After a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility, immigrants are still showing up, now fearing both deportation and violence

By Alaa Elassar, Gustavo Valdés, CNN

(CNN) — When people arrived at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas early Wednesday morning for routine appointments, they were instead thrust into chaos as an ordinary day turned into a life-threatening nightmare.

Sharp cracks of gunfire pierced the morning air, loud, jarring pangs that echoed off the concrete. Inside the building, officials shouted warnings: a sniper was firing.

From the rooftop of a nearby building, the gunman, later identified as Joshua Jahn, was unleashing bullets, targeting the facility.

The shooting began at about 6:30 a.m. and bullets “sprayed the length of the building, the windows and law enforcement vans that were in the sally port area,” of the ICE facility, Nancy Larson, acting US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said. Sally ports are controlled entry points commonly found in prisons and on military bases.

“It was a very traumatic moment for everyone there,” a Venezuelan woman, who CNN is not identifying due to safety concerns, said. Gripped by terror, she braced for the worst.

“Honestly, a lot of things go through your mind. I can’t even explain … Who would imagine something like that would happen in such a guarded, protected facility?”

With one detainee dead and two others seriously injured, according to Larson, fear has infiltrated the immigrant community. Many are now returning to the facility with anxious hearts, desperate to do the right thing but haunted by what happened.

Still, fear of deportation outweighs the fear of bullets for many.

Eugenio Uscategui, who has been in the US for nearly four years and is also from Venezuela, arrived at the building after the shooting and was told he would have to come back the next day.

He was scared, but still came back, he said, “out of fear of being deported.” He doesn’t want to risk missing a step in his immigration process.

“There’s uncertainty because you never know if there’s another shooter nearby or if something could happen. Honestly, the city feels very dangerous today,” he said.

Blanca Jimenez, an immigrant from Mexico, was inside the facility when the shooting began. The gunshots were deafening, “like bombs,” she said.

Still, she returned the next day, fear in her chest but resignation in her steps.

“I am afraid, yes,” she says. “But I had to come.”

Immigration appointments end in fear, not answers

Shane Reynolds was sitting on a bench outside the Dallas ICE facility, waiting for a friend’s immigration appointment, when the sound of gunfire shattered the morning.

As people around him ran for cover, Reynolds stayed frozen, unsure where the bullets were coming from.

“Running out into the open parking lot just seemed like a bad idea,” Reynolds told CNN. “I said a prayer. I looked around to try to assess our options, which there weren’t a whole lot.”

He tried to hide, crouching behind a nearby chain link fence as shots continued to ring out; at least six, maybe ten, he recalled.

Denises Robleto was also outside the facility when the shooting began. She was on a video call with her sister, waiting in the car while her mother attended an appointment.

As gunfire erupted, her sister begged her to stay inside the vehicle, but Robleto stepped out, trying to understand what was happening. She heard screaming from the facility.

Reynolds said he couldn’t communicate with others nearby during the shooting because they didn’t speak English. But their calm demeanor helped him stay grounded, even as the chaos unfolded.

After a brief lull, he heard a smaller pop noise, which he believes was the sound of the gunman taking his own life.

The shooter, Jahn, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was from Fairview, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, Larson said. He was a US citizen.

A woman who was at the facility for her annual appointment when the shooting started, said she doesn’t think it was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment. “We still don’t know if it was against us. I don’t think it was because … we waited outside for about an hour before the building opened and nothing happened. Everything happened once we were inside,” the woman, who CNN agreed to not identify, said.

Handwritten notes left behind by Jahn indicated “hatred for the federal government” and led investigators to believe he intended to target ICE personnel and property, even though all three victims were detainees.

“The tragic irony for his evil plot here is that it was a detainee who was killed and two other detainees that were injured,” said Larson.

‘This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue, it’s a humanity issue’

Authorities have not released the names of the victims. However, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed one of the injured detainees is a Mexican national.

While statements from authorities have so far largely focused on the investigation, Dallas-based immigration attorney Jaime Barron, who isn’t representing any of the victims, said the injured and killed detainees should be included in more of the conversation.

“We should focus on the humanity,” Barron told CNN. “These were human beings, and they were killed and severely hurt while being under the protection of the US government.”

Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchía, who represents Dallas, said his community “stands united against targeted gun violence” following the shooting.

“This is not about politics — every person who values their neighbor must denounce violence in all forms and commit to meaningful action to address the gun violence epidemic,” he said in a post on X.

Barron echoed that sentiment.

“This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue, it’s a humanity issue where innocent people, be it law enforcement or immigrants, are targeted for who they are,” Barron said.

Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson called for healing and unity after the shooting.

“We are better than this craven act of violence,” the mayor said in a statement. “In moments like this, our city must stand together and support one another. We must heal.”

He said violence like Wednesday’s shooting should never happen and that it affected an entire community, not just law enforcement and the victims.

“It is an attack on our community and on our nation’s heritage of civil and democratic discourse,“ Johnson said. “We should all condemn violence intended to serve a political agenda and work together to end it.”

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CNN’s Taylor Galgano, Ed Lavandera and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.