The Culture of Sexual Violence in the Department of Homeland Security

Dozens of federal immigration agents have been arrested — and in some cases, convicted — of crimes related to sexual and gender-based violence, according to a group of antifascist researchers. 

The Pacific Antifascist Collective (PAC) tracks federal immigration agents they claim are “credibly accused” of abuse. The group reports that over the last 20 years, at least 81 agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been alleged to have sexually or physically abused women or children, and at least a handful have been prosecuted and found guilty. Prism independently reviewed the research, which was first published in January and is regularly updated in a social media thread using local news reports and court documents. 

Almost all of the agents are men, and 78 of them have allegedly committed sexual offenses. Sixty of those agents are accused of child sexual abuse, including the production and distribution of child pornography, solicitation of a minor and child sexual assault. The dozens of other agents were arrested or convicted for gender-based crimes, including sexual assault, domestic violence and coercing women in detention to have sex. To verify the allegations, Prism cross-checked PAC’s research with local and national reporting, as well as publicly available court records. 

Since 2020, at least two dozen ICE employees and contractors have been charged with crimes, the Associated Press reported in February. The growing list of allegations of gender-based crimes committed by agents employed by the Department of Homeland Security, combined with growing reports of ICE kidnappings nationwide and an alarming lack of background checks and vetting during the DHS hiring process, raises questions about who is being hired and empowered by the Trump administration to police borders and carry out legally dubious immigration raids. In November, the FBI urged partnering agencies to “adequately identify themselves” after a string of cases in which men impersonated masked ICE agents to commit crimes, such as assaulting and kidnapping immigrant women.

Allegations against federal immigration agents go back decades, with some dating back to 2002 soon after the DHS was created post-9/11, leading advocates to question the larger culture cultivated within the department. There are long-standing concerns about sexual violence within federal immigration agencies such as ICE and CBP, where agents have raped and beaten women and children while tasked with keeping the American public safe. 

Who are the “criminals”? 

At the core of the Trump administration’s justification for the growing number of raids and deportations nationwide is the claim that ICE and CBP are targeting and arresting “criminals.” 

“Nearly 70% of illegal aliens ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S. alone,” according to just one of the many false claims regularly published in DHS press releases. Over 70% of the more than 60,000 immigrants held in ICE detention as of April have no criminal conviction, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization that tracks and publishes federal enforcement, staffing and financial data. Additionally, studies have consistently shown that immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S. 

However, on a weekly basis, the DHS emphasizes that its agencies are arresting “rapists” and “child predators.” Since the beginning of 2025, 180 DHS press releases have used the term “rapists,” averaging 2.5 press releases a week making the connection between immigrants and sexual violence.  

When Prism contacted ICE and CBP with the list of agents who have been arrested for, charged with or convicted of sexual crimes, both agencies refused to confirm if any of the agents have been suspended or terminated. 

The list of offenders includes Andrew Golobic, an Ohio-based deportation agent who was sentenced in March 2025 to 12 years in prison for coercing detained women into sex, as well as Alexander Steven Back, a Minnesota-based DHS employee arrested in November 2025 for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor. 

A spokesperson for ICE accused Prism of attempting to “dox” agents convicted of sexual crimes, alleging that “doxing our officers put their lives and their families in serious danger.” 

“Our law enforcement officers are on the front lines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles and rapists,” the spokesperson added. 

“ICE is committed to ensuring its law enforcement personnel are held to the highest standards,” the spokesperson also noted. “Vetting is an ongoing process … in  preventing unqualified or unsuitable candidates from being entrusted with law enforcement responsibilities.”

According to activists and advocates, ICE’s statement does not reflect the reality of the vetting processes of ICE and CBP, including cases in which the agencies failed to identify candidates with histories of sexual and gender-based violence. 

“These are the same agencies that portray all immigrants as criminals, which is not the case, not anywhere near it,” said Lynn Tramonte, executive director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. In January, Tramonte compiled PAC’s research into a spreadsheet, finding that most of the agents’ offenses harmed children. “In reality, these agencies are hiring people who have these abusive personalities, in some cases keeping them employed for decades,” she said.

