Police Group Backs "ICE Protection Act"
The National Police Association has endorsed the ICE Protection Act of 2026. The move comes in response to what the Department of Homeland Security calls an "alarming" increase in attacks where protestors have used vehicles as weapons against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The ICE Protection Act of 2026, introduced by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, aims to significantly increase penalties for assaulting federal law enforcement officers. The bill proposes doubling the maximum prison term from 20 to 40 years for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon and introduces new mandatory minimum sentences of five to ten years for using a vehicle in an attack. This legislative push follows a Department of Homeland Security report highlighting a 3,200% increase in vehicular assaults on ICE officers over the past year. In total, the DHS has reported 68 vehicular attacks on ICE personnel between January 2025 and January 2026, compared to just two in the preceding year. Specific incidents cited by DHS include a case in Homestead, Florida, where an officer was injured after a suspect allegedly reversed his car into him, and multiple instances in Chicago where individuals reportedly rammed CBP vehicles during enforcement operations. Senator Cornyn has attributed the rise in violence to what he calls "inflammatory rhetoric" from the "Radical Left." The National Police Association, in its endorsement, stated that ICE officers face being "shot at, bitten, spit on, kicked, and having projectiles and incendiary devices hurled at them" in addition to vehicular attacks. The organization has also recently backed other legislation like the "COPS Anti-Organized Crime and Cartel Enforcement Act" to provide more resources to local law enforcement. This period of heightened tension has seen significant anti-ICE protests across the country. In Minnesota, a large-scale enforcement operation named "Operation Metro Surge" led to clashes, the arrests of 3,000 people, and the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents. Critics of the bill have dismissed it as "red meat" for the sponsor's political base. Opposition to ICE's methods has grown, with allegations of warrantless arrests, racial profiling, and the detention of U.S. citizens. In response to these concerns, some lawmakers have introduced their own legislation, such as the "ICE Accountability Act," which seeks to create a new independent watchdog to oversee the agency. Activist groups and some local officials have called for cities to end cooperation with ICE, such as cancelling contracts that allow the agency to use local police firing ranges.
