Motive of shooter who officials say opened fire at Dallas ICE facility remains unclear

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By JAMIE STENGLE and JACK BROOK, Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) — For the second time in two weeks a shooter on a rooftop inflicted death on the ground, this time at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas where a detainee was killed and two others were critically wounded by a gunman who then fatally shot himself.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that shots were fired early Wednesday “indiscriminately at the ICE building, including at a van in the sallyport,” a secure and gated entryway. The detainees were in the van. No ICE personnel were injured.

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The shooter was identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn by a law enforcement official who could not publicly disclose details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Investigators were seeking to determine the motive.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on social media showing a bullet found at the scene with “ANTI-ICE” written on it. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered more security at ICE facilities across the U.S., according to a post by the DHS on the social platform X.

The attack was the latest high-profile targeted killing in the U.S., coming two weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a shooter on the roof of a building at Utah Valley University and as heightened immigration enforcement has prompted backlash against ICE agents and fear in immigrant communities.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association called the shootings “a stark reminder that behind every immigration case number is a human being deserving of dignity, safety, and respect.”

“Whether they are individuals navigating the immigration process, public servants carrying out their duties, or professionals working within the system, all deserve to be free from violence and fear,” the group said in a statement.

‘Targeted violence’

Authorities have given few details about the shooting and did not publicly release the names of the victims or the gunman. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as “an act of targeted violence.”

The gunman used a bolt-action rifle, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Edwin Cardona, an immigrant from Venezuela, said he was entering the ICE building with his son for an appointment around 6:20 a.m. when he heard gunshots. An agent took people who were inside to a more secure area and said there was an active shooter.

“I was afraid for my family, because my family was outside. I felt terrible, because I thought something could happen to them,” Cardona said, adding that they were later reunited.

The ICE facility is along Interstate 35 East, just southwest of Dallas Love Field, a large airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and blocks from hotels.

Who was Joshua Jahn?

Hours after the shooting, FBI agents gathered at a suburban Dallas home that public records link to Jahn.

It sits on a tree-lined cul-de-sac in a neighborhood dotted with one- and two-story brick homes. The street was blocked by a Fairview police vehicle, and officials wearing FBI jackets could be seen in the front yard.

A spokesperson for Collin College in nearby McKinney, said via email that a Joshua Jahn studied there “at various times” between 2013 and 2018.

In late 2017, Jahn drove cross-country to work a minimum-wage job harvesting marijuana for several months, said Ryan Sanderson, owner of a legal cannabis farm in Washington state.

“He’s a young kid, a thousand miles from home, didn’t really seem to have any direction, living out of his car at such a young age,” Sanderson told the AP.

Calls for an end to political violence

Shortly after the shooting and before officials said at least one victim was a detainee, Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Texas, continued in that direction, calling for an end to political violence.

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, an advocacy group, said the shootings are “a heartbreaking reminder of the violence and fear that too often touch the lives of migrants and the communities where they live.”

Noem: ICE agents targeted

Noem noted a recent uptick in targeting of ICE agents.

On July 4, attackers in black, military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. One police officer was injured. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack.

Days later, a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents leaving a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen. The man, identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, injured a responding police officer before authorities shot and killed him.

In suburban Chicago, federal authorities erected a fence around an immigration processing center after tensions flared with protesters. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, resulting in hundreds of arrests.

Attacks, escapes concern at some ICE offices

Dozens of field offices across the country house administrative employees and are used for people summoned for check-in appointments and to process people arrested before they are transferred to long-term detention centers. They are not designed to hold people in custody.

Security varies by location, with some in federal buildings and others mixed with private businesses, said John Torres, a former acting director of the agency and former head of what is now called its enforcement and removals division.

Some, like Dallas, have exposed loading areas for buses, which pose risks for escape and outside attack, Torres said. Other vulnerabilities are nearby vantage points for snipers and long lines forming outside without protection.

Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press journalists Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Jeff Martin and R.J. Rico in Atlanta, Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Mike Balsamo in New York, Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Julio Cortez in Dallas, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

At least 17 killed in Gaza Strip as leaders ramp up pressure for a ceasefire

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By WAFAA SHURAFA, DAVID RISING and KAREEM CHEHAYEB, Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — At least 17 people were killed Thursday in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials, as international pressure for a ceasefire continued to grow.

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, French President Emmanuel Macron told France 24 his country had recognized a Palestinian state on the conviction it “is the only way to isolate Hamas,” which has proved itself able to regenerate even after many of its leaders have been killed.

“Total war in Gaza is causing civilian casualties but can’t bring about the end of Hamas,” he said in the interview Wednesday. “Factually, it’s a failure.”

He said he had been lobbying U.S. President Donald Trump to press Israel again for a ceasefire, telling him “you have an important role to play — you who supports peace, who wants to bring peace to the world.”

“You cannot stop the war if there is no path to peace,” the French president added.

Deadly strikes hit central and southern Gaza

Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, 12 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the central town of Zawaida that hit a tent and a house, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah. Eight children were among the victims, according to the hospital, and family members said another girl was still under the rubble.

