Wednesday’s shooting at the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office that killed one detainee and injured two others is sending fear through the migrant community and those who advocate for them.
The shooting comes as immigrants are already fearful of being targeted amid anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Myrna Mendez, founder and president of Comadres Unidas de Dallas y Mas, said the incident escalates the distrust among community members who already have had their daily lives disrupted.
“There are people that are not sending their kids to school, they’re not taking them to their medical appointments,” Mendez told KERA in Spanish..
Federal officials are investigating the shooting as an anti-ICE attack, but all three victims were detainees. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Wednesday one of the injured detainees was a Mexican national.
In a news release, the ministry said it's committed to protecting and defending the rights of its citizens living outside of Mexico and is in communication with U.S. investigators.
Susana Garcia, an immigration advocate and community organizer in the Bachman Lake neighborhood in Dallas, was having her coffee Wednesday morning when she began receiving texts from friends asking if she knew what was happening. She said ICE sightings and deportation threats have already taken an emotional toll on migrants, and now people will be even “more afraid” because of the shooting.
Eric Folkerth, lead pastor at the Kessler Park United Methodist Church, shared a post on social media urging prayers for the victims and "their families who are no doubt living in fear, right now."
On the Facebook post, Folkerth wrote: “I condemn this shooting in the strongest possible way and again call for peace and compassion for everyone.”
He and about a dozen other faith leaders meet outside the ICE field office every Monday for a vigil and to advocate for migrant rights. Mara Richards Bim, the justice and advocacy fellow at the Royal Lane Baptist Church, said the group has been in nonstop communication since they got word of the shooting.
“It's just been a barrage of text messages and phone calls and people calling the church here to also just make sure that I wasn't down there,” Bim told KERA. "We were just there two days ago.”
She said the group holds its vigils to support migrants showing up to their ICE check-ins or who are being detained as they wait to get transferred to a detention facility — as well to call for due process and fair treatment of migrants.
"Our immigrant community is terrified because even people with no criminal background, who are doing everything our government has asked of them, who are showing up to appointments, who have been productive contributors to our country and our community-- even they are being targeted by ICE.”
While many details about the shooting – including the suspected shooter's motive — are still unconfirmed, Bim said political rhetoric from federal and state leaders the last couple of weeks has caused further divisiveness. She said shortly after the news broke, she spoke to her husband about buying a life insurance policy.
“As someone who is engaged in this work and with the escalation of political violence, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that at some point I might end up in someone's crosshairs,” she said.
Some members of their group will likely stop coming to the weekly vigil, but Bim said she plans to keep showing up, even with heightened fears.
“I also want my daughter to grow up with me as her mother,” she said. “So it is a very emotional and difficult morning.”
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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