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Shooting at Dallas Ice Facility; Karen Attiah and Katie Phang are Interviewed about "The Washington Post." Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 24, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This mother -- that any claims this mother was improperly separated, that DHS improperly separated her from her kids is patently false. Kyung and her team, though, found more than 100 U.S. citizen children essentially orphaned in recent months because of ICE enforcement. No one's tracking these kids. Experts say it's really the tip of the iceberg. These kids are in Texas. Is this happening in California?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Oh, yes. It's happening all across the nation. And it's clearly causing a very significant pushback in the general community, let alone the immigrant community. What we're finding in California is that these separations do happen. And the thing that is so troublesome is, there is almost -- it is almost impossible to get any information. It's as though ICE just simply doesn't care. They're looking for their numbers. They want to get one or two or a dozen individuals, bring them in, apprehend them, deport them. And what does that do to the family that's left behind? You have multiple, probably thousands of cases across the country of kids that have been separated. And there is no family member, immediate family member, to care for them.

This is just absolutely inhumane. It is wrong. And it is once again a very clear indication that ICE -- that ICE is simply looking for the numbers. They simply want to arrest. We have this incident, not with children, but we have an incident in -- multiple incidents in my own district where we find ICE coming in, apprehending a family member, leaving behind a family that's just ripped apart, the caregiver, the individual that's earning whatever money that's supporting that family is gone.

And so, ICE has to get it's -- has to begin to think about secondary effects, not just running up the numbers. So, the cases of children -- we saw this in the first Trump administration. We're seeing it again.

BOLDUAN: There's a lot of legal action that had to be taken to start getting kids back together after the first time around with that child separation policy.

Congressman, thank you so much for your time. We have to jump over. We have more breaking news coming in.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the breaking news this morning, at least three people taken to the hospital after a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on social media just moments ago that the suspect is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And again, we got this confirmation just a few minutes ago from the acting ICE director, Todd Lyons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD LYONS, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: Yes, literally, as I was coming here, we were notified that there were shots fired at our Dallas field office. Right now, preliminary information is a possible sniper. We have three individuals that are down at this time. We're not sure on their condition. They've been taken to the hospital.

We're hearing some reports that the shooter may be down from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The scene is secure. You know, obviously right now my hearts and prayers are going out to my officers and agents. That's my biggest concern. And as well as everyone in that area. But this just shows the violence that's being increased against ICE officers and agents.

This is the second time now we've had a shooting at one of our facilities in the Dallas area. And really it's -- it's -- it's-- it's just a sad time that we have to worry about violence against law enforcement.

BERMAN: So, you're hearing -- the reports you're hearing at this point are coming from inside your -- your offices in Dallas at ICE? You're hearing directly from them?

LYONS: Yes, we're hearing directly from the leadership on the ground there. The building is on lockdown. The building's secure. Initial reports are that our, you know, our officers are accounted for, but there are three individuals that are shot.

BERMAN: Are they -- are the three individuals ICE employees?

LYONS: We're still working on that right now. Obviously, it's really chaotic. The Dallas Police Department has been great. They're on scene. There's a large police presence there right now. You know, it could be employees. It could be civilians that were visiting the facility. It could be detainees. At this point, we're still working through that.

We do know that three have definitely been shot. They're in route to the hospital right now. We had great support from locals on the ground that are helping us look for the active shooter. And like I said, right before I just walked on set, I got word that the shooter is down from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: And then a few minutes after we heard from the deputy -- the acting director, I should say, Todd Lyons, Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, did say the shooter is dead.

Let's get more on this breaking news. I want to go to Priscilla Alvarez in Washington for the latest on your hearing.

Any updates on the condition or identity of the people hurt?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, we're learning more from two law enforcement officials that are familiar with the incident. And what they tell CNN is that at least two of those who were shot were detainees.

[09:05:05]

You heard there from the acting ICE director that while they were trying to still gather details as to who those victims were, it could be ICE employees, civilians visiting the facility or detainees who are held at that ICE facility. And what we are being told right now is that at least two detainees were shot in this -- in this incident.

Now, I will also read you what the Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, said in a post on X that you referenced earlier, but to read it in full. She confirms that there was a shooting at this Dallas ICE detention facility and that "the shooter is deceased by a self- inflicted gunshot wound." She goes on to say that, "while we don't know motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them. It must stop. Please pray for the victims and their families."

Now, the administration has been talking about this at length, the increased attacks and assaults on ICE agents and on their facilities, something that has also happened in recent years, including during the first Trump administration, but they say has ramped up, particularly over the last few months.

