purportedly showed ICE officers smashing out an automobile window to reach migrants who refused to open the door during a traffic stop. Sentiment on social media was decidedly in favor of the migrants.

“The passengers knew their rights so they started recording and asking the agents for a warrant,” wrote the person who posted the video.

“The agents didn’t provide a warrant and demanded they get out of the car. When they didn’t get out of the car the agents proceeded to smash their windows and forcefully remove them by dragging them out of their car.”

The video touched a nerve.

“This is totally against the law,” one Facebook user wrote. Another declared, “Death to ICE.”

Mr. O’Brien said immigration officers can make a traffic stop if they have probable cause and don’t need a warrant. Once they make the stop, it’s like any other traffic stop. Police are empowered to determine who is in the vehicle and investigate.

Sentiment against ICE isn’t new.

In 2018, Sen. Kamala Harris compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.

A year later, a self-described Antifa activist attempted to create an explosion at an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. He was fatally shot by local police.