Protesters set off fireworks. They spray-painted epithets on vehicles parked outside the ICE facility. And someone opened fire on a police officer dispatched to the scene, wounding him in the neck.
Is this becoming the new normal?
Authorities say they found shell casings and two assault-style rifles after shooters fired 20 to 30 rounds at the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado earlier this month. Days later, a Michigan man opened fire with an assault rifle and wounded three people, including a police officer, at a Border Patrol station in McAllen. Border Patrol agents shot and killed the gunman, 27-year-old Ryan Louis Mosqueda.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the program on extremism at George Washington University, said political violence, including attacks on elected officials, has become normalized. In addition to the Texas incidents, a gunman has been indicted on six federal charges after he shot and killed the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and her husband and wounded a state senator and his wife. Boelter had a long list of other Democratic lawmakers who were potential targets.
President Donald Trump, who condemned the shootings in Minnesota, survived an assassination attempt himself at a campaign event last summer that left his ear bloodied and an attendee dead.
Lewis said the normalization of political violence has emboldened extremists.
“We have created this subset of people in our society who are just primed for the call to arms against whatever the next enemy in the culture war is,” he said.
Call to action
President Trump’s ramped-up deportation efforts have prompted protests across the country ICE agents and other federal officers working with ICE are making controversial immigration arrests while wearing masks. In California, the Trump Administration called up the National Guard and dispatched active-duty Marines to Los Angeles. Critics say hiding the identity of the agents is inappropriate and that the use of military units is a provocative and unnecessary escalation.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons said federal agents are wearing masks for their own protection.
"People are out there taking photos of [agents'] names, their faces and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves," Lyons said at a June press conference in Boston. "So I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and their family on the line because people don't like what immigration enforcement is."
The Department of Homeland Security claimed in a recent press release that ICE officials are facing an 830% increase in assaults from Jan. 21 to July 13 compared to the same time period the previous year.
Lewis said extremists may use protests over legitimate grievances as an opportunity to commit violence, something peaceful protestors may not intend to happen.
Their motivation?
Jason Blazakis, a professor and the director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said extremists on the far left carry out acts of violence because of perceived social injustices.
“It is an absolutely legitimate concern about what's happening in the country vis-à-vis the application of the rule of law as it relates to individuals who've been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security and specifically ICE,” Blazakis said. “The response itself, however, obviously is illegal, counterproductive, and I would use the term terrorism to describe it.”
It’s unclear what the plan or motivation was for the demonstration at the Prairieland facility. At least one of the defendants told authorities he didn't know there would be any violence according to court records. So far, eleven people are charged with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer and three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to and in furtherance of a crime of violence for the shooting. Court records don’t identify who fired the shots.
Era Yousuf describes herself as being close friends with many of the defendants — including Benjamin Song, who she said prefers to be called Suzuka. Song, who was recently arrested, is accused of purchasing four guns found in connection with the shooting, according to court records.
Yousuf met them through protests and local activism, including the group Food Not Bombs, a nonprofit organization that distributes food that would otherwise be discarded to people experiencing homelessness.
Yousuf, who moved to another state recently, said she wasn’t involved with the demonstration at the detention center or any of the planning. She said her friends are not violent.
“These aren't dangerous people,” Yousuf said. “They want to help innocent folks that are being kept prisoner.”
Yousuf said she and Song were members of the Socialist Rifle Association’s DFW chapter. The nonprofit organization focuses on inclusive left-oriented firearm use and mutual aid according to the nonprofit’s website. Yousuf said she left group's DFW chapter after she moved.
A grand jury declined to indict Song after he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a peace officer at a protest in Austin in August 2020 according to court records. Song, who allegedly was among a group of protesters who were blocking a roadway, raised his rifle into a firing position and targeted an Austin police officer according to court records. He backed up into a crowd of people after the officers drew their weapons and pointed them at Song.
Yousuf said Song carried a weapon for protection.
“If the Nazis if the fascists are going to have guns and they're going to use them with lethal force against innocent people, at least I might pick one up to reduce my chances of getting shot at so I can live,” she said.
So far, federal authorities have not identified who may have fired the shots at the ICE detention facility in Alvarado.
Shifting Tactics
Historically, acts committed by far-right extremists, as well as ethnically motivated attacks, have been responsible for far more fatalities than the acts committed by people on the far-left. Two defendants who were present during the shooting at the Alvarado facility have previously been arrested for nonviolent offenses at protests. Yousuf said her friends care about their community and social justice causes.
“They're just so deeply caring and loving and passionate people,” she said.
William Braniff, the executive director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University said far left extremist groups in the 1970s like the Weather Underground often attacked federal buildings at night when they were unoccupied as an act of symbolic violence.
Far left groups in the 1980s and 1990s used similar tactics, inflicting property damage on businesses that harmed animals or the environment. More recently, Braniff said, far-left extremists are committing some acts of physical violence. But he said that’s not the norm.
“The violent far right has been much more active in recent decades and much more lethal in recent decades — and the comparison is not really even close,” Braniff said.
Lewis cited as examples the gunman who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in a racist attack against Hispanics in 2019 and the shooter who killed 11 Jewish worshippers and wounded six others at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
A press release from the White House referred to the group at the Prairieland detention center as “leftist criminals” and the protesters outside the ICE facility in Portland as “deranged rioters.” DHS said the increase in attacks on ICE agents is a result of rhetoric from Democratic members of Congress. Trump once referred to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — which reportedly injured more than 140 police officers — as a "day of love." The FBI at the time described it as an act of domestic terrorism.
Blazakis said the rise in violence from the far left could lead to reciprocal violence from the far right in response. He said the Trump administration’s incendiary rhetoric adds to the problem.
“The Trump administration often adds fuel to the fire because of their undiplomatic and insensitive tone in which they adopt policies,” Blanzakis said. “In some cases, it even looks like they're asking for a response.”
Braniff said political rhetoric needs to be tamped down on both sides. He said Americans should reward politicians who focus on compromise and civility by voting for them.
“We can’t normalize this violence or let violent extremists tell us what is normal,” Braniff said.
But Lewis said there are limits on what can be done regarding extremism.
“It's not illegal to be an extremist, for better or worse,” Lewis said. “We love our constitution, and we love our First Amendment, and that enables extremists, even anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, hateful, bigoted ones, to express their views.”
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
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