Trump admin directs FBI to stop probing assaults on ICE agents: NYT

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FBI Stops Investigating ICE Confrontations After 3 Deadly Incidents

Publication Date: 2026-07-20

ICE Granted Greater Impunity Under New Policy

Donald Trump’s administration has found a new way to grant Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) total impunity following a series of deadly incidents involving federal immigration agents.

Last week, FBI agents received notice that their agency would no longer investigate claims of assault against immigration agents, sources told The New York Times.

According to the agency’s guidance, Homeland Security Investigations—a branch of ICE—would likely be responsible for investigating confrontations instead of the FBI.

The stated purpose of these investigations is to determine whether federal immigration agents were attacked. However, their findings can also be used to prosecute DHS agents involved in violent confrontations.

Trump administration officials have insisted that anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates or interferes” with immigration agents should be charged with felony assault, which is punishable by up to eight years in prison. In multiple violent confrontations between agents and civilians—both fatal and non-fatal—the government has been quick to claim that the agents felt threatened.

Official Denials and Growing Concerns

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied that any such change had been made.

“The relationship between D.H.S. and D.O.J. in investigating assault on federal officer cases has not changed, and F.B.I. will continue to investigate in accordance with agency policy,” the agencies told the Times in a joint statement. “This administration has been clear, anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Already, hundreds of criminal cases alleging assault against immigration officers have completely fallen apart. If implemented, this guidance would be particularly concerning given the number of false claims immigration officials have made about their violent confrontations with protesters and immigrants.

Recent Deadly Incidents

• Maine: Last week, an ICE agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man legally in the United States, while he drove with his three-year-old daughter.
• Florida: The next day, a man in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer while being chased by ICE.
• Texas: The week before that, an ICE agent shot and killed longtime Houston resident and father of three Lorenzo Salgado Araujo while he was driving. Federal agents claimed he tried to ram the officers—a claim that eyewitnesses denied and that has crumbled under the slightest scrutiny.

Read more about ICE: ICE Contractor Arrested After Shooting Protester Who Was Walking Away

Trump Threatens Retaliation Against Canada Over Wildfire Smoke

President Donald Trump and other Republicans are threatening retaliation against Canada for the wildfires ravaging Ontario, smoke from which has caused hazardous air quality in a significant swath of the United States this week.

On Truth Social Friday afternoon, the president accused Canada of “Willful Negligence,” vowing to add billions of dollars to existing tariffs against Canada to make up for the wildfires’ cost to the U.S.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein,” the president wrote, “and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air.” Trump vowed to contact Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Trump was joining a growing chorus of angry Republicans. Earlier Friday, GOP Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio proposed a bill to slap Canada with sanctions “in response to transboundary wildfire smoke affecting the United States,” which he called an “atrocity.” Before that, three Republican congressmen representing M