A recent analysis shared on X by researcher Kevin Bass looked at violent confrontations involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over a one-year period, from January 2025 through late January 2026.
The dataset focused on incidents involving protesters, journalists, bystanders, U.S. citizens, or other officers, not just arrests of illegal immigrants.
Out of more than 3,100 counties nationwide, just nine counties accounted for nearly two-thirds of all documented confrontations.
Let that sink in.
There were 174 total incidents identified. Of those, 110 happened in only nine counties.
The other 3,134 counties combined had just 64 incidents.
Those nine counties include places like Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Newark, and Denver.
All are considered sanctuary jurisdictions by federal or advocacy group listings. All are run by Democrats.
When the numbers are broken down per county, those nine were about 590 times more likely to experience a confrontation than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t happen by accident.
The dataset pulled from hundreds of public sources. Some came from official government reports. Others came from national outlets, wire services, and investigative groups like ProPublica.
These incidents included assaults on agents, clashes at protests, wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens, and use-of-force cases involving people who weren’t immigration targets.
The author is upfront about the caveats.
Big cities get more media coverage. Some incidents may never be reported. The data doesn’t adjust for population size or how often ICE operates in a given area.
Even taking those into account, the concentration is hard to ignore. And federal officials say the situation is getting worse.
The Department of Homeland Security has claimed assaults on immigration officers jumped dramatically over the past year.
Critics push back. Outlets like Colorado Public Radio and NPR report that court filings don’t show increases anywhere near the four-digit percentages DHS has cited.
They argue the government may be using very broad definitions that include threats or minor incidents.
Fair enough. But even critics don’t dispute where the confrontations are happening. They dispute why.
Immigrant advocacy groups argue ICE tactics are the real trigger.
They point to large-scale raids, use of crowd-control weapons at protests, and aggressive enforcement in big cities.
In their view, sanctuary policies are meant to protect communities from heavy-handed federal action, not provoke violence.
That argument comes up again and again in places like Los Angeles, Portland, and Minneapolis, where protests against immigration enforcement have sometimes turned into chaos.
This data doesn’t prove intent. It doesn’t prove motive. It doesn’t prove that sanctuary policies alone cause violence.
What it shows is a clear pattern.
Most counties across America see little or no confrontation involving ICE. A small group of sanctuary jurisdictions sees most of it.
Critics will say the answer is obvious. Big cities have more immigrants, so of course they have more ICE incidents.
But that explanation only goes so far.
Plenty of counties across the country have large immigrant populations and see little to no public confrontation involving ICE.
What separates them isn’t demographics. It’s how immigration arrests are handled.
In counties that cooperate with federal authorities, ICE often makes arrests inside jails. The person is already in custody.
In sanctuary jurisdictions, that option is often off the table.
So ICE agents still make arrests, but now they do it in public. In parking lots. Sometimes near schools or courthouses.
That’s when things get loud. And tense. And unpredictable.
The pattern in the data isn’t mysterious. It follows policy.
When cities refuse to cooperate, enforcement doesn’t stop. It just gets messier, louder, and more dangerous.
At some point, leaders have to answer for the consequences of the systems they put in place.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology was used in the research, writing, and production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
