DHS Secretary Claims Cartels Are Targeting Federal Immigration Agents With $10K Bounties: 'They Want to Take Them Down'

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that cartels, gangs, and terrorist organizations have placed bounties on U.S. federal immigration agents, offering up to $10,000 to kill them and $2,000 to kidnap them.

"We have specific agents who have had bounties put out on their heads," Noem said during an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend. "It's been $2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to kill them. They've released their pictures, they've sent them between their networks. It's an extremely dangerous and unprecedented situation."

Noem did not identify which criminal organizations were allegedly involved but described them broadly as "gangs, cartel members, and known terrorist organizations." She added that the groups were targeting officers who have been particularly effective in recent operations. "They want to take them down, because they want to try to stop the operations that are keeping them from making money off their criminal networks," she claimed.

The remarks come amid a rise in attacks against federal law enforcement officers following President Donald Trump's directive to expand immigration raids in Chicago and other major cities. Trump authorized 300 National Guard troops to Illinois over the weekend to assist federal officers, despite objections from Governor JB Pritzker, who called the move "outrageous and un-American."

Noem cited an incident over the weekend in Chicago where, she said, a "caravan of 10 different vehicles" boxed in border patrol agents, leading to a confrontation in which a woman was shot after allegedly attempting to ram federal vehicles. The Department of Homeland Security said the agents "fired defensive shots," and the woman was later hospitalized.

Noem said intelligence suggested that the violence was organized and coordinated, as The Independent reports. "Our intelligence indicates that these people are organized. They're getting more and more people on their team, as far as attacking officers, and they're making plans to ambush them and to kill them," she claimed.

She also suggested that some of the protests against immigration raids were financially backed by criminal groups. "All the protesters are wearing the same gas masks, carrying the same kind of signs, many printed in the same font," Noem said. "You know that somebody is funding them and organizing them and that they're being paid."