An ICE agent was hit by a van driven by a fleeing suspect in southern New Jersey on Monday morning and opened fire on the vehicle, striking it several times before the driver sped away, authorities said. The suspect remained at large as of Monday afternoon.
The confrontation unfolded around 9:30 a.m. near Mermaid Drive in Stafford Township's Manahawkin section, roughly 60 miles east of Philadelphia, as agents attempted to apprehend a suspect along Route 72. The agent's condition was not immediately disclosed, though sources told NBC Philadelphia he is expected to recover.
The incident adds to a pattern of escalating violence against federal immigration officers that has surged since January 2025, a trend DHS data ties directly to hostile political rhetoric aimed at the agents carrying out enforcement operations.
ICE was attempting to capture a suspect when the driver of a van struck the agent and fled, the New York Post reported. The agent fired at the vehicle, hitting it several times. Authorities had not confirmed whether the driver was injured.
Aerial footage from the scene showed about two dozen ICE agents in tactical gear at the location. Route 72 was shut down in both directions as authorities investigated and searched for the van and its driver.
It was not immediately clear why the suspect was being pursued in the first place. No names, of the agent, the suspect, or the driver, have been released.
Fox News reported that the suspect's vehicle was hit by gunfire but that the driver managed to escape and had not been located as of Monday afternoon. The agent's injuries were not detailed beyond the expectation that he would recover.
The back window of the van may have been blown out, based on available information from the scene. Beyond that, authorities offered few specifics about the vehicle or the circumstances that led to the pursuit.
Monday's incident did not happen in a vacuum. Vehicle attacks against ICE agents have surged more than 3,200 percent since President Trump took office for his second term, according to DHS data provided to the Post. Between January 21, 2025, and January 7, 2026, agents reported 66 attacks. During the same period in 2024, they reported just two.
That is not a statistical blip. It is a pattern, and federal officials have pointed to a clear cause.
Federal officials blamed the spike on what they called "radical rhetoric from sanctuary politicians." That framing will strike some as partisan, but the numbers are hard to argue with. Sixty-six attacks in less than a year, compared to two the year before, represents a threat environment that has fundamentally changed for the men and women enforcing immigration law.
The Manahawkin incident is far from the only case of a suspect using a vehicle as a weapon against ICE personnel. A federal grand jury recently indicted an illegal immigrant who allegedly rammed ICE agents with a car in Patterson, California, underscoring that these attacks are not confined to any single region.
New Jersey has become a particularly fraught operating environment for ICE. The state has seen repeated confrontations between federal agents, local politicians, and hostile crowds, often with local law enforcement standing aside or actively obstructing operations.
Earlier this year, ICE agents pulled back from a Newark facility after violent clashes with protesters turned the scene dangerous. The Newark episodes became national flashpoints, with crowds physically blocking federal vehicles and hurling objects at agents.
In one incident, anti-ICE agitators hurled pallets and mattresses at federal agents outside the Newark detention center. In another, local police effectively vanished from the scene while protesters blocked ICE vehicles and agents were forced to deploy pepper spray.
The political dimension has been equally hostile. New Jersey Democrats clashed with ICE agents at the Newark detention center, and the governor refused facility access to federal officials, a posture that sends an unmistakable signal about whose side state leadership is on.
When elected officials spend months describing ICE agents as jackbooted thugs, when sanctuary jurisdictions refuse cooperation, and when crowds are encouraged to physically obstruct lawful operations, the downstream consequences are predictable. People who might otherwise comply with a lawful arrest instead floor the accelerator.
The DHS data tells that story in cold numbers. Two attacks in a year became sixty-six. An agent in Manahawkin now lies recovering because someone behind the wheel of a van decided that running over a federal officer was preferable to being taken into custody.
Authorities have not said whether the suspect in Monday's incident was an illegal immigrant, what charges were pending, or what prompted the attempted apprehension. Those details matter and will emerge. But the broader context is already established by the data: ICE agents face a level of violence on American streets that would have been unthinkable just two years ago.
The van's driver is still out there. Route 72 has presumably reopened. The agent is expected to survive. And the politicians whose rhetoric federal officials say fuels these attacks will likely say nothing at all about what happened in Manahawkin on Monday morning.
Sixty-six attacks in under a year. Words have consequences, and so does silence.
