The New York Times stunned Americans Sunday when it revealed a new FBI directive regarding ICE agents — and people who accuse them of violence.
Federal agents across the nation received instructions last week not to investigate confrontations with immigration agents, sources told Times reporters Hamed Aleaziz and Devlin Barrett.
"F.B.I. managers around the country received a written notice informing them of the change on Thursday...The same day, some ICE agents around the country were notified by their F.B.I. counterparts," Aleaziz and Barrett wrote.
"If enacted, such a change would sharply limit law enforcement scrutiny of immigration agents, as the Trump administration draws mounting criticism over killings at the hands of federal officers."
The directive arrived after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford —and as protests mount nationwide in North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and of course, Texas and Maine.
One Maine protesters' sign read "a man was lynched here."
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security denied the policy change in a joint statement to the Times.
“The relationship between D.H.S. and D.O.J. in investigating assault on federal officer cases has not changed," the statement said. “This administration has been clear, anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Trump administration was met with a wave of criticism as the Times report began to spread.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, professed himself stunned.
"WOW," he wrote. "The Trump admin just barred the FBI from investigating cases where DHS officers get into confrontations with immigrants or citizens. ICE HSI will lead all investigations, yet HSI has no jurisdiction to investigate civil rights violations. The fox is guarding the henhouse."
Jim Roberts, editor of nonprofit news site the 74, called it "an utterly lawless administration."
But Andrew Alvarez, a conservative political commentator and self-described MAGA supporter, took a different view.
"Finally getting the feds out of the way so ICE can do their job without constant harassment," he wrote.
David Brouillette, the ICE agent who fatally shot Guerrero in Maine, has been accused of harassment himself, by two former wives, reports show. His ex-wife Ashley Brouillette told CBS News she was stunned he gained employment with ICE.
"I don't understand how he keeps getting these jobs where there are firearms involved," she said. "He's a danger to people and to himself...And I just don't understand how he keeps getting away with it."
Meanwhile, as the New York Times report whipped across the internet, FBI director Kash Patel took a moment to share with the public, not a response, but a photograph of himself with the team assigned to the FIFA World Cup.
"So proud of this FBI and all our partners," he wrote.