White House claims "more than 1,000%" rise in assaults on ICE agents, data says otherwise

toggle caption Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officials have claimed since June that assaults on their own officers have climbed sharply, with the White House insisting in a September executive order that attacks are up "more than 1,000 percent."

While the number of assaults on ICE agents have increased, there is no public evidence that they have spiked as dramatically as the federal government has claimed.

An analysis of court records shows about a 25 percent rise in charges for assault against federal officers through mid-September, compared to the same period a year ago.

Undisputably, ICE agents have at times faced increasingly dangerous work conditions and assaults around the nation, including some that could have turned deadly.

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The agency promises that every person who assaults an ICE agent "will face the full extent of the law," according to an executive order signed by President Trump.

But Colorado Public Radio's search of federal court records for charges of assault on a federal officer over the last five years found no evidence for a rise in assaults on the scale the White House claims.

Despite repeated requests for data to back up their eye-popping statistics, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly declined to provide any justification to CPR or NPR for continuing to make its claims.