Now, we do not know the motive of the shooter, as the Homeland Security secretary said, but we have some sense as to what transpired here from what the acting ICE director said from his own preliminary reports, which was that the shooter appeared to be shooting inside the facility, which would explain, at least from what we know so far, why two detainees were among those who were shot.

Again, John, these are facilities all over the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has many of them in multiple cities where they hold detainees. Now, detainees can also have civilians who visit them, family, for example. So, when the acting ICE director was saying that they were trying to nail down who exactly was shot, that's why he mentioned civilians. There's ICE employees who work at the facility, civilians, as well as -- as detainees there.

So, we're still gathering more details as to what exactly unfolded here. We know from the -- from what acting ICE Director Lyons said earlier that these, the victims were taken to the hospital. So, we're continuing to gather information there. But the newest, the latest that we have is that at least two of those

who were shot were detainees who were at the facility.

BERMAN: That's a very interesting update with some, you know, potential implications. I want to thank you very much, Priscilla, for all that. We'll let you get back to reporting on it.

SIDNER: And let's bring in CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe, and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

OK, you're just getting this news, as we all are at the same time, that there are two people who turned out to be detainees who were shot. There is another person that has also been shot. And they're using the word, a "possible sniper."

First to you, Andrew. When you hear this combination of things, what do you think as a law -- a former law enforcement, you know, when you look at something like this and you hear those -- that combination of things as to what might have happened, who this might -- might potentially be, and what there might be as a -- as a motive?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I think who this is and what their motive is, that is -- that's pretty -- those are probably beyond the reach of the facts that we have at the moment. But the fairly consistent references in the reporting that's out there so far and what the ICE officials said on -- on your air, it -- the references to this person being a sniper, I mean, that is in the least case someone who is -- who has taken a -- an advantageous shooting position, a position of cover where they believe they can deliver lethal fire in a hidden kind of place, and by definition you're talking about someone who has put a significant amount of planning and forethought into an attack like this. You don't just wake up on a Wednesday morning and decide you're going to go shoot at an ICE office from the roof of a building across the street or next door, or something like that.

So, this is -- this clearly is a premeditated, planned attack by someone with likely -- we don't know this for -- we haven't confirmed this, but likely a long gun. You're not going to, you know, have a successful sniper effort with a handheld weapon, a pistol or a revolver or something like that. So, it's likely some sort of a rifle, a shoulder-fired weapon. And as I said, this is incredibly lethal because of the amount of forethought and preparation that goes into executing an attack like this.

I think it's also important to point out that, from the looks of this facility, I think it's unlikely that this is any sort of a long-term detention facility.

[09:10:01]

ICE has offices just like this in many, many places around the country. Sometimes they refer to them as field offices, sometimes just offices And they are places where immigrants are taken after they're taken into custody. They typically will go to an office like this where they are processed. That means you collect the information about them, whatever biographical information they have, or they can give you, and then decisions are made as to what's going to happen with those people, whether they'll be self-deport or deported quickly or have to go into a longer term detention, and then they're moved into larger, more secure facilities.

So, these kind of processing offices are in many, many, many neighborhoods around the country. And there are lots of immigrants in them right now. So, even though it's like -- looks like a regular suburban office park, this place might have a lot of people in there going through that processing. And so it's -- they can be an unstable place, especially in a time of attack. They're not exactly, you know, kind of up armored and hardened in the way that you would if you had a permanent, long term detention facility.

BOLDUAN: And, Juliette, I mean, you have to -- one would think that detention facilities and ICE facilities around the country, depending on where they are, they can -- the setup and the look and the security perimeter around it can be different. But from your experience working at DHS for as long as you did, what -- what do these facilities -- what do these facilities look like? Like, what would this person be coming upon when they came to clearly wreak havoc?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. So, just picking up on what Andrew said, it's exactly right, these are regional offices throughout the United States. Probably before the surge in detentions and deportations they were general (ph) office buildings. They would have been secured in terms of access point because of the -- the round just access to federal law enforcement. So, just like an FBI facility or something like that.

So, you're -- you're looking at a facility that looks like an office building. But in the last couple of months, it's served as sort of a detention facility as well. So, it is more porous, more dangerous, more dangerous for immigration officials.

Secretary Noem is exactly right. The -- this is -- this is an attack on a federal law enforcement agency. I don't care what the motive was. What matters is --

BERMAN: Juliette seems to be --

KAYYEM: A kind of violence --

BERMAN: I'm sorry, we're having a hard time with Juliette's connection there. We'll get that reestablished when we can.