Samuel L. Saxon, an Ohio-based ICE assistant field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, was arrested on charges of felonious assault, strangulation and domestic violence in December 2025. Saxon worked for the federal agency since 2005, and, according to local news reports, authorities noted in court that there were 22 police calls to his residence since 2023. Court documents reviewed by Prism contain witness reports of Saxon “dragging a woman down the hallway in a chokehold,” calling the victim a “bitch” and slapping her. In April, Saxon pleaded guilty to lying to the federal officer investigating his domestic violence arrest. 

In another case in Arizona, Border Patrol agent Bart Conrad Yager was indicted last year on 24 felony charges, including 10 counts of child sex trafficking. Local news reports revealed that a decade ago, Yager was a suspect in a rape case, but CBP never investigated the allegations, according to a CBP special agent’s statement filed in Cochise County Superior Court. 

CBP only began investigating Yager in 2023, when it found evidence he was fraudulently claiming travel reimbursements when he paid for hotels to solicit sex while on duty, including with one underage victim who was previously documented as being sex trafficked as part of a separate police investigation, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Yager, who worked for the agency since 2011, was known among his colleagues for his “hatred toward women,” according to court records reviewed by the Daily Star. He is just one of several Arizona-based CBP employees recently charged with or convicted of sexual misconduct, the newspaper reported.

When Prism asked CBP about these cases, a spokesperson said, “The overwhelming majority of employees perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe.” 

Tramonte disputes the claim that ICE and CBP are delivering “safety.” 

“The safety being promised by these agencies … is safety for white men,” Tramonte said. Prism’s research confirmed only one alleged offender on PAC’s list is a woman, and while Latino and Black agents have been charged with sex crimes, most of the agents whose cases have been made public are white. “And that’s safety not just from criminals, but also from being held accountable for actions that hurt other people,” Tramonte told Prism.

For investigative journalist Erin Siegal McIntyre, PAC’s research raises more questions than answers. Siegal is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and is working on a book on the history of the U.S. Border Patrol. In a written interview with Prism, Siegal pointed out that ICE and CBP employ over 40,000 people, and the research posted online does not “specify whether alleged perpetrators have been convicted or not.” 

Siegal McIntyre points out a more rigorous methodology is necessary. “A cursory view of names on the list also shows that it is not broken down by CBP subcomponents, and there is no methodology around how these 30 men’s names were chosen for inclusion, so it’s difficult to understand with any kind of rigorous scrutiny,” she said.

“Workplace rape culture”

While ICE and CBP have much overlap with the Border Patrol, which operates as part of CBP, the Border Patrol, which was established in 1924, has a much longer history. 

Scholars and activists have drawn connections between the Border Patrol and slave catchers, as the first Border Patrol agents were drawn from the Texas Rangers, a group of vigilantes who openly participated in racist violence. In 2003, the newly founded Department of Homeland Security — a direct response to 9/11 — absorbed the Border Patrol and created both CBP and ICE, with Border Patrol agents continuing to serve as on-the-ground forces at the border. 

CBP is the largest federal law enforcement agency in the U.S. and the Border Patrol has around 20,000 front-line law enforcement agents.

Both ICE and CBP were modeled after the Border Patrol, according to Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent who has spent the last several years speaking out about the human rights abuses committed by the agency. While ICE, CBP and the Border Patrol are all separate entities, they work with one another. For example, when 37-year-old Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed in Minnesota earlier this year during ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, it was agents with CBP and Border Patrol who pulled the trigger. 

Budd said the Border Patrol also has a documented “workplace rape culture,” adding that female agents have been hazed with rape upon joining the agency.

“The hazing of female agents [being] raped into the agency started in 1975, with the first class of women hired into the United States Border Patrol,” Budd said. “Our very first Latina [agent], Ernestine Lopez, was raped into the academy in 1975. She complained, she lost her job. Twenty years later, I was [also] raped into the academy.”

