DALLAS (AP) — The gunman who opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas hated the U.S. government and wanted to incite terror by killing federal agents, officials said Thursday, offering the first hint of a motive in the attack.
The shooting at daybreak Wednesday targeted the ICE building, including a van in a gated entryway that held detainees. One detainee was killed, and two other were critically wounded. No ICE personnel were hurt.
The gunman, who fatally shot himself, “carried out a targeted, ambush-style attack on law enforcement,” said Joseph Rothrock, the agent in charge of the FBI Dallas field office. He ”specifically intended to kill ICE agents," firing at ICE vehicles and sending multiple shots into "the windows of the office building where numerous ICE employees do their jobs every day.”
The assailant appeared to have acted alone. Nancy Larson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said investigators found a collection of notes at his residence. One of them said, “Yes, it was just me.” Other notes were sharply critical of ICE agents and indicated he hoped to avoid hurting any detainees.
Investigators have not found that the gunman was a member of any particular group or entity, Larson said. And while he broadly wrote about hatred of the federal government, he did not mention any federal agencies other than ICE, she said.
The shooter also left behind a note saying that he hoped the attack would “give ICE agents real terror,” the FBI Director Kash Patel said on the social platform X.
The gunman, who authorities said fired indiscriminately from a nearby rooftop, was involved in a “high degree of pre-attack planning," Patel said, and agents have seized electronic devices, handwritten notes and other evidence from a Dallas-area home.
“One of the handwritten notes recovered read, ‘Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror, to think, is there a sniper with AP rounds on that roof?’” Patel wrote, quoting an apparent abbreviation for armor-piercing bullets.
The gunman had also downloaded a document titled “Dallas County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management” containing a list of Homeland Security facilities, Patel said.
Hours before the shooting, the assailant conducted multiple internet searches for ballistics information and video of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah university campus this month, Patel said. Last month, the man searched for apps that tracked the presence of ICE agents, he added.
Joshua Jahn, 29, was identified as the shooter by a law enforcement official who could not publicly disclose details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
On Wednesday, Patel posted a photo on social media showing a bullet found at the scene with “ANTI-ICE” written on it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered more security at ICE facilities across the U.S., according to a post by the DHS on X.
The attack was the latest high-profile targeted killing in the U.S. It happened two weeks after Kirk was killed by a shooter on the roof of a building at Utah Valley University and as heightened immigration enforcement has prompted a backlash against ICE agents and fear in immigrant communities.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association called the shootings “a stark reminder that behind every immigration case number is a human being deserving of dignity, safety and respect.”
“Whether they are individuals navigating the immigration process, public servants carrying out their duties, or professionals working within the system, all deserve to be free from violence and fear,” the group said in a statement.
FBI says attack was 'act of targeted violence’
Authorities have given few details about the shooting and did not publicly release the names of the victims. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as “an act of targeted violence.”
The gunman used a bolt-action rifle, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The ICE facility is along Interstate 35 East, just southwest of Dallas Love Field, a large airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and blocks from hotels.
Who was the gunman?
Hours after the shooting, FBI agents gathered at a home in suburban Fairview, outside Dallas, that public records link to Jahn.
The house sits on a tree-lined cul-de-sac in a neighborhood dotted with one- and two-story brick homes. The street was blocked by a police vehicle, and officials wearing FBI jackets could be seen in the front yard.
A spokesperson for Collin College in nearby McKinney, said via email that a Joshua Jahn studied there “at various times” between 2013 and 2018.
In late 2017, Jahn drove cross-country to work a minimum-wage job harvesting marijuana for several months, said Ryan Sanderson, owner of a legal cannabis farm in Washington state.
“He’s a young kid, a thousand miles from home, didn’t really seem to have any direction, living out of his car at such a young age,” Sanderson told the AP.
Calls for an end to political violence
Shortly after the shooting and before officials said at least one victim was a detainee, Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.”
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Texas, continued in that direction, calling for an end to political violence.
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, an advocacy group, said the shootings are “a heartbreaking reminder of the violence and fear that too often touch the lives of migrants and the communities where they live.”
Noem says ICE agents have been targeted
Noem noted a recent uptick in targeting of ICE agents.
On July 4, attackers in black, military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. One police officer was wounded. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack.
Days later, a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents leaving a Border Patrol facility in McAllen. The man, identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, injured a responding police officer before authorities shot and killed him.
In suburban Chicago, federal authorities erected a fence around an immigration processing center after tensions flared with protesters. President Donald Trump's administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
Dozens of immigration field offices across the country house administrative employees and are used for people summoned for check-in appointments and to process people arrested before they are transferred to long-term detention centers. They are not designed to hold people in custody.
Security varies by location, with some in federal buildings and others mixed with private businesses, said John Torres, a former acting director of the agency and former head of what is now called its enforcement and removals division.
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Williams reported from Detroit. Associated Press journalists Jack Brook in New Orleans; Mike Balsamo in New York; Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.