It appears that threatening to murder Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal officials is a family affair.
Just after Thanksgiving, Virginia Beach, Virginia, cops arrested and charged two brothers there with threatening ICE agents.
And two days ago, federal agents and Absecon, New Jersey, cops arrested twin brothers Ricardo Antonio Roman-Flores and Emilio Roman-Flores for threatening to murder ICE agents. They also threatened to torture and hang Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman Tricia McLaughlin.
The latest attempt to intimidate federal officials from enforcing immigration laws comes not only amid a massive increase in attacks on agents, but after Mexican cartels created a bounty system for murdering ICE agents.
“Shoot on Sight”
The murder threats were singularly vicious, Fox News reported:
Ricardo Antonio Roman-Flores and Emilio Roman-Flores, twins from Absecon, New Jersey, … were arrested after allegedly posting to X that they wanted to torture and kill McLaughlin in a medieval fashion.
“[The Second] Amendment is in place for moments like this. Shoot ICE on sight,” one of the brothers allegedly tweeted in a partially redacted response to a McLaughlin message:
“We Americans should find you, tar you, feather you, and hang you as we did to anyone serving tyrants before the Revolutionary War.”
It isn’t likely that the Roman-Flores brothers know much about the Revolutionary War or American history in general. But educational endeavors aside, the other brother wrote “Shoot ICE on sight” in another ”partially redacted tweet,” Fox continued:
Seen as Noem’s top representative in the press, McLaughlin has not been shy about defending her agency, recently lambasting those like the Absecon brothers who allegedly threaten ICE agents as “despicable” and repeating that attacks on federal officers are a direct result of violent rhetoric from Democrats and the political left.
In its release on the pair, DHS reported that Emilio Roman-Flores was charged with
unlawful possession of an assault weapon, possession of prohibited weapons, conspiracy terroristic threats, criminal coercion, threats, and cyber harassment.
Brother Ricardo was charged with conspiracy to make terroristic threats.
The DHS report featured mug shots of the twins and a photo of two weapons that federal and local authorities, which included a SWAT team, seized at an undisclosed location. The photo shows a pump shotgun, an AR-15-style rifle, and about a dozen boxes of ammunition.
“Let this be a warning to anyone who dares threaten or attack our brave law enforcement officers,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said:
We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. We are NOT afraid of you. The extreme rhetoric of the news media, sanctuary politicians, and activists is leading directly to our law enforcement officers facing an 8,000% increase in death threats against them. If you threaten our law enforcement or DHS officials, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Other Threats
The Roman-Flores twins aren’t the first brothers arrested for threatening ICE. As The New American reported in late November, Virginia Beach cops arrested John Bennett, an assistant high school principal, and his brother, Mark Bennett.
Citing the criminal complaint against the Bennets, 13 News Now reported that, while in a Vietnamese restaurant, an off-duty cop heard the two discussing plans to attack ICE agents:
The complaint says the brothers discussed reuniting and that Mark Bennett said he planned to fly to Las Vegas to meet with ‘like-minded individuals’ and return with “enforcement ideas and plans.”
Mark also allegedly said he had recently purchased an assault rifle because it could fire explosive rounds capable of penetrating body armor and claimed he wanted to “go hunting.” Investigators wrote that John Bennett expressed support during the conversation and showed interest in joining the Las Vegas trip.
Detectives confirmed a booked flight to Las Vegas for November 19. Cops charged the brothers with a count of conspiracy to commit malicious wounding, a class 5 felony. The pair have not been charged with federal crimes.
Contract Hits
Another major concern for DHS and ICE is bounties placed on the heads of agents.
In October, during an operation in Chicago, DHS reported that the cartels had set up a three-tiered bounty system:
These criminal networks have issued explicit instructions to U.S.-based sympathetics, including street gangs in Chicago, to monitor, harass, and assassinate federal agents.
The gangs, including the Latin Kings, deployed rooftop spotters “equipped with firearms and radio communications,” the agency reported. Their mission: Track the movement of ICE and Border Patrol (CBP) agents “in real-time.” The spotters then relay the agents’ coordinates. “This surveillance has enabled ambushes and disruptions during routine enforcement actions, including recent raids.”
The three-tiered bounty system includes “$2,000 for gathering intelligence or doxxing agents (including photos and family details), $5,000-$10,000 for kidnapping or non-lethal assaults on standard ICE/CBP officers,” and “up to $50,000 for the assassination of high-ranking officials.”
As well, two illegal aliens have been arrested for soliciting the murder of ICE agents.
Leftists have been waging war against ICE for some time. A shooter attacked an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas, in September, then shot himself. And more than a dozen others have been charged for an attack on a facility in Prairieland, Texas, on July 4.
Despite the hate-ICE violence, high-ranking far-left Democratic officials continue calling ICE personnel Nazis and Gestapo agents.