According to Budd, sexual violence has long been a part of the Border Patrol’s workplace culture — and it’s also well documented in the field against migrants. She said agents mockingly twist the Border Patrol’s motto — “Honor First” — into “On Her First,” a play on words that Budd said illustrates the larger culture within the agency in which the rape of female agents is sanctioned. The misogynistic use of this motto was confirmed in a December 2020 Facebook post from Hector Garza, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing 18,000 Border Patrol employees. 

Garza noted the play on words while commenting on the sexual misconduct of his colleagues. “For quite some time, there have been many upper management officials in the U.S. Border Patrol that have engaged in this predator/prey behavior,” Garcia wrote. “They usually retire and ride into the sunset once the victims come forward and report the unlawful behavior. Unfortunately, most victims do not get the Justice they deserve. To these rotten management officials it is not ‘Honor First’, it is ‘On Her First’!! Shame on them!”

Reporting over the years seems to corroborate this workplace culture within the Border Patrol. Siegal McIntyre has reported on the Border Patrol’s ongoing struggle to recruit and retain women agents. She said she has spoken to dozens of current and former Border Patrol agents and reviewed “hundreds of pages of complaints and lawsuits in which agents allege sexual harassment or assault.” 

“Those interviews and documents illustrate a workplace where a wide range of sexual misconduct is pervasive: from stale sex jokes to retaliation for reporting sexual misconduct and assault and rape,” Siegal McIntyre said. 

However, reporting on ICE and CBP’s systemic rape culture is more difficult to come by. This is partly because sexual violence is widely underreported, and because reporting structures for victims are flawed and ineffective. As just one example, CBP has not released an annual discipline report since 2019.

Officially, it is the job of the DHS’ Office of Inspector General to investigate abuse and misconduct within federal immigration agencies, as well as reports of sexual assault from immigrants detained by ICE. However, the OIG, which was established in 2002 to provide independent oversight of the DHS, investigates less than 3% of cases, according to a study published in 2022 by Valerie Gisel Zarate for St. Mary’s Law Journal. Additionally, the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which also applies to immigrant detention centers, prioritizes investigations of sexual assault between people who are both detained, when detained women overwhelmingly experience sexual abuse at the hands of detention center employees. 

While women who join federal immigration agencies have quietly suffered sexual harassment at the hands of their colleagues, immigrant women detained by ICE nationwide have publicly reported allegations of sexual abuse for years. 

In 2017, allegations of sexual abuse by a female guard at a detention facility in Texas found ineffective internal systems of investigation and accountability. In 2022, a Prism investigation revealed allegations that a male nurse was sexually abusing women detained in Georgia. Earlier this year, a new report from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights revealed widespread allegations of sexual assault at Tacoma, Washington’s Northwest ICE Processing Center — allegations that have been widely ignored by authorities. The report found that internal investigations “ignore key evidence,” the detention center has failed to incorporate preventative measures, and crimes have not been reported to law enforcement. 

The failure to conduct proper investigations into allegations of sexual assault, coupled with the DHS’ reliance on private prison companies to manage detention centers, means victims have little to no recourse against their attackers. 

“[The current reporting and investigation system] means that most detainees’ cases will either not be investigated or will be referred to ICE — the DHS component in charge of detention centers — to handle,” according to Zarate’s study. “Even after ICE obtains the complaint, they will ultimately decide whether to investigate or do nothing. Secondly, after ICE receives the allegation from OIG, if ICE decides to investigate, it may not have the proper resources to conduct a complete investigation report.”

The study further points out that ICE “does not always comply with standards in place for investigating sexual assault, thus leaving an incomplete report,” which leaves the victim without official documentation to help establish credibility. Additionally, Zarate notes that a majority of allegations actually come from “employees hired by contractors due to the privatization of detention,” which creates a barrier to investigation because “ICE has demonstrated that their contractual relationship with detention facilities is far more important than holding employees accountable.” While PREA outlines the steps necessary for private companies to investigate allegations, the process is often inadequate. 

