Dallas ICE Shooting: Advocates Say Migrant Victims Have Been Forgotten

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Nearly a month after the Dallas ICE field office shooting, immigrant rights advocates say the two migrant men killed in the attack have been largely forgotten. While public attention has centered on the gunman and federal investigations, the stories of the victims, both migrants in federal custody, have faded from the national conversation.

The two men, Norlan Guzmán Fuentes, from El Salvador, and Miguel Ángel García-Hernández, from Mexico, were being transported inside an ICE van when a shooter opened fire on the facility’s sally port on September 24, 2025. One man died at the scene, and the other later succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.

Advocates and local faith leaders held a vigil at Dallas City Hall earlier this month to honor the victims. They say the two men have been reduced to statistics discussed only in relation to the attack’s political implications rather than their human loss.

“These men were fathers, sons, and workers,” said one community organizer. “They weren’t symbols of a policy debate. They were people whose lives mattered.”

Family members of both victims have reportedly received little information from federal agencies about the investigation or compensation. Immigration rights groups allege that their detention status has slowed access to aid and that the lack of transparency is deepening the trauma.

Advocates also criticized federal authorities for framing the attack primarily as an anti-ICE assault, which, they say, overshadowed the fact that the victims were detainees under U.S. custody.

Civil rights organizations are now urging Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to include victim support provisions for non-citizens affected by federal facility violence.

“This case is a reminder that justice shouldn’t depend on immigration status,” said a spokesperson for a Dallas-based legal aid group. “If the system cannot protect those in its custody, it fails everyone.”

As the investigation continues, advocates say the true measure of accountability will be whether the victims’ names, Norlan and Miguel, are remembered, not erased.