Claims, Facts, and Evidence

More confrontations occurring between US citizens and DHS are in the new again.

ICE agent points gun at Virginia woman who shouted at them in video that conflicts with government’s narrative

The Trump administration repeatedly claims that ICE agents were threatened or attacked — often saying that people ‘weaponized’ their vehicles or that agents feared for their lives. Yet in case after case, video, witnesses, and subsequent legal proceedings have contradicted or undermined those accounts.

So it was with some doubt that I read this DHS claim:

“Our officers are experiencing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats. When faced with dangerous circumstances, DHS law enforcement used their training to protect themselves, their fellow officers, and the public,” the DHS spokesperson said in the statement.

There’s not much context to assess their claim, such as a timeline. Additionally, ICE underwent a huge expansion since Trump came back into office. I want to know, what are the raw numbers, such as the number of assaults based on the number of agents? That would be a more meaningful number.

Secondly, I ponder, how is DHS categorizing and cataloguing ‘threats’. Do they change definitions to make the numbers seem worse, giving them cover to respond more aggressively because ‘their agents are being threatened’? That seems to be the conclusion of an older DHS Inspector General finding.

Third, for me, while ICE aggressively expanded, ICE slashed their training regime. Based on historic trends among military, law enforcement, and other professions, less training often ends up resulting in lower standards and more incidents.

Finally, I think that Trump’s more aggressive deployments to cities and

In short, has the danger to the typical ICE officer actually increased by anything remotely approaching the enormous percentages being cited?

Or is this like the Trump and his administration’s broader pattern of making outlandish claims:

• DOGE’s claims of ‘savings’ from Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
  
• Trump’s math about prescription drug prices
  
• Trump’s insistence about how many people came for his inauguration
  
• The claim Trump made that prices would come down fast, and quickly, made many times
  
• Donald Trump’s many statements about winning the war in Iran, ‘obliterating’ Iran’s military, and the war being over
  
• The ongoing Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco
  
• How ‘great’ the economy is doing when so many are enduring an affordability problem
  
• Trump’s insistence, without evidence, that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ from him
  
• The WH ballroom, which Trump said would cost taxpayers nothing, which is now a growing tab for taxpayers

Given Trump’s history of unsupported and misleading quantitative claims, I want to see the underlying data and methodology before accepting the interpretation DHS is placing on those numbers.