2025 shooting of Texas Border Patrol officers

On July 7, 2025, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) station in McAllen, Texas, United States, was attacked by a gunman. The perpetrator, 27-year-old Ryan Louis Mosqueda, wounded a McAllen police officer before he was fatally shot by Border Patrol officers and local police. Two people, an officer and a border patrol employee, were injured by shattered glass.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The main function of the agency is to prevent the illicit movement of weapons, drugs, contraband, and people into the United States.^[1] The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a federal law enforcement agency under the jurisdiction of the CBP. The USBP is specifically responsible for patrolling the United States' land borders with Mexico and Canada as well as the coastal waters around Florida and Puerto Rico.^[2]

At the time of the attack, the United States was in the midst of protests and unrest in response to the deportation policies of president Donald Trump.^[3] While the actions of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been a main focus of the protests, the CBP and USBP have been participants in the response to the protests and the enforcement of Trump's immigration policies.^[4][5]

On July 4, 2025, an Alvarado Police Department officer was shot in the neck outside the ICE-run Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas during a "coordinated attack" in which at least eleven were charged in connection to an incident in which fireworks were set off outside the facility before two or three of the individuals began tagging vehicles and a guard structure with graffiti. Two unarmed corrections officers confronted them, and around the same time, an Alvarado Police Department officer who was responding to the incident arrived in the parking lot of the facility, and after getting out of the vehicle, he was fired upon from the woods and struck in the neck. Another person also opened fire on the corrections officers from the woods, but they escaped uninjured.^[6]

At approximately 6:00 am, Ryan Louis Mosqueda arrived at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in McAllen, Texas, driving a white vehicle with spray paint writing on it. Upon arriving at the station, Mosqueda opened fire at the entrance with an assault rifle, prompting Border Patrol and local McAllen Police Department officers to return fire, killing him.

During the attack, a McAllen Police Department officer, Ismael Garcia, was shot in the knee, but no one else was directly injured by Mosqueda. A Border Patrol officer and a Border Patrol employee were injured by shards of glass that were sent flying through the air during the shooting.^[7][8][9]

The perpetrator in the attack was identified as 27-year-old Michigan resident Ryan Louis Mosqueda. Mosqueda had been reported missing in the nearby town of Weslaco by his father, Jose Mosqueda, shortly before 4:00 am. Jose reported Ryan missing after he was stopped for a traffic violation by a Weslaco Police Department officer and told police that he was searching for his son and had last seen him at around 2:30 am. Jose claimed that his son had a "mental deficiency", but that he was not on any medication, and told officers that Ryan had weapons in his vehicle.^[8][10]

Mosqueda's last known address was in Ludington, Michigan and drove a Chevrolet passenger car with a Michigan license plate, but he had ties to Weslaco.^[8][11] Mosqueda also had no known criminal record and his vehicle had the Latin phrase "Cordis die" painted on it in spray paint, which White House Border Czar Tom Homan linked to the fictional Call of Duty: Black Ops II revolutionary group of the same name.^[12] Mosqueda's motive for carrying out the attack is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[13]

In a DHS press release, the agency criticized lawmakers who "continue to vilify and attack law enforcement" and referenced an Axios article in which the news website interviewed Democratic House of Representatives members about their base's dissatisfaction with their anti-Trump resistance and included the quote, "Our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough ... [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public" from the article in the press release.^[9][14] Border Patrol chief Mike Banks praised the reaction of his officers, saying that "they defended themselves bravely, they handled the situation very well" and that agents were being diverted from their regular duties to provide security and deter further attacks.^[15]

In a press conference after the shooting, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called on Democratic politicians to "tone down their rhetoric" against ICE and Border Patrol agents after the shooting in response to a question about congresswoman Pramila Jayapal saying she gets "inspired when activists obstruct ICE".^[16] Two days after the attack, the White House released a statement in which it blamed Democratic politicians for inciting the McAllen attack, the Alvarado attack, and an assault of federal officers outside an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon.^[17]