Israeli army flares drift over buildings destroyed during Israeli ground and air operations in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

The hospital said another girl was killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in Deir al-Balah, and that it was caring for seven others injured in that attack.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, another Israeli attack hit an apartment building, killing four people, according to the Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken.

Netanyahu denounces leaders who have recognized a Palestinian state

On Monday ahead of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly meetings, France, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Monaco announced or confirmed their recognition of a Palestinian state in the hopes of galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict.

Their announcements came a day after the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal did the same, in defiance of Israel and the United States.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the idea early Thursday before heading to New York himself where he was to address the assembly on Friday.

“At the U.N, General Assembly I will speak our truth,” he told reporters. “I will denounce those leaders who, instead of denouncing the murderers, the rapists, the child burners, want to give them a state in the heart of the land of Israel. It will not happen.”

At separate events in New York on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s lead negotiator Steve Witkoff both offered optimistic views about what Witkoff called a “Trump 21-point plan for peace” that was presented to Arab leaders on Tuesday.

The U.S. has not released details of the plan or said whether Israel or Hamas accepts it, but Netanyahu suggested Israel’s position had not changed.

The Israeli leader said when he travels from New York on to Washington to meet with Trump, he would “discuss with him the great opportunities our victories have brought and also our need to complete the goals of the war: to return all our hostages, to defeat Hamas and to expand the circle of peace that is open to us.”

The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, have spent months trying to broker a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release. Those efforts suffered a major setback earlier this month when Israel carried out an airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Forty-eight captives are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were freed in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s ongoing retaliatory offensive has killed more than 65,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It doesn’t say how many were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up around half the fatalities. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

Israel launched another major ground operation earlier this month in Gaza City, which experts say is experiencing famine. More than 300,000 people have fled, but up to 700,000 are still there, many because they can’t afford to relocate.

Rising reported from Bangkok and Chehayeb from Beirut. John Leicester and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this story.

Paris court rules former President Sarkozy will have to go to prison even if he appeals

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By SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A Paris court sentenced former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to 5 years in prison and — in a major surprise — said he’ll be incarcerated even if he appeals, after finding him guilty Thursday in his trial for alleged illegal campaign financing by Libya.

The court said the date of his incarceration will be decided later, sparing the 70-year-old the humiliation of being marched out of the courtroom by police officers and going straight to jail.

The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a plot from 2005 to 2007 to finance his campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors. But it cleared him of three other charges — including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of the embezzlement of public funds.

FILE – French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, greets Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi upon his arrival on Dec. 10 2007 at the Elysee Palace, in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

The court also found two of Sarkozy’s closest associates when he was president — former ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux — guilty of criminal association but likewise acquitted them of some other charges.

Overall, the ruling suggested that the court believed that the men conspired to seek Libyan funding for Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign but that judges weren’t convinced that the conservative leader himself was directly involved in the funding effort or that any Libyan money ended up being used in his winning campaign.

The chief judge, in an hours-long reading of the lengthy verdict, said Sarkozy allowed his close associates to reach out to Libyan authorities “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya for the purpose of securing campaign financing.” He stood as she read out the verdict.

But the court also said it couldn’t determine with certainty that Libyan money ended up financing Sarkozy’s campaign. Still, under French law, a corrupt scheme can still be a crime even if money wasn’t paid or cannot be proven, the court explained.

Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was present in the courtroom, which was also filled with reporters and members of the public. Sarkozy sat in the front row of the defendant’s seats. His three adult sons were also in the room.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni Sarkozy arrive to the courtroom for his verdict for alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by the government of then-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 but lost his bid for reelection in 2012, denied all wrongdoing during a three-month trial earlier this year that also involved 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.

Despite multiple legal scandals that have clouded his presidential legacy, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in right-wing politics in France and in entertainment circles, by virtue of his marriage to Bruni-Sarkozy.

Alleged Libya financing

The accusations trace their roots to 2011, when a Libyan news agency and Gadhafi himself said the Libyan state had secretly funneled millions of euros into Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.

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In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it said was a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a 50 million-euro funding agreement. Sarkozy denounced the document as a forgery and sued for defamation. The court ruled Thursday that it “now appears most likely that this document is a forgery.”

Investigators also looked into a series of trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy when he served as interior minister from 2005 and 2007, including his chief of staff.

In 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered suitcases filled with cash from Tripoli to the French Interior Ministry under Sarkozy. He later retracted his statement.

That reversal is now the focus of a separate investigation into possible witness tampering. Both Sarkozy and his wife were handed preliminary charges for involvement in alleged efforts to pressure Takieddine. That case has not gone to trial yet.

Takieddine, who was one of the co-defendants, died on Tuesday in Beirut. He was 75. He had fled to Lebanon in 2020 and did not attend the trial.

Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy had knowingly benefited from what they described as a “corruption pact” with Gadhafi’s government.

Libya’s longtime dictator was toppled and killed in an uprising in 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.

Sarkozy denounced a ‘plot’

The trial shed light on France’s back-channel talks with Libya in the 2000s, when Gadhafi was seeking to restore diplomatic ties with the West. Before that, Libya was considered a pariah state.

