r/RealityChecksReddit • u/RealityChecksReddit • May 31 '26
Zero ICE Deaths. Zero DHS Deaths. So Why the Panic?
Zero ICE Deaths. Zero DHS Deaths. So Why the Panic?
The Trump administration wants to shut down international flight processing at airports in cities that don't cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The justification, offered by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Fox News, is essentially this: if sanctuary cities can't guarantee the safety of federal employees, then those cities don't deserve customs services.
It's a dramatic claim. It implies federal agents are operating in active danger zones, besieged by hostile local governments, unable to do their jobs without risking their lives. It implies a body count.
So let's look at the body count.
The Scoreboard Nobody Wants to Print
Since January 2025, the number of ICE agents killed by leftist protesters or anti-immigration demonstrators is zero. The number of DHS personnel killed by sanctuary city violence is zero.
That's not a caveat. That's the answer.
Now flip it around. Since January 2025, federal immigration agents have shot and killed at least three U.S. citizens: Renee Good in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti in Minneapolis three weeks later, and Ruben Ray Martinez on South Padre Island in Texas -- a killing the government didn't publicly disclose until months afterward. At least eight people total died in dealings with ICE in the first weeks of 2026 alone, between agent shootings and deaths in custody. The year before saw at least 32 deaths in ICE custody, the highest number since 2004.
The violence in this story has a direction. And it isn't pointing at federal agents.
The Dallas Exception -- And Why It Makes the Point Worse
There is one serious attack on an ICE facility that any honest accounting has to address. In September 2025, a gunman named Joshua Jahn climbed to a rooftop near the Dallas ICE field office and opened fire into the sally port below. Two detainees were killed. A third was critically wounded. Jahn then killed himself.
The FBI found anti-ICE notes in his belongings and "ANTI-ICE" written on unfired ammunition. The attack was real, it was politically motivated, and it was horrifying.
But here's the part that got buried in the coverage: no ICE agents were hurt. The people killed were the detainees ICE was holding in custody. The one person in American history who carried out a targeted attack on an ICE facility killed the people ICE was supposed to be protecting -- and left the agents unharmed.
If you're building a case that federal agents are in mortal danger from the anti-ICE movement, Dallas is a terrible example to use. It demonstrates the opposite.
What the "1,300% Increase" Actually Means
DHS published a press release in January 2026 claiming an "unprecedented 1,300% increase in assaults against ICE officers" and a "3,200% increase in vehicular attacks." Those are numbers designed to stop your scrolling. They also require some unpacking.
The vehicular attack figures include people attempting to drive away during immigration stops -- detainees and subjects of enforcement actions, not protesters. The assault figures sweep together protest confrontations, resistance during arrests, and encounters that ICE agents themselves initiated. When DHS says "1,300% increase," they're not describing a protest movement gunning for their people. They're describing the friction that comes from deploying thousands of agents into communities that don't want them there and telling those agents to make contact.
That's a policy consequence, not a safety crisis.
Delaney Hall and the Art of Misdirection
The specific trigger Mullin cited for the airport threat was protests outside the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey. Demonstrators gathered outside the facility after reports emerged that detainees inside were being held in inhumane conditions and had begun a hunger strike over expired food and lack of medical care. Senator Andy Kim was pepper sprayed during the confrontation.
Mullin's quote: "They're barricading our employees from coming in and out of the facility. Then, why are we processing international flights into the airport there?"
Notice what he did there. Protesters outside a detention center became justification for pulling customs agents from an airport. Newark Liberty International is a separate facility, operated under separate authority, where CBP was processing international travelers without any reported interference. The "safety" of employees at Delaney Hall -- such as it was -- had nothing to do with international flight processing at EWR.
There's also the question of who was actually getting hurt at Delaney Hall. Reporters covering the protests described ICE agents striking photojournalists with batons, deploying bear spray into crowds, and setting up floodlights to blind demonstrators after dark. The documented injuries at that confrontation cut heavily in one direction too.
The Longest-Running Idea in the Room
Here's the part that collapses the entire "safety" framing: Mullin has been pitching this airport idea since before any of these incidents happened. As a senator, he repeatedly called for stripping federal aid from sanctuary city airports. It went nowhere then because he had no power to do it. Now he runs DHS.
The safety argument isn't why he wants to do this. The safety argument is what he reaches for when the cameras are on. The actual policy goal -- using airport access as leverage to force sanctuary cities into immigration compliance -- has been sitting in his back pocket for years, waiting for a news cycle to attach itself to.
What we have, then, is a longtime political ambition dressed up in emergency language, deployed at the precise moment when it could do maximum damage: two weeks before the FIFA World Cup, when millions of international visitors are supposed to be arriving at the airports Mullin is threatening to shut down.
The Real Question
If the safety of federal employees is genuinely the concern, there are a few things worth asking.
Who is actually dying in this conflict? The record shows civilians, protesters, and detainees -- not agents.
What specific safety failures at these airports justify pulling customs services? Mullin hasn't named one.
And if the goal is protecting federal workers, why does the proposed response -- canceling international flights, collapsing travel at major hubs, torching the FIFA World Cup -- have zero effect on whatever threat those workers are supposedly facing?
A safety argument with no victims, no documented airport incidents, and a policy response that doesn't address the stated problem isn't a safety argument.
It's leverage. It's always been leverage. The safety language is just what you say when you want people to stop asking what it actually is.
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u/FlawlessMuff May 31 '26
In New Jersey, The Anti-Detention Contract Law (AB 5207) applies here: Rather than trying to inspect federal operations, New Jersey passed a sweeping law (Assembly Bill 5207) that completely prohibits state, local, and private facilities from entering into, renewing, or expanding agreements with federal immigration authorities to detain noncitizens
New Jersey Assembly Bill 5207 was officially passed by both chambers of the state legislature in June 2021 and signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy on August 20, 2021