NEW REPORT: Of 59 Criminal ICE and Border Patrol Agents, 85% Committed Sex Offenses, Nearly 2/3 Against Children
Ohio Immigrant Alliance released “They Walk Among Us: A List of 59 Sexually and Physically Abusive ICE and Border Agents” in the wake of ICE agent David Brouillette’s killing of Johan Sebastian in Maine.
[content warning - sexual and physical violence, death]
Cleveland, OH — The Ohio Immigrant Alliance released “They Walk Among Us: A List of 59 Sexually and Physically Abusive ICE and Border Agents,” an analysis of sexual and violent crimes committed by ICE and Border Patrol agents who primarily preyed upon women and children. (Access the data that informed the analysis here).
“David Brouillette’s disturbing history of domestic violence is not unusual for an ICE agent,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of this report. “But we have no way of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t even look at family court records. What we do know is that ICE and Border Patrol agents have a disturbing track record of sexually and violently abusing women and children, including members of their own families. These are not people who should be given guns and free rein to roam U.S. communities. Their job is to enforce civil laws, but they act like they live in the wild west, and are killing people in our streets. Congress has to stop writing blank checks to these agencies and start enforcing order and accountability.”
The report documents 59 cases of violent and/or sexual criminal acts by DHS employees, primarily carried out against women and children. It puts the criminal behavior of these agents in context with the agencies’ cultures, as well as recent policy changes that bode dangerously for public safety. DHS has further loosened agent vetting, hiring, and training standards, eliminated accountability, and expanded the types of dangerous tactics agents are authorized to use in the enforcement of civil immigration laws.
“The exponential growth of immigrant deaths in detention — and the opening up of a new killing field, deaths of civilians on U.S. streets — is directly related to all of these factors,” said Tramonte.
The OIA report calls on Congress to freeze the ICE and Border Patrol budgets; legislate real vetting and accountability measures; and create an immigration enforcement system that operates civilly, rather than chaotically, quasi-criminally, and with deadly outcomes.
“After noticing a trend of Cincinnati ICE agents committing sexual or violent offenses against women, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance began looking deeper into the criminal backgrounds of other agents. What we found disturbed us,” said Tramonte. “An inordinate number of ICE and Border Patrol agents committing sex offenses against children. Rampant domestic violence. Oftentimes, these acts were committed by agents with ten and even twenty years on the force. There’s been something rotten at these agencies for a long time. The public pays for their salaries; we do not need to stand for the repeated abuse and misuse of our tax dollars.”
The report’s release comes in the wake of ICE agent David Brouillette’s killing of Johan Sebastian, a father from Biddeford, Maine. Brouillette has a lengthy, documented history of racism, family violence, death threats, protection orders, brain injuries, and bipolar disorder. His ex-wife posed the question at the heart of this report: “How [did he] keep getting into these jobs where [he’s] around guns all the time?”
Like Brouillette, several individuals documented in the report have histories of criminal, dangerous, and predatory behavior that should have disqualified them from any law enforcement job. Some committed violent or sexual offenses during their terms of employment and were even promoted, like Samuel Saxon of Ohio.
John Daly III, the East Valley Serial Rapist, was a Border Patrol agent for twenty years. Serial killer Juan David Ortiz, also a Border agent, paid women for sex and then murdered them. Ramon Marquez, another Border Patrol agent, used his role overseeing the Border Patrol Explorer Program — a youth activity — to sexually abuse minor participants.
Brashad Johnson, an agent in charge of ICE background checks, was himself convicted of soliciting prostitution involving a minor. Frank Figueroa, an ICE agent tasked with arresting sexual predators, was found guilty of an indecent exposure to a minor.
Key Findings
The report’s analysis of 59 documented criminal cases involving DHS employees reveals a disturbing pattern of sexual violence, predation against children, abuse of authority, and a problem that is accelerating rather than improving. Among the findings:
Of the 59 individuals, 50 (84.7%) have been charged with or convicted of sex offenses, and 37 (62.7%) committed crimes specifically targeting children. Taken together, 35 individuals (59.3%) committed sex offenses against children — the single largest offense category on the list.
The problem is getting worse. Cases documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4% of the list — 25 out of 59 cases. Compare that to 2020, the previous peak year, which had just 6.
Customs and Border Protection accounts for nearly three-quarters of all cases — 42 out of 59 (71.2%). Both agencies show high rates of sex offenses (CBP: 86%, ICE: 81%), but ICE cases are more likely to involve underage victims — 69% of ICE cases involve children, compared to 62% for CBP.