Sarkozy has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and reliant on forged evidence. During the trial, he denounced a “plot” he said was staged by “liars and crooks” including the “Gadhafi clan.”

He suggested that the allegations of illegal campaign financing were retaliation for his call — as France’s president — for Gadhafi’s removal.

Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya in 2011, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world.

“What credibility can be given to such statements marked by the seal of vengeance?” Sarkozy asked in comments during the trial.

Stripped of the Legion of Honor

In June, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal — France’s highest award — after his conviction in a separate case.

Earlier, he was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling for trying to bribe a magistrate in 2014 in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.

Sarkozy was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one year. He was granted a conditional release in May due to his age, which allowed him to remove the electronic tag after he wore it for just over three months.

In another case, Sarkozy was convicted last year of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 reelection bid. He was accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount and was sentenced to a year in prison, of which six months were suspended.

Sarkozy has denied the allegations. He has appealed that verdict to the highest Court of Cassation, and that appeal is pending

Associated Press journalist John Leicester contributed.

Bret Stephens: Now the left cares about free speech again

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Because there is a silver lining for most things in life, maybe there is also one for ABC’s craven (if brief) suspension, under thuggish government pressure, of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show. To wit: Now the left is once again all but unanimous in wanting to defend free speech.

That hasn’t always been the case in recent years.

It wasn’t the case when, a day before Kimmel’s suspension, Amy Klobuchar called on Congress to prevent violence like Charlie Kirk’s murder by cracking down on speech online. “I’m not for censorship, but I do think that more has to be done online,” said the Democratic senator from Minnesota. Sentences that begin “I’m not for censorship, but …” are usually calls for censorship.

It wasn’t the case this spring when Democrats in the Colorado legislature sought to criminalize some speech that “misgendered” or “deadnamed” transgender children, including custody threats to parents who refused to use their child’s preferred pronouns.

It wasn’t the case in 2023 when a RealClear Opinion Research poll found that three-fourths of Democrats believe government has a responsibility to limit “hateful” or inaccurate social media posts, as compared with roughly half of Republicans.

It wasn’t the case when, in the summer of 2021, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski asked, with clear relish, whether social media companies shouldn’t be “open to lawsuits” for publishing what she and the government deemed to be “misinformation” on the COVID vaccines.

It wasn’t the case when Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director then being interviewed by Brzezinski, answered, “We’re reviewing that, and certainly they should be held accountable.”

It wasn’t the case when, in February 2021, Facebook announced that it would treat claims that “COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured” — that is, the lab-leak hypothesis — as a form of misinformation, leading to the removal of all mention of it. Mark Zuckerberg later complained that the Biden administration pressured the company to take down posts about COVID-19, including humor, according to a report in Politico.

It wasn’t the case among the stars of the liberal literary establishment, including Sally Rooney and Arundhati Roy, who demanded boycotts of Israeli publications, publishers and institutions on account of their presumptive complicity in oppressing Palestinians.

It wasn’t the case, either, when another batch of liberal writers, including cartoonist Garry Trudeau and novelist Peter Carey, rebuked the PEN American Center for its decision to give an award to Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper that lost 12 of its staff members in a 2015 terrorist attack.

It wasn’t the case when the New York publishing industry began capitulating to social-media demands to cancel or torpedo books whose authors had run afoul of one left-wing orthodoxy or another: Jeanine Cummins and “American Dirt,” Richard North Patterson and “Trial,” Dr. Seuss and “If I Ran the Zoo” and several other titles.

It wasn’t the case when the editors of Slate indefinitely suspended podcast host Mike Pesca for arguing that it could be appropriate to mention a racial slur if not using it as an epithet. Or when The Atlantic fired conservative writer Kevin Williamson after a few days of employment because of a handful of remarks made years earlier. Or when NBC parted ways with Megyn Kelly because she said (and then apologized for saying) that, in her childhood, using blackface was “OK as long as you were dressing up like a character.”

It wasn’t the case in 2021 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology canceled a prestigious science lecture by geophysicist Dorian Abbot because it didn’t like his views about diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Or when Harvard University pushed out evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven because of her insistence on the fundamental realities of sex differences. Or when Jason Kilborn, a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago (a public university), was suspended merely for referring to two slurs without specifically mentioning the actual slurs.

Some readers might argue that the effort to cancel Kimmel is unique — and uniquely dangerous — because it was pushed by Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission. That is true, but then why the comparative liberal silence about the Biden administration’s efforts to police speech on social media? Others might argue that COVID misinformation or hate speech should be subject to different rules from mundane political speech. More than a century of First Amendment jurisprudence, from liberal and conservative justices alike, says otherwise.

And then there are those who point to the hypocrisy of conservatives, Carr not least, who rail against censorship and cancellation when it comes from the left and then enforce their own cancel (or consequence) culture the moment they are in power. A very fair point — and all the more reason for liberals to stick by liberal principles when it comes to their own side’s self-appointed censors.

It’s a cliché, but can’t be said enough, that speech is genuinely free only when it is speech we like the least from those we dislike the most. Rosa Luxemburg put it well: “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Shana tova.

Bret Stephens writes a column for the New York Times.

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