They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling.
Source: The New York Times
They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling.
The Trump administration has lost or abandoned hundreds of criminal cases against protesters and immigrants, a Times investigation found.
Jaime Diaz, an undocumented immigrant, was charged with assaulting a Border Patrol officer in Laredo, Texas. But video footage shows it was the officer who punched Mr. Diaz.
By Mike McIntire, Danny Hakim, Alexandra Berzon, Jazmine Ulloa and Lauren McCarthy
July 18, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET
In its nationwide immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has charged hundreds of people with assaulting or impeding federal agents. President Trump has branded them "insurrectionists," "animals" and "thugs," part of a broader effort by his administration to cast protesters and immigrants as violent criminals.
But a close examination of those cases reveals that in its rush to meet White House demands for deportations, federal law enforcement has engaged in extensive misconduct -- ranging from attacking protesters to destroying evidence and misrepresenting facts in court. ... The New York Times found that the Trump administration has filed assault charges against more than 550 people who were caught in its immigration dragnet -- far more than previously known. Of the more than 400 cases resolved so far, nearly half have unraveled: Juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.
The record is abysmal by the typical standards of federal prosecutions: The Justice Department seldom loses criminal cases, with more than 90 percent of defendants pleading guilty or being convicted at trial. ... The Times obtained court filings for every assault case and reviewed hearing transcripts, interviewed witnesses and federal officials and watched videos of dozens of encounters that led to criminal charges. The review, the most comprehensive to date, suggests that the administration's use of the law has often been less about protecting federal agents than about providing legal cover to cow protesters and immigrants into submission.
"There seems to be a pattern of charges being filed without any merit," said Jimmy L. Arce, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who served on a commission that investigated immigration raids in the city last year. He added that some defendants were "having their speech criminalized by the U.S. attorney's office."
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Methodology
There is no simple way to identify immigration-related cases brought under 18 U.S.C. 111. We searched online databases — Nexis, CourtListener and Pacer (the federal judiciary’s electronic docket) — for all such cases since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term.
We used an artificial intelligence model to help remove duplicate cases, as well as cases unrelated to immigration enforcement. We checked the model’s work. We also requested records from the Central Violations Bureau, part of the federal judiciary, which processes tickets issued for violations of 18 U.S.C. 111. Our review was exhaustive, but it is possible that we missed cases.
We confined our analysis to 18 U.S.C. 111, though the government has occasionally invoked other laws to prosecute people for assaulting officers.
We created a database of court records, including hearing and trial transcripts, for the cases that were dismissed or ended in acquittals. With help from an A.I. model, we looked for common characteristics, such as courts admonishing the government for misconduct or agents initiating physical force against people they arrested. We reviewed every case the model flagged.
We also interviewed federal prosecutors and other experts and examined historical statistics about federal prosecutions, as reported by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Alan Feuer and Will Houp contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. Produced by Alice Fang and Rumsey Taylor.
Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter, has been with The Times since 2003.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-mcintire
Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/danny-hakim
Alexandra Berzon is an investigative reporter covering American politics and elections for The Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/alexandra-berzon
Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter covering immigration for The Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/jazmine-ulloa
Lauren McCarthy is a business reporter for The Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/lauren-mccarthy
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/18/us/ice-assaults-protesters.html
https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-mcintire
https://www.nytimes.com/by/danny-hakim
https://www.nytimes.com/by/alexandra-berzon
https://www.nytimes.com/by/jazmine-ulloa
https://www.nytimes.com/by/lauren-mccarthy
= new reply since forum marked as read
If I had only been able to afford to go to college, then I could have been hired to go out and state the blatantly obvious while being paid for it.