A significant number of criminal agents directed their violence at family members, including partners and minor relatives. Ronald Anthony Burgos Aviles, a CBP agent in Texas, murdered his partner and her one-year-old son. Samuel Saxon, an ICE supervisor in Cincinnati, has a long history of abuse against his domestic partner, including strangulation and broken bones.
No Vetting, No Training, No Accountability
The report details how DHS has systematically weakened the safeguards meant to prevent dangerous individuals from becoming federal agents, and warns that this list of 59 agents will likely grow unless emergency measures are implemented.
Last year, NBC reported that ICE began skipping the prior background check process to rush recruits through hiring and training, resulting in the acceptance of some individuals with pending domestic violence charges. In addition to lax vetting, the Trump administration weakened other requirements and standards that have made ICE and Border Patrol agents more dangerous than ever for local communities.
A former ICE lawyer responsible for training testified that the current instruction program is “deficient, defective and broken.” He said, “On my first day, I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant. For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program, cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program.”
A Culture of Misogyny, Racism, and Lawlessness
The sexual and physical violence against women and children documented in OIA’s report is not an aberration — it is a reflection of the agencies’ culture. The report finds that misogyny is not merely tolerated but embedded in the institutional DNA, from the lowest-ranking agents to the highest levels of national leadership. The Guardian reported that at least six CBP officers had personal relationships with Jeffrey Epstein and were involved in facilitating group travel to and from his private island.
Also, the current Trump administration is using white nationalist propaganda to recruit ICE agents, and administration officials at the highest levels are speaking about immigrants in dehumanizing and racist ways.
Finally, the administration has adopted an “above the law” attitude that empowers and excuses agents who do bad things. A judge said ICE has developed “a troubling culture of lawlessness.” The report describes how ICE agents are increasingly using the tactics of criminals to arrest people on American streets — unmarked cars, masks, aggressive vehicle pursuits, and physical force — and criminals are also impersonating ICE agents to rape, kidnap, and rob victims.
Deadly Consequences
The second Trump administration has presided over a record number of deaths of immigrants in ICE jail and a new and deadly phenomenon — at least outside of the border region — the killing of civilians by guns or cars.
No federal officer who killed anyone while attempting to enforce civil immigration laws in 2025 or 2026 — including the officers who killed Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter, Dr. Linda Davis, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and Johan Sebastian — has been held accountable for their actions. In every instance, DHS leadership called these civilians’ deaths justified and blamed the victims.
Civil Laws Require Civil Enforcement
The vast majority of the laws that ICE and the Border Patrol enforce are civil in nature. It is highly unusual for the government to allow agents enforcing civil laws to carry guns, wear masks, use unmarked vehicles, and put potential civil law violators in jail without charge. There is no other area of civil law where this happens — not tax law, environmental law, or housing law.
“Immigration laws are about paperwork. They should be enforced like tax and other civil laws, in conference rooms and through the mail, not with guns on the streets of United States communities,” said Tramonte. “There is no civil law worth killing people over.”
Lauren Bonds, Executive Director of the National Police Accountability Project, agrees: “No law enforcement officer is justified in shooting into a vehicle, ever. No one deserves to be shot by a federal agent on their way to work, and enforcing a civil law is never more important than a person’s life. The only way to end ICE killings is to take their guns and ban them from enforcing civil laws on our streets. Civil laws should be enforced in courtrooms and office buildings, not on U.S. streets with deadly force.”
Recommendations
The Ohio Immigrant Alliance report calls on Congress to:
Freeze ICE and Border Patrol budgets. ICE and CBP do not need more money — they need actual accountability.
Implement real vetting and accountability measures. The entire workforce should be rescreened for histories of domestic violence, sexual violence, and extremist ideology. There should be mandatory reporting of all criminal charges against officers, automatic termination upon conviction, and independent watchdog bodies with subpoena power.
Create a system that operates civilly. Congress should create an immigration law enforcement system that operates like any other area of civil law. Agents should not carry guns, wear disguises, or conduct street arrests. Armed street arrests and indefinite detention are the tactics of a police state, not a civil regulatory agency.
A Call to Action
Domestic violence, misogyny, and racism by officers are not personal problems. They are red flags — indicators that an officer has a fundamental disregard for rules, authority, and social norms, and believes he can get away with breaking the law. Officers who abuse women at home are not safe to carry guns in public. Officers who prey on children cannot be trusted to interact with communities.
Law enforcement leadership — federal, state, and local — must treat these behaviors as what they are: disqualifying.
The full report, “They Walk Among Us: A List of 59 Sexually and Physically Abusive ICE and Border Agents,” is available here.
