The attack took place at an ICE field office where officers conduct short-term processing of detainees who were recently arrested.
A gunman who wrote “ANTI-ICE” on an unused bullet killed one detainee and badly wounded two others on Wednesday (Sep 24) when he fired on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Dallas from a nearby rooftop before taking his own life, officials said.
United States President Donald Trump and members of his administration seized on the attack as the latest instance of what they characterised as an escalation of politically motivated violence incited by the left.
They accused California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democrats of stirring hate by unfairly vilifying law enforcement and conservative political figures.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on X of what he said was the suspect’s unused ammunition, showing the shell casing of one round inscribed with the phrase “ANTI-ICE” along the side.
“While the investigation is ongoing, an initial review of the evidence shows an ideological motive behind this attack,” Patel wrote.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem later said in a Fox News interview that the gunman “was targeting ICE”, based on “evidence so far in this case”.
US President Donald Trump quickly politicised the incident on his Truth Social platform, accusing “Radical Left Democrats” of stoking anti-ICE violence by “constantly demonising Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to Nazis”.
Invoking the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk two weeks ago, Trump said “Radical Left Terrorists” pose a “grave threat” to law enforcement and “must be stopped.”
Trump added he would sign an executive order this week to “dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks”, although he gave no evidence to support the notion that left-wing political violence posed any more of a threat than violence from the right.
In a statement about the Texas shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said the suspect fired “indiscriminately” at the ICE facility, including at a van in the building’s secured entryway where the victims were shot.
The department initially said two victims were dead and one injured, before later issuing a corrected statement that one detainee had been killed and two others were in critical condition.
Officials have not disclosed the identities of the victims.
Noem later appeared on Fox and confirmed media reports that the suspected gunman had been identified as Joshua Jahn, 29. She said he had fired into the building from a nearby rooftop.
CAR PASTED WITH ‘NUCLEAR FALLOUT’ MAP
Dallas-area television station KDFW showed video of police examining a black sedan parked below the three-story office building from where the gunshots were fired.
A US map was visible pasted to the exterior of the car on its rear passenger side, with sections of the map shaded and a message denoting the darkened areas as “nuclear radiation fallout” zones.
Jahn’s older brother, Noah, spoke with a Reuters reporter earlier in the day as Joshua Jahn’s name began circulating online in connection with the shooting.
Noah Jahn, 30, said he was not aware that his brother harboured any negative feelings about ICE.
“I didn’t know he had any political intent at all,” said the older brother, who lives in McKinney, Texas, around 30 miles north of Dallas, as did his sibling.
The shooting in Dallas came two weeks after Kirk, co-founder of the conservative student political group Turning Point USA and a close ally of Trump, was shot dead by a sniper during a speaking event on Sep 10 in Orem, Utah, fueling fears of a new wave of political violence in the US.
Kirk’s death set off a firestorm of political recriminations and deepened concerns among Trump’s critics that the Republican president would use that killing to justify further cracking down on his perceived opponents.
A 22-year-old technical college student from Utah has been charged with murder in the Kirk assassination, although authorities have not suggested a precise motive for the attack.
CASTING BLAME FOR VIOLENCE
Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials have blamed, without proof, liberal organisations for fomenting unrest and encouraging violence against the right.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order declaring the anti-fascist movement antifa a domestic “terrorist organisation” despite the fact that there has been no evidence made public linking antifa to Kirk’s death.
White House adviser Stephen Miller posted a video on X of California Governor Gavin Newsom describing ICE raids by “masked men, jumping out of unmarked cars” with “no due process” and calling such tactics “authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government”.
Above the clip, taken from Newsom’s guest appearance on Tuesday on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, Miller wrote: “This language incites violence and terrorism.”
Perpetrators of political violence “feel like they get cover when you have leaders in this country going out there and defending those types of actions”, Noem said on Fox.
At a news briefing, Joseph Rothrock, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas field office, said investigators were treating the predawn attack as an “act of targeted violence.”
The site was an ICE field office where immigration officers conduct short-term processing of recently arrested detainees.
The Trump administration’s aggressive use of ICE agents as part of its crackdown on undocumented immigrants has sparked outcries from Democrats and liberal activists.
ICE detention facilities have increasingly become sites of conflict, with heavily armed agents deploying pepper ball guns, tear gas and other chemical agents in clashes with protesters.
