An ICE officer stationed in Tampa jumped fully clothed into a community pool in Pasco County, Florida, after spotting a 6-year-old girl floating unconscious in the water. Officer Gregory Simmonds pulled the child to the edge, administered CPR on the pool deck, and kept working until she regained consciousness. Law enforcement officials say the girl is expected to make a full recovery.
Closed-circuit footage captured the entire sequence. Simmonds looked over, saw the child motionless in the water, and moved immediately. He carried her back to the edge of the pool, where he began resuscitation on dry land. No hesitation. No waiting for backup. Just a federal officer doing what needed to be done, off the clock and out of uniform, at a community pool on Florida's Gulf Coast.
The rescue, first reported by Fox News Digital, comes at a moment when ICE agents face relentless political hostility from sanctuary-city politicians, street protesters, and progressive officials who have made demonizing immigration enforcement a brand. Simmonds' actions, and those of several other ICE officers in recent months, offer a corrective that no press release could match.
Simmonds serves with ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Tampa. He was at the Pasco County pool when he noticed the girl floating unconscious. The surveillance video shows him react within seconds, plunging into the water in his street clothes, reaching the child, and pulling her to safety.
Once on the pool deck, Simmonds administered CPR. The child regained consciousness before emergency medical services arrived.
Pasco County Sheriff's Office Cpl. J. Leathers, in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, praised the officer's conduct directly. As Cpl. Leathers put it:
"His actions directly contributed to saving the life of the child and reflect exceptional courage and selflessness."
Leathers also credited Simmonds' "willingness to place himself into action during a critical incident," confirming the child survived and is expected to recover fully. The Fox News video segment dated June 17, 2026, showed the surveillance footage and noted Simmonds jumped into action to save the girl's life.
The Pasco County rescue is not an isolated case. In February, multiple off-duty ICE agents were dining at a restaurant in Plymouth, Minnesota, when a woman approached them seeking help. The agents went to a hotel pool and performed CPR on a drowning child for several minutes until police and EMS arrived.
In March, an agent supporting TSA operations at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Howard Beach, New York, helped save a 1-year-old experiencing a medical emergency. Sen. Markwayne Mullin said the agent "sprang into action and saved [their] life."
Three separate incidents. Three children alive today because ICE officers intervened. These stories rarely break through a media environment fixated on painting federal immigration agents as heavy-handed enforcers. The gap between the caricature and the conduct is wide enough to drive a rescue truck through.
That gap has real consequences. In New Jersey, Democratic officials have clashed with ICE agents at detention centers, with the state's governor refusing facility access. Protests have erupted outside ICE-related facilities, including New Jersey's Delaney Hall.
Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis used the rescue to make a broader point about the men and women who serve in federal immigration enforcement. She stated plainly:
"This officer swiftly sprung to action and delivered life-saving medical care to this 6-year-old who drowned."
Bis then sharpened the message. "Our agents truly are the best of the best," she said. "They put their lives on the line to arrest the worst of the worst. Instead of demonizing ICE law enforcement, sanctuary politicians should be thanking them for removing criminals from their communities."
The political context is impossible to miss. ICE officers operate under constant public attack from elected officials who call their work "cruel and inhumane", language that New York City's mayor used after anti-ICE protesters clashed with police outside a Brooklyn hospital.
An unattributed statement included in the reporting drove the point further: "Despite the endless smears and lies told about them by sanctuary politicians and the media, our ICE officers show up every day to protect the Homeland and their fellow Americans."
The political environment ICE agents navigate daily goes beyond rhetoric. In Wisconsin, a federal judge upheld the conviction of a state judge who helped an illegal immigrant evade ICE, a case that illustrated how far some officials will go to obstruct federal enforcement.
Officers have faced physical danger as well. In New Jersey, an ICE agent was struck by a fleeing suspect's van during an apprehension attempt, forcing the agent to discharge a weapon. These are the working conditions behind the badge that Gregory Simmonds wears.
Yet when the moment came at a Pasco County pool, no cameras rolling for a press conference, no political audience, no official duty requiring it, Simmonds went in. Fully clothed. Without hesitation.
Several details about the rescue remain unclear. The exact date and time of the incident have not been disclosed. The name of the child has not been released, nor has the specific pool or facility been identified. What caused the girl to end up unconscious in the water is unknown. Whether she was hospitalized after regaining consciousness has not been reported.
What is clear: a 6-year-old girl is alive because a federal officer trained to enforce immigration law also knew how to save a life, and chose to act when it mattered.
DHS leadership has signaled it intends to expand ICE's visible presence in cities that have resisted cooperation. DHS Secretary Mullin recently warned New York City's mayor that ICE agents would be deployed to the city for the World Cup, a move that drew predictable outrage from progressive leaders.
The same leaders who call ICE officers threats to their communities might want to explain that to a family in Pasco County whose daughter is breathing today because one of those officers happened to be nearby.
Sanctuary politicians have spent years telling Americans that ICE agents are the villains. Gregory Simmonds, soaking wet in his street clothes on a pool deck in Florida, told a different story, and the surveillance camera backed him up.
