Off-Duty Border Patrol Agent Shot In Face: Report
Manhattan detectives are searching for a suspect who shot an off-duty Border Patrol agent in the face during what appears to have been a botched robbery Saturday night.
Police sources say the incident occurred just before midnight on Saturday inside Fort Washington Park, AMNewYork reported.
Officers from the 33rd Precinct responded to the area beneath the Washington Bridge after receiving a 911 call reporting a shooting.
When they arrived, they found the 42-year-old victim suffering from gunshot wounds to his face and arm. One bullet struck him in the cheek, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
EMS arrived at the scene and transported the victim to Harlem Hospital, where he is listed in stable condition and is expected to recover.
Sources close to the investigation confirmed the victim is an off-duty Border Patrol officer. He was not in uniform at the time of the incident, and investigators believe the shooting was the result of an attempted robbery.
Police reported that a man has been taken into custody for questioning. Charges are pending as the investigation remains ongoing, the outlet reported.
In recent days, border czar Tom Homan warned that increasingly volatile rhetoric from Democratic lawmakers is putting border and immigration agents further at risk of harm.
His remarks came on the heels of a shooting involving a Texas police officer outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center.
“The rhetoric against the men and women of ICE is skyrocketing, especially by members of Congress,” Homan told “America’s Newsroom” on Monday. “We have senators, we have congresspeople [who] compare ICE to the Nazis, compare ICE to racists, and it just continues. So the public thinks, well, if a member of Congress can attack ICE, why can’t we?”
The rhetoric “has to stop,” he warned, “or it’s a matter of time one of the ICE officers goes down or a criminal goes down. We’ve already seen an officer go down.”
The inflammatory rhetoric has come from Democratic lawmakers, not Republicans, reports have noted.
The officer was shot in the neck two weeks ago near the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, authorities said.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that more than a dozen agitators slashed tires on federal vehicles and damaged security cameras at the ICE facility. This attack comes amid ongoing protests outside a DHS detention center in Portland, sparked by backlash against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Homan stated that attacks targeting ICE officers and federal agents involved in immigration enforcement have increased by more than 800% compared to the same period last year.
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced criticism from Republicans in June after likening federal immigration operations to the Gestapo, the notorious secret police of Nazi Germany.
Homan urged blue state politicians to exercise greater responsibility in their criticism of immigration officials, pointing out that these officers have families as well and are merely doing the jobs they were hired and trained to do.
“We’re talking about life and death here. These men and women of ICE, the men and women of border patrol, they’re mothers and fathers too. They don’t hang their heart on a hook when they go to work,” he said.
The border czar also told protesters that if they disagree with the country’s immigration laws, they should “go protest Congress.”
The attack on law enforcement came shortly after President Trump signed his $3.3 trillion “big, beautiful bill” into law the previous Friday.
The legislation includes funding for 10,000 new ICE agents and allocates $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $45 billion to expand immigration detention capacity, $30 billion for ICE hiring and training, and $6 billion for border technology and surveillance.
Homan stated that the additional funding will enable immigration officials to operate more efficiently and “make America safer.”