In a recent case reported by the Associated Press, at least seven reports of sexual assault that occurred at San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center are being investigated by CoreCivic, the same private prison company that contracts with ICE to operate the facility. According to a 2020 memorandum between the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and CoreCivic obtained by the AP, the detention center’s warden, Christopher LaRose, has the authority to decide whether to investigate rape allegations at the facility. 

This dynamic allows private prison companies to decide whether they want to investigate sexual assaults they would be legally liable for — and they are choosing not to. 

Some of the nation’s largest private prison corporations, including GEO Group and CoreCivic, rake in millions of dollars contracting with ICE to run the agency’s detention centers, where at least 18 people have died in ICE custody so far this year. Private prison companies are also notorious for providing inadequate healthcare to immigrants in custody, but, as Zarate also noted in her study, ICE only requires “bare minimum qualifications” for the employees its contractors hire to work at detention centers. 

Parallels with prison industrial system

In many ways, mass incarceration was the blueprint for immigrant detention. Countless overlaps and parallels exist between these systems — especially as it relates to how authorities handle allegations of sexual violence. 

ICE detention centers are run similarly to prisons, and in both contexts sexual violence runs rampant. Feminist scholar Angela Davis has written that although sexual violence perpetrated by prison guards isn’t openly sanctioned, the leniency with which offending officers are treated suggests that “for women, prison is a space in which the threat of sexualized violence that looms in the larger society is effectively sanctioned as a routine aspect of the landscape of punishment behind prison walls.” 

More recent writing by incarcerated writers confirms this reality. Kwaneta Harris, an inmate in Texas, argues that living in prison is “to live in state-sanctioned, gender-based violence,” where abusive male guards decide when you wake up, when you eat and surveil your communications at all times. 

Human rights advocates and scholars have long drawn connections between ICE detention centers and prisons. “The immigrant-industrial complex is fueled by the for-profit prison industry, which in turn has seen a significant increase in revenue due to the use of private detention facilities,” wrote then-University of Texas student Ikram Mohamed in 2023. Mohamed also cited a study by the Sentencing Project, reporting that between 2002 and 2017, the number of people confined in privately run detention facilities rose by 442%. 

“The increased use of detention facilities by ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies has been a key driver of this growth, with private prison companies benefiting greatly from the federal government’s tough stance on illegal immigration,” Mohamed wrote.

For Tracy McCarter, an advocate who works with Survived and Punished, a coalition of grassroots groups committed to eradicating the criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the parallels between detention centers and prisons are very clear, particularly in the way that specific marginalized groups are cast as “criminals” when the carceral systems that oversee them are rife with abusers. 

“Sexual assault is never about sex; we know that it’s about power and control,” she said. “How would that not be a tool that [ICE and CBP agents] would use?” 

While the Trump administration maintains that the subject of its mass deportation campaign is “criminals,” there is far more evidence that sexual violence and child sexual abuse run rampant within the law enforcement institutions that ostensibly exist to protect the American people.

This is especially true in detention.  

Last September, the Louisiana Illuminator reported that people currently and formerly detained at the South Louisiana ICE Detention Center in Basile filed multiple allegations of “repeated sexual harassment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, coerced labor and neglect of urgent medical and mental health care at the facility.” 

And in December, The Guardian reported that immigration officers at the Fort Bliss detention camp in Texas were accused of beatings and sexual abuse, according to a coalition of local and national U.S. civil rights organizations. In 2020, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica reported that ICE guards “systematically” sexually assault detainees in an El Paso detention center.

Researchers and journalists have found evidence that the power held by federal immigration agencies allows their employees to commit sex crimes without consequences. Like sexual assault in prison, ICE, CBP and their many contractors in charge of American safety are part of a system that abuses marginalized people with impunity.

McCarter sees ICE detention centers as one of the many American institutions that were built on white supremacy. 

“White supremacy exists in all systems in America, and we haven’t given up on that,” she told Prism. “That’s the basis of this country. That’s the basis of policing. We know that it was slave catchers, first and foremost. And we see that replicated in how the systems are deployed against the people in this country. If it was really about crime, Trump could not be president.”