Hakeem Jeffries makes worrying threat against ICE agents as protesters interfere with operations

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made clear he believes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, along with all other federal immigration officers participating in raids, need to be "identified" — even as those same agents are facing doxxing and death threats.

The tension is starting to reach a boiling point as recent ICE operations undertaken across the country have involved members of the public getting confrontational with the agents, who have had to use pepper spray and flash-bangs to disperse the agitated crowds. To protect their identities, agents often wear face coverings during operations, furthering angering Democrats.

"Every single ICE agent who is engaged in this aggressive overreach, and are trying to hide their identities from the American people, will be unsuccessful in doing that. This is America. This is not the Soviet Union. We're not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s. And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified," Jeffries said during a press conference.

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On Monday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons spoke about the growing threats federal law enforcement officers are facing for operations aimed at removing illegal aliens, often with lengthy criminal records, from the United States.

"People are out there taking photos of the names, their faces, and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves. So I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is," Lyons explained.

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At a federal operation in Minneapolis on Tuesday, crowds quickly formed to get in the way of the agents, with members of Minneapolis city leadership part of the mob as well. While not part of the operation, Minneapolis police officers and Hennepin County sheriff's deputies had to help with crowd control.

In direct response to Jeffries' threat, border czar Tom Homan warned that with the rhetoric coming from Democrats, "It's only a matter of time before there's an incident where an ICE agent is going to have to take a life or going to lose a life."

Homan's concerns are also based on how assaults on immigration agents have risen over 400% so far this year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. A bystander video that the DHS recently posted on X showed the man filming threatening to "put a bullet in y'all f**king head!"

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