DHS Secretary: Gangs, Cartels Placing Bounties on Heads of ICE Officials
“$2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to kill them. They’ve released their pictures. They’ve sent them between their networks.”
During a Sunday morning appearance on Fox & Friends, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that “gangs, cartel members, and known terrorist organizations have placed bounties on the heads of several of our law-enforcement officers.” She added that specific officers and agents have been targeted with offers such as $2,000 to kidnap them and $10,000 to kill them, and that the suspects have circulated the officers’ photos through their networks.
She said protective details have been assigned to those individuals, and some operations have been altered to keep officers safe. Noem described the situation as dangerous and unprecedented.
In a post on X, she wrote, “These violent riots are not about free speech. This is the rule of law vs. anarchy. We will win.”
Gangs, cartel members, and known terrorist organizations have placed bounties on the heads of several of our law enforcement officers.
These violent riots are not about free speech. This is the rule of law vs. anarchy.
We will win. pic.twitter.com/QCVHKt0nfy
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) October 5, 2025
No one is surprised that gangs and cartels would put bounties on law enforcement. What is far more troubling — and unexpected — is that American citizens themselves would resort to lawlessness and violence against those charged with upholding U.S. immigration laws.
A case in point: Border Patrol agents conducting a routine patrol on Saturday morning in Chicago came under attack by activists who used their cars to ram ICE vehicles and ultimately boxed them in, according to a Department of Homeland Security report. When the officers “exited their trapped vehicle,” Chicago resident and U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez, who was armed, allegedly tried to run them over, “forcing the officers to fire defensively.”
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois:
Martinez drove off but paramedics discovered her and her vehicle at a repair shop about a mile away. Martinez was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she received treatment for gunshot wounds.
Martinez, 30, and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, a second driver involved in the incident, were charged with “using their vehicles to assault, impede, and interfere with the work of federal agents in Chicago.”
Ruiz also drove away after the collisions, but law enforcement located him and his vehicle at a gas station about a half block away, the complaint states. Both defendants remain in law enforcement custody, pending initial appearances in federal court in Chicago.
In a Saturday post on X, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin reported that Martinez was named last week in a CBP “intelligence bulletin for doxing agents and posting online, ‘Hey to all my gang let’s f*** those mother f***ers up, don’t let them take anyone.’”
This morning, during routine patrolling in Broadview, in the same area of Chicago that law enforcement were assaulted yesterday, our brave law enforcement officers were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.
Agents were unable to move their vehicles and exited the car. One…
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) October 4, 2025
DHS Deploys Special Operations After Multiple Violent Attacks on Federal Law Enforcement by Domestic Terrorists in Chicago
Release Date: October 4, 2025
Three vehicles used as weapons against our brave law enforcement as they work without pay to make America safe again… https://t.co/3Y4hYJWvhl pic.twitter.com/fSlnimni9G
— SubX.News® (@SubxNews) October 5, 2025
More disturbing still were reports that Chicago police officers were told not to provide assistance to the surrounded border patrol agents. Fox News obtained an internal dispatch on Sunday that revealed “Chicago police officers were ordered by their chief of patrol not to respond.”
This corroborated similar reports from multiple media outlets.
The dispatch read:
PLEASE CHIEF OF PATROL NO UNITS WILL RESPOND TO THIS AS RELATED FROM 04-Oc5-2025/12:34:44…CALLER IS 1 OF APPROX 30 ARMED PATROL AGENTS (ICE) WHO ARE BEING SURROUNDED BY A LARGE CROWD OF PEOPLE REQUESTING CPD.
The Chicago Police Department denied the allegations in a statement which said, “To clarify misinformation currently circulating, CPD officers did in fact respond to the shooting scene involving federal authorities on Saturday to maintain public safety and traffic control.”
However, “two longtime, ranking Chicago police sources” told Fox that CPD’s “statement was false — and that internal communications tell a very different story.”
According to Fox, the sources “sharply rejected the department’s assertion that officers responded to calls for help from ICE agents who were rammed and surrounded by protesters on Saturday, telling Fox News the official statement is, in their words, ‘COVER THEIR A– BULLS–T!!'”
NEW: Multiple law enforcement sources confirm to @FoxNews that Chicago police officers were instructed by their Chief of Patrol to NOT respond to Border Patrol agents call for help yesterday after they were reportedly surrounded by a large crowd of protesters following a ramming… pic.twitter.com/ipPl22Ya3I
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 5, 2025
The President of the Illinois State Fraternal Order of Police Chris Southwood issued a blistering statement in response to CPD’s reported refusal to help federal agents:
The number one unwritten rule in law enforcement is that we respond to any calls from officers in distress. What would have happened if the local police were facing threats and nearby federal officers were told not to assist? Whether you agree about immigration enforcement or not, when a law enforcement officer is in trouble, nothing should stand in the way of fellow officers rendering assistance.
“When an officer calls for assistance, you answer — no matter what.”
