Report: Dozens of ICE and CBP Agents Have Abused Women and Children ⁠61%

By Sophie Hurwitz⁠72%

7/24/2026, 8:59:28 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Availability Heuristic, and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 27.6% saturation with 152 hits. Analysis detected 1,224 faulty-reasoning hits from 551 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠61% (11,495 of 28,846 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 60.20% of the article peer group.

This week, we published an investigation into David Brouillette , the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who reportedly killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine earlier this month. 
That investigation revealed a long history of alleged violence against Brouillette’s ex-wives and children. 
“To be honest, I was surprised anyone would give that man a gun,” a former friend said of Brouillette. 
On July 22, the advocacy group Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 active and former ICE and CBP agents charged with sexual and violent crimes between 2007 and 2026. 
Brouillette is no outlier, said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of the report. 
“But we have no way of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t even look at family court records.” 
A federal employment website states that “all personnel employed by ICE are mandated to undergo a comprehensive background investigation.” 
When asked for comment on the Ohio Immigrant Alliance report, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said “We take allegations regarding misconduct seriously and cherish the public’s trust. 
We work tirelessly to uphold the rule of law and hold ourselves accountable.” 
Fifty of 59 cases the group documented were sex crimes, many of them committed against children. 
And the problem, according to their research, is getting worse: “Cases documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4 percent of the list — 25 out of 59 cases,” Tramonte wrote. 
“Compare that to 2020, the previous peak year, which had just 6.” 
In May 2026, a federal employee who conducted background checks for Department of Homeland Security agents during the Twin Cities ICE crackdown was sentenced for solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. 
In a similar case, two decades earlier, the man in charge of “Operation Predator”—an ICE program focused on deporting individuals accused of sex crimes—was found guilty of indecent exposure to a minor. 
He lost his job, but reportedly kept his pension . 
This is not the first report alleging systemic sexual abuse by ICE and Border Patrol agents. 
In May of this year, the Southern Border Communities Coalition and journalist John Carlos Frey compiled a list of over 170 instances of sexual violence by immigration agents over the past 50 years. 
Here at Mother Jones , journalist Erin Siegal McIntyre investigated one alleged rape at the Border Patrol Academy in 2024. 
The officer involved is still listed as a union representative on a National Border Patrol Council website. 
The federal immigration policing force now includes about 50,000 agents spanning ICE, CBP, and other law enforcement agencies. 
And after ICE’s internal watchdog office was gutted, they’re operating with few guardrails and near-unlimited resources. 
“ICE and Border Patrol agents have a disturbing track record of sexually and violently abusing women and children, including members of their own families,” said Tramonte of Ohio Immigrant Alliance. 
In her report, she calls on the federal government to freeze the immigration enforcement budget—which is now sitting at about $152 billion , according to the Senate Budget Committee. 
“These are not people who should be given guns and free rein to roam U.S. communities.” 
This story has been updated to include a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 16.7%Sophie Hurwitz: 4.5%Mother Jones: 3.7%Confirmation Bias16.7%This article: 2.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.7%Mother Jones: 0.6%Anchoring Bias2.2%This article: 20.7%Sophie Hurwitz: 3.8%Mother Jones: 2.9%Availability Heuristic20.7%This article: 6.7%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic6.7%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.7%Mother Jones: 0.6%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 1.1%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 2.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 7.2%Mother Jones: 6.2%Framing Effect2.2%This article: 7.1%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.6%Loss Aversion7.1%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.5%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 1.3%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 11.1%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.4%Mother Jones: 1.7%Pessimism Bias11.1%This article: 27.6%Sophie Hurwitz: 10.9%Mother Jones: 8.4%Negativity Bias27.6%This article: 7.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.3%Mother Jones: 0.8%Self-Serving Bias7.4%This article: 3.1%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.0%Fundamental Attribution Error3.1%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.6%Mother Jones: 0.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.9%Mother Jones: 1.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.5%Mother Jones: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 11.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.8%Mother Jones: 1.0%Recency Bias11.4%This article: 2.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.5%Mother Jones: 0.3%Primacy Effect2.2%This article: 4.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias4.2%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.0%Mother Jones: 1.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 0.5%Straw Man0.0%This article: 8.5%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.3%Mother Jones: 3.0%Appeal to Authority8.5%This article: 2.9%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 1.3%False Dilemma2.9%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 1.5%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 19.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 6.2%Mother Jones: 4.3%Hasty Generalization19.2%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.5%Mother Jones: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 6.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.5%Bandwagon6.0%This article: 5.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 7.7%Mother Jones: 5.9%Appeal to Emotion5.4%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.0%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 8.7%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.6%Mother Jones: 2.0%Post Hoc (False Cause)8.7%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 5.3%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.5%Burden of Proof5.3%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 24.5%Sophie Hurwitz: 4.3%Mother Jones: 2.2%Anecdotal24.5%This article: 2.9%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%No True Scotsman2.9%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.2%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 10.9%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.3%Mother Jones: 1.5%Unattributed Quote10.9%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.2%Mother Jones: 1.3%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 6.9%Mother Jones: 7.5%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 5.3%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.5%Mother Jones: 1.5%Indoctrination5.3%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 3.7%Mother Jones: 3.8%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.6%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

551 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers35%attributed speech359writer words
Selected voice

Lynn Tramonte

100%flagged-word coverage
161 attributed words84% of attributed speech96% writer coverage
0%10.0%20.0%Indoctrination+18.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Lynn Tramonte: 18.0%18.0%Unattributed Quote-16.7 ptsWriter: 16.7%Lynn Tramonte: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.