Threats to government officials are nothing new, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that there has been an uptick in such activity aimed at Department of Homeland Security officials now.
But a story this week out of Washington, D.C., suggests the anger directed at this specific federal agency is reaching a truly weird and dangerous place.
“A senior DHS official living in the Washington. D.C. area found a burnt and decapitated animal on his front porch,” ABC News reported Monday.
“Department of Homeland Security employees are seeing violent threats with greater frequency because of the president’s immigration policy,” ABC reported, citing a DHS source with knowledge of the agency’s threat assessment.
Officials have determined there is a “heightened threat against DHS employees” following the agency’s vigorous enforcement of immigration policy, according to an internal memo circulated this weekend.
“This assessment is based on specific and credible threats that have been levied against certain DHS employees and a sharp increase in the overall number of general threats against DHS employees,” wrote acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Claire Grady.
DHS has been charging everyone caught entering the United States through the southwest border illegally. As part of this new, zero tolerance policy, an estimated 2,300 children have been separated from their parents while the latter face charges. However, the separation policy caused such mass outrage that President Trump eventually signed an executive order ending the practice.
For the crazies out there, it may be a case of too little, too late.
“Around two dozen threat reports were issued in the past few days, primarily against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers,” ABC reported. “Each of these reports is generally related to a specific online threat. All employees are personally contacted by DHS security if they are the target of a violent threat.”
One of the listed examples is the official who found the charred, headless animal corpse.
As threats against the agency have seen an increase, ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers, and even the DHS secretary, have been the targets of political protests.
An ICE field office in Portland, Ore., for example, was for several days the sight of a protest camp run by a group called Occupy ICE PDX, the Oregonian reported.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was also driven out of a Mexican restaurant on June 19 by members of the Democratic Socialists of America, who chanted, “You’re eating a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting tens of thousands of people separated from their parents.”
ICE spokeswoman Liz Johnson told ABC News in a statement, “People can disagree on policy, but it is unconscionable to target our employees and advocate violence against federal law enforcement officers.”
