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There is a lot that we don’t know yet about Wednesday’s deadly shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, in part because the sources of information, like Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel, are so unreliable. However, what is clear already is that Republicans are trying to use this incident to silence criticism of the agency and its work, i.e., using masked and unidentifiable goons to grab people who look like they could be immigrants off the streets.

Before we get to the apt terminology to describe what is happening all across the United States, let’s first look at what we do know about the attack: On Wednesday morning, multiple people were shot at an ICE facility in Dallas, at least one of them fatally. All of the victims were detainees, and no law enforcement officers were harmed. The attacker then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

So far, that doesn’t exactly sound like an attack targeting ICE, and the shooter could have easily also been a regular Fox News viewer who has been conditioned to believe that all illegal immigrants are vicious killers. Or perhaps he just watched this ICE video showing the arrest of immigrants to the “Gotta catch ‘em all” Pokémon theme song.

However, authorities quickly concluded that this was another case of left-wing violence because of the “anti-ICE” messages left behind at the scene.

And, indeed, Patel posted an image of a bullet on social media on which someone had written “ANTI-ICE” with what looks like a pen.

Based on this administration’s track record of lying about everything, we are a little bit skeptical about this convenient piece of evidence.

That being said, it doesn’t matter whether the shooter was anti-immigrant with good aim or anti-ICE with bad aim.

Violence is violence, all of it is wrong, and it accomplishes nothing… apart from strengthening the resolve and unity of the “other side,” whichever that may be.

In this case, for example, if the attacker turns out to be a Trump supporter, then he is ruining the administration’s narrative that political violence is entirely a problem of “the left.”

If he turns out to be anti-ICE, then the shooting will make it more difficult to criticize an unaccountable government agency and an immigration policy that violates the Constitution on a daily basis.

And, since top administration officials consider the case to be closed thanks to the photo Patel produced, stifling dissent in the aftermath of the attack appears to be the goal.

“The obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop,” wrote Vance, who has a history of bending facts to suit his narratives (and has admitted to doing so).

Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, another prolific distorter of facts, was more explicit.

“For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed,” she said. “These horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences.”

We are glad that she brought up the concept of consequences because it seems that, no matter how egregious the behavior of ICE agents is, as documented in hundreds of videos showing them going about their jobs, there seems to be zero accountability.

We actually inquired whether any disciplinary action had been taken against agents who used excessive violence, falsely arrested American citizens, or impeded people from trying to document their abuses. Predictably, we have not received an answer.

This isn’t to say that all ICE agents act like thugs, but the ones caught on camera sure do.

Which brings us to the language we use. It’s clear that Vance, Noem, and any number of other top administration officials or other Republicans don’t like comparisons to secret police forces elsewhere. And we are sure they aren’t thrilled about us using words like “goon” or “thug.”

But what else do you call a government force consisting of masked agents who refuse to identify themselves, lack warrants, rough up the people they detain, make many of them disappear, and seem accountable to no one?

That doesn’t mean that we believe that they should be attacked. In fact, we strongly hope that they will not be, and that their actions don’t result in violence when those being arrested by people who by all appearances may or may not be government agents stand their ground.

Because that would just lead to a further escalation of an extremely volatile situation.

However, that doesn’t mean that we will stop calling out the administration for inhumane policies or these agents for how they behave in plain sight.