Juliette was just talking about this being an attack on a -- on a federal agency, a federal building to be sure. And -- and potentially on federal agents, although that may be a little less clear now that we've learned that two of the victims, two of the people hurt, at least, and we don't know their condition, were detainees. And it's just -- we just don't know enough, Andy, as you pointed out, to speculate what that might mean. Because if you are a sniper and you have planned this and you do have a scope on your gun, it does raise the possibility that you could specifically target a detainee instead of, you know, targeting an ICE officer, if that was your intention. But I want to make clear, we just don't know.

MCCABE: That's absolutely right, John. And -- and I think what Juliette is saying is -- is -- is spot on as well. We -- we tend to immediately jump to motive because it tells us so much about the attack and why it happened and whether or not there might be another one. And that is all relevant and interesting. But really, the top line here is, this is an attack on law enforcement. It's an attack on federal government employees. It's an attack on people who are trying to do their job, as that job has been defined by the president of the United States.

So, whether you agree with the current immigration activity or not, that is irrelevant. These people should be able to do their jobs without having to worry about being shot by a sniper across the street.

And the same holds true for every person who comes into their custody. Every person who goes into that building, and many others across the country, they should be able to interact with DHS and have their moment of -- of -- of having to go through the system, whatever that might be. And there are so many things that they need to worry about in this time in their lives. This is -- this should not be one of them. So, the violent aspect, the expression of violence here, we don't know why it happened, but we know it did happen, absolutely unforgivable on any level.

SIDNER: Juliette, what might this mean going forward when, you're seeing sort of just the fever pitch of first protests in some places --

[09:15:06]

KAYYEM: Yes.

SIDNER: Where ICE is saying, look, we are being attacked, and you're seeing that play out, and then you have something like this. What does that mean for ICE and law enforcement going forward?

KAYYEM: Yes. So, there is a First Amendment right to criticize ICE enforcement activities, even at facilities. And that First Amendment right does not include violence, the threat of violence. And it certainly does not include what we're seeing this morning.

The motive matters, of course. It's going to give us some -- some transparency about -- about it. If it is someone who is criticizing ICE's conducts, it is -- it is -- it is, you know, I say the same word, whoever the assassin is, it is -- it is not the way a democracy asserts its criticism of policies.

Again, Secretary Noem is right. She does not know the motive yet either. But this kind of action just has to be condemned, full stop, from both sides of the aisle. And I think you will see that, regardless of the motive, amongst those. So, it does, of course, create a more -- a defensive posture for ICE enforcement. It -- it, unfortunately, because I've been critical of the masking, it may give ICE a sort of more reason to continue their -- their failure to disclose themselves, which can lead to some of these interactions.

But I view this case as very, very different than the kind of interactions you're (INAUDIBLE) they take someone from their home and a neighborhood can -- can show unrest. This is premeditated. This was -- we don't know if it's exactly a sniper, but it's someone who knew the facility. It is -- it is not -- there's no if, ands or buts here. There's no -- there is a period at the end of the sentence. This is wholly unjustified in any way. And we are part of a culture now that views violence as an extension of political, passionate disagreements. I (INAUDIBLE) --

BOLDUAN: We're still having some difficulty with Juliette's connection.

KAYYEM: Not justify any action like this.

BOLDUAN: I'm sorry, Juliette, we're just going to jump in.

Juliette Kayyem, Andrew McCabe, thank you, guys. Stick with us. We're going to continue to follow this breaking news out of Dallas. A shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas. And now we know that at least two -- three people, we are told, were hit and two of them, at least two of them were detainees shot and taken to local hospitals. Their condition, their status, unclear at this moment.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:19]

SIDNER: "The Washington Post's" last remaining full-time black opinion writer is now weighing her legal options after she was fired over comments she made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Opinion writer Karen Attiah wrote about race, culture, international affairs and gender for 11 years at "The Post" until she wrote this on her social media the day Kirk was assassinated. Quote, "refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is not the same as violence," and "part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence."

Now, in a letter to "The Post," Attiah's attorney writes, "we do not yet know whether The Post took this blatant illegal action at the urging of administration officials, although there is ample reason to ask the question. We intend to investigate the alternative as well, whether this action was taken in bad faith out of fear that the administration would take or threaten to take some action against The Post."

Karen joins me now live alongside her attorney, Katie Phang.

Thank you both for being here.

Karen, I want to start with you. You know, for folks who -- who are not familiar with what happened

here, what reason did "The Washington Post" give you for firing you?

KAREN ATTIAH, FORMER GLOBAL OPINIONS EDITOR AT "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes. And thanks for -- for having me on, Sara.

