00:00With the rise in violence that we continue to see against these officers with that thousand percent increase, it's making sure that they are safe while they do this job and that they get home to their families at night, too, is incredibly important.
00:14Violent rhetoric has led to over a one thousand percent increase in assaults on ICE officers, and it has to stop.
00:21The White House says assaults on ICE officers have surged more than a thousand percent.
00:29However, independent reviews of federal court filings by NPR and Colorado Public Radio tell a different story.
00:36Charges for assault on federal officers were up only about 25 percent through mid-September versus a year ago.
00:43The Department of Homeland Security has not released the underlying data or methodology to support the thousand percent claim, despite repeated requests.
00:53The administration's position, reiterated in a September executive order, is that anyone who assaults an ICE agent will face the full extent of the law.
01:02Now, there's no question the work has grown riskier.
01:04Cases this summer include gunfire aimed at agents in Texas, an agent dragged by a car in California, and a hospitalized officer in Omaha.
01:15Assault filings jumped 74 percent in the most recent quarter, driven largely by confrontations around large ICE operations in Los Angeles.
01:24But those numbers fall far short of a thousand percent increase.
01:28And critics say exaggerated figures erode public trust and make accountability harder.
01:33Former FBI official Bob Pence warns that when law enforcement stats outpace the evidence, cooperation from the public can suffer.
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