One person has died and two others are injured after being shot by a suspected sniper at an immigration facility in Texas, officials say.
The shooter is also dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the incident in Dallas, said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The attack unfolded on Wednesday morning at a detention centre for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The incident follows a string of attacks on ICE facilities across the US in recent months.
The motive or targets of the attack are unclear. Fox News quoted officials as saying no law enforcement officers had been injured.
“While we don’t know motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them,” Noem said. “It must stop.”
Dallas police said on X: “The preliminary investigation determined that a suspect opened fire at a government building from an adjacent building.
“Two people were transported to the hospital with gunshot wounds. One victim died at the scene. The suspect is deceased.”
Preliminary information suggests a sniper carried out the shooting from outside the facility and hit victims in a “secure detainee location”, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told CNN.
He said three individuals were “down”, including the suspected shooter.
“We’re not sure on their condition,” Lyons said.
Assistant Secretary at Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said “it looks like the detainees were among the victims”.
“We know our ICE law enforcement was not injured but we are not sure about local security and other local law enforcement. It looks like there may have potentially been injuries there,” McLaughlin told Fox News.
The ICE field office in Dallas has been targeted by a series of protests this summer.
A man was arrested in August after he entered the facility claiming to have a bomb in his backpack, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The 36-year-old US citizen, Bratton Dean Wilkinson, had shown the building’s security staff a device on his wrist that he described as a bomb “detonator,” the DHS said.
A senior DHS official said at the the time: “These incidents come after months of smears and rhetoric by activists, politicians, and the media comparing ICE law enforcement to the Nazi Gestapo, kidnappers, and the Secret Police.”
Last month shots were fired at ICE offices in San Antonio, Texas. No injuries were reported in that incident, which ICE blamed on “political rhetoric”.
Another shooting occurred on the 4 July public holiday at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, after a protest escalated into a faceoff with police. An officer was shot in the neck, and survived.
US Vice-President JD Vance posted on X on Wednesday: “The obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop. I’m praying for everyone hurt in this attack and for their families.”
By BBC News
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