In the letter, and as you said in your introduction, you know, I've been a writer, I've been an editor at "The Post" for 11 years. An opinion writer and an editor for 11 years. So, for me, I was just doing my job, commenting on race, the horrible, horrible shooting of Charlie Kirk, which, you know, I condemned.

But in response -- and in those posts got virtually no backlash, really. In response, I got a letter 12 hours or so later from "The Post" accusing me of gross misconduct. And then saying, well, that my sort of crime here was talking about white men in a disparaging manner, which anyone can see my blue sky post (ph), that was simply not the case. I was doing my job and describing broader patterns of political violence, which I've done for years, which so many other people were saying at the time.

[09:25:00]

And for me, you know, seeing this horrible, you know, murder of Charlie Kirk and reacting to the shootings of children in Colorado, I simply was commenting on data, facts about the demographics of mass shooters, about the demographics of political violence and extremism.

And basically for naming sort of the data or naming, you know, what the FBI or the DOJ has said about white men being statistically more likely to commit these acts of violence, I was punished by "The Post" for saying white men. And again, anyone who read my post, I didn't say all white men. I didn't even say most. I said very specifically violence white men, or those who espouse hatred and violence. So, it was very specific.

SIDNER: So, I guess the question is, were you directly referring to Charlie Kirk at the time, as you were writing that, because you did have some comments about Charlie Kirk's disparaging of -- of black women on that day?

ATTIAH: So, very -- right. Right. So, actually, you know, again, as a journalist, I've been trained, when there's breaking news, there's a lot of sort of misinformation and -- and sort of false accusations. We didn't know who the shooter was at that time. There was a lot that we didn't know. So, my training tells me to actually stay away from trying to sort of be specific.

So, I actually was lamenting generally about America. Generally, as I said before, there was another shooting that happened in Colorado where children were killed. So, I actually -- my commentary was not so much about Kirk, it was actually about America that has this political violence problem, that has this gun violence problem. And I actually was commenting on our sort of empty rhetoric in response to these things. So, the sort of thoughts and prayers, or, this is not who we are, political violence has no place here, it simply -- it shouldn't have a place here. But the reality is, it does. And we continue to not do anything about this problem.

So, I actually -- that quote about normalizing violence, particularly when it is a white man who commits or espouses violence, is actually not in response to Kirk, it was actually, if people scroll up in the thread, it was actually talking about the assassinations of Melissa Hortman in Minnesota, where America, we saw her and her husband get killed, her dog get killed, and we shrugged and we moved on. And part of it is that sort of shrugging, the coddling. That shooter in the Minnesota case was also a white man. So, I was being descriptive of facts, not disparaging, right? I was talking broadly, particularly because we didn't have all the facts in the Kirk case, and particularly because Kirk was a, to put it mildly, a divisive figure.

So, for me, I'm still stunned at "The Post's" accusations that it was -- this was fireable for doing a job, not only that I had always done, but exercising as much objectivity and restraint, even as uncomfortable as it may be to hear for people, as I could and should have done in a moment like that.

SIDNER: Katie, let me ask you, because you're here in the capacity as her, as her attorney.

KATIE PHANG, CO-COUNSEL FOR FIRED "WASHINGTON POST" OPINIONS COLUMNIST KAREN ATTIAH: Sure.

SIDNER: Formerly an anchor on MSNBC. You're well versed in the First Amendment, that it protects people from the government squashing free speech, but it does not prevent private companies from restricting employee's speech.

What are the legal issues that you are looking into on behalf of Karen that you think may have been violated here?

PHANG: Yes, Sara, thanks for framing it in that way, because that's a really important point.

I just want to, out of the gate, say the following. We've just seen the result of a powerful campaign by the American people to fight back against the suppression of free speech. And I, along with my colleagues at Democracy Defenders Fund, we're also fighting back. We're fighting back against a campaign of intimidation and oppression of free speech.

There's a collective bargaining agreement that governs any terminations that happen at "The Washington Post." And, Sara, there's a standard there. And it has to be for good cause or just cause.

There is no cause here when it comes to what happened to Karen. She was expressing her opinion in her capacity and job as an opinion writer for "The Washington Post" when she shared those thoughts on social media, which she had done numerous times before. And she did it about the state of America post death of Charlie Kirk. The collective bargaining agreement has a grievance process which is already being pursued, but it also does not preclude litigation. It is not a coincidence, Sara, that Karen was the last black female full time opinion writer at "The Washington Post." [09:30:05]

When we see the president of the United States, in his campaign of intimidation, silence.