The nation’s largest police union condemns reports that Chicago officers were told NOT to help ICE agents surrounded by protesters, calling it “shocking” and a betrayal of law enforcement’s duty to protect… pic.twitter.com/OQWyuKLbLW
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 6, 2025
If it is true that CPD officers were instructed not to assist federal agents — and the evidence increasingly suggests that it is — the directive likely originated with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Efforts by Pritzker and other blue state governors to resist federal deportation operations within their jurisdictions are becoming as dangerous as the gangs and cartels placing bounties on the heads of federal agents. The situation is rapidly reaching a fever pitch. A nation in which state officials openly defy federal law — as the Confederate states did in the lead-up to the Civil War — cannot long survive as a united republic. Defiance of federal authority in the name of ideology erodes not only the rule of law but the very cohesion that holds the country together.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Is this the Chicago-two-step?
More like the Chicago double-tap.
If you want to put a stop to this, post pictures of known illegals with a bounty for their capture.
That would unnerve them to the point of self-deportation.
Send a message that they aren’t welcome here.
There must be some law somewhere that governs state/city either refusing to help federal law enforcement or acting working to impede it. If one doesn;t exist or isnt sufficiently clear, pass one now, Name it after that fat toad Pritzker.
There can’t be a law about them refusing to help, because they have a constitutional right to do that. Actively impeding is a completely different matter, and if they were to do that they’d be arrested immediately.
Better yet. Authorize armed citizen bounty hunters to find an deliver any illegal alien who has not self-deported by an announced date. Similar to the way we catch bail jumpers. If the gangs and cartels escalate then we escalate. At first just bring in the body, then if necessary just bring in the head to get your bounty. Then get set for the whining and screaming. Music.
The gangs and cartels started this bounty system along with the tacit approval of mayors and governors. If necessay start arresting governors, mayors, and judges as Lincoln did when faced with Southern insurrection.
I’d be glad to mount up and ride!
Bounty hunters who go after bail jumpers still have to follow certain rules, otherwise problems happen when they abuse their status. If open season is declared on illegal aliens, I anticipate a lot of false arrests, accusations of excessive force, and possibly even street warfare between pro-illegal and anti-illegal gangs.
If the appointed authorities decline to enforce the law, it falls to the people to do the job they won’t. This is why I have no problem with vigilantism.
Two ways to handle this issue with Fat Boy and the Moron Mayor. One is bring the Guard in to provide cover or better yet Rangers or Marine Recon. They are trained in counter-insurgency. Second is to pull out and cutoff all federal dollars to Illinois. Every single dollar. The only relief would be SNAP and Medicaid. No grants, no student loans for Illinois colleges/Universities, no grants from any federal agency for NIH priorities, no federal funding for any police departments, no federal highway tax dollars.
“Second is to pull out and cutoff all federal dollars to Illinois. Every single dollar. The only relief would be SNAP and Medicaid. No grants, no student loans for Illinois colleges/Universities, no grants from any federal agency for NIH priorities, no federal funding for any police departments, no federal highway tax dollars.”
The WH should start today, enacting your suggestions without reservation.
The White House can’t do that at all. Even Congress is limited in what it can do in that regard. See S Dakota v Dole.
It’s time to get serious Trump
Protect your officers you are putting in harms way
I totally agree. “Defiance of federal authority in the name of ideology erodes not only the rule of law but the very cohesion that holds the country together,” is well-stated, but meaningless. What is the administration going to do about these blue state insurrections, and when will they arrest the people backing them financially?
October 06, 2025
Trump Ignores Lawless Ruling of Lowly District Court Judge and Sends Troops to Portland
—Ace
It’s time to start impeaching these insurrectionary “judges.”
The Trump Administration is all that stands in the way of open season on law abiding Americans by the Democrats.
The Trump Administration is all that stands in the way of open season on Democrats by law abiding Americans.
FIFY.
Yeah, what the ‘Orange Man Bad’, hyperventilating TDS loons, as well as some rinos/squishy GoP types, refuse to come to terms with is that Trump, even Trump 2.0, is ….mild …moderate at best compared to what comes after him should his policy prescriptions not be enacted.
All this ‘resistance’ nonsense, all the gnashing of teeth over these very mild Trump 2.0 policies to impede and stop them is ironically gonna make what ultimately gets enacted and implemented by his successors far more draconian. IOW Trump 2.0 is the ‘good cop’ and the ‘bad cop’ who takes over in his place is gonna be totally uncaring about ‘norms’ and if people get ruffled along the way, tough cookies.
Some times I wish Trump was half the things the Orange Man Bad crew thinks he is.
“Ruiz also drove away after the collisions, but law enforcement located him and his vehicle at a gas station about a half block away”
You can run, but you… apparently can’t hide worth s*t.
Apparently he can’t even run very far. Half a block? Kinda lame.
junta
they are brining the fight to us
Who cares about the orders?
The sad thing is what was revealed AGAIN.
Someone called for help and the police didn’t go.
AGAIN.
The police are not your friend.T hey have made it more than clear, with covid, with the harassment of churches and businesses that opened, with this, with how they stood and watched as the floyd riots unfolded.
They are agents of the State.
If there are good cops left they exist in fear and do nothing that might get them noticed.
The police who stood by are stained forever. Accursed betrayers of the oath they took. May they go mad from the screaming of their tortured souls.
Paging Elliot Ness
How about “Rewards for information leading to the arrest” of posters for those who post bounties on US citizens?