DALLAS – Immigration attorney Vinesh Patel had been troubled by the growing security risks at ICE facilities when the deadly attack he feared happened.

A sniper opened fire Sept. 24 on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, killing one detainee and injuring two others. It was the latest in a string of violent attacks on the nation's immigration system that are raising serious security concerns for ICE agents, attorneys, judges and migrants themselves.

Across the country, raucous protests at ICE facilities, aggressive tactics by masked agents in the field and heated political rhetoric on both sides have become a dangerous new backdrop to what for years had been the quiet, mundane work of immigration enforcement.

The day after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to beef up security at ICE facilities. Federal investigators said the Dallas shooter, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, intended to target ICE agents – not the migrants caught in his crosshairs.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin blasted the rising violence against ICE agents and said the shooting "was motivated by hatred for ICE."

In a statement, she told USA TODAY that in light of the shooting and "other unprecedented acts of violence against ICE law enforcement, including bomb threats, cars being used as weapons, rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at officers, and doxing online of officers' families, DHS will immediately begin increasing security at ICE facilities across the country."

Patel, the immigration attorney, had visited the Dallas ICE facility just days before the shooting to meet an ICE officer about one of his clients.

He remembered, "The thought crossed my mind: Will these spaces and courts become a scary place?"

"You worry that if people are targeting ICE, they could target immigration judges, and you worry about being caught in the crossfire," he said.

A once-quiet corner of the immigration system

The Dallas ICE field office is a two-story brick building on the access road to Interstate 35E about 6 miles northwest of downtown Dallas.

Cars rumble endlessly on the highway. A stone wall announces "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement" at the entrance to the building, which is flanked by an apartment complex, a real estate association building, a Schlotzsky’s sandwich shop, a FedEx Office and a Burger King.

Behind the facility, a large parking lot is ringed with fences topped with razor wire. Across the street are a string of one- and two-story office buildings, mostly occupied by immigration law firms. That includes the law firm of Manuel Solis, a two-story sand-colored building where the shooter perched. It's about 450 feet away from where vans load and unload detainees.

One of dozens like it around the country, the Dallas field office doubles as a processing center where ICE agents bring in detained migrants for fingerprints and book-in. Top local ICE brass and support staff have offices there; dozens of agents start and end their workdays there.

Patel said the building is split into a front-facing, public office meant for immigration check-ins and a rear secure area to temporarily hold detainees. Security guards conduct basic metal detector searches at the front, and the rear doors are fenced off in an open-air parking lot.

That's what allowed the shooter to open fire on a van transporting immigrants. Investigators say the shooter, identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, left handwritten messages indicating he wanted to harm ICE agents.

Joe Rothrock, FBI Dallas special agent in charge, called the shooting a "targeted, ambush-style attack on law enforcement." The shooter wanted "to cause terror" for ICE agents across the country, and his plot was months in the making, Rothrock said during a Sept. 25 news conference.

Historically, security at ICE facilities has been about protecting agents and detainees from internal threats like detainee aggression, or gang violence, mimicking the criminal justice system, according to experts, ICE detentions standards and the detainee handbook.

The agency's detention standards include dozens of pages on safety and security, including precautions specific to transport to and from ICE facilities. The standards state: "The facility will take all reasonable precautions to protect the lives, safety, and welfare of detainees, officers, other personnel, and the general public during ground transportation" and include numerous requirements for handling and protecting detainees.

But, "the reality is that security is thought of as keeping the law enforcement agents and other detainees safe from internal harms," said Deb Fleischaker, a former ICE official who served under the Biden and first Trump administrations.

"It's not thought of as keeping detainees safe from external harm," she said. "That's not the way it's been historically understood."

Rothrock of the FBI said ICE and other federal agents rushed in to protect and rescue detainees, at least two of whom were in restraints in the transport van.

Immigration enforcement front and center

Until recently, the U.S. immigration system operated under the radar, not well-known to many Americans.

ICE agents typically worked in small teams, making quiet, targeted arrests of immigrants with criminal records – often before dawn or in the early morning hours. Most Americans knew little about the ICE processing centers tucked into nondescript office buildings, where agents book-in detained migrants. Or about the immigration courtrooms hidden inside federal buildings around the country.

That changed this year as President Donald Trump rolled out a flashy, high-speed effort to massively deport immigrants living in the country illegally – and the resistance that has followed.

Masked federal agents in riot gear have pulled up on restaurants to arrest kitchen workers. They've hidden inside a Penske moving van to ambush immigrants in a Home Deport parking lot. They've ridden into a city park on horseback, searching for undocumented immigrants.

Americans angry about the enforcement tactics have in some cases responded aggressively.

Some Los Angeles activists violently protested ICE enforcement earlier this year. Others are tracking the movements of ICE agents on social media or in a controversial app. And in July – not far from the Dallas field office, at an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas – attackers used fireworks to draw out ICE agents and ambush them.

"We're looking at hardening our faciIities," said Marcos Charles, executive associate director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Dallas. "The evidence is clear this was an assault on ICE personnel who come to work every day to do their job."

'Safety should be a priority'

On Thursday, workers wearing FBI shirts and jackets milled around the Dallas field office parking lot, occasionally retrieving equipment from a large black truck labeled FBI.

With threats and attacks on the rise, Patel said ICE now needs to consider outsider threats on agents, and on those who are part of the U.S. immigration system who could be vulnerable – migrants included.

"It seems like now obviously safety should be a priority to make sure no one is caught in crossfire even if they're not the intended target," Patel said.

Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amid ICE attacks, worries about getting caught in the crosshairs

Reporting by Rick Jervis, Nick Penzenstadler and Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect