Report: Dozens of ICE and CBP Agents Have Abused Women and Children ⁠46%

By Sophie Hurwitz⁠63%

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

BS Summary: This article contains 12 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Negativity Bias, and Indoctrination, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 15.4% saturation with 85 hits. Analysis detected 495 faulty-reasoning hits from 551 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.1% and a BS Rank of ⁠46% (11,879 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 54.30% 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: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 6.2%Mother Jones: 4.0%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 5.6%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.1%Mother Jones: 0.7%Anchoring Bias5.6%This article: 14.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 4.7%Mother Jones: 3.3%Availability Heuristic14.2%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.9%Mother Jones: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 5.8%Sophie Hurwitz: 9.4%Mother Jones: 7.2%Framing Effect5.8%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.6%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.6%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: 1.4%Mother Jones: 1.6%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 4.2%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.5%Mother Jones: 1.9%Pessimism Bias4.2%This article: 12.9%Sophie Hurwitz: 13.0%Mother Jones: 9.6%Negativity Bias12.9%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.4%Mother Jones: 0.8%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.7%Mother Jones: 1.0%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.5%Mother Jones: 1.0%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 5.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.4%Mother Jones: 0.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias5.4%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 1.5%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%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: 5.8%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.0%Mother Jones: 1.1%Recency Bias5.8%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.7%Mother Jones: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 5.8%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.6%Mother Jones: 1.9%Ad Hominem5.8%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.6%Mother Jones: 0.6%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 3.1%Mother Jones: 3.6%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 2.9%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.4%False Dilemma2.9%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 1.7%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 15.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 7.9%Mother Jones: 4.7%Hasty Generalization15.4%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.5%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 9.9%Mother Jones: 6.4%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.6%Mother Jones: 1.1%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.4%Mother Jones: 2.1%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 0.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 5.4%Mother Jones: 2.3%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.7%Mother Jones: 1.4%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: 0.0%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: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.7%Mother Jones: 1.8%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 3.4%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.8%Mother Jones: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection3.4%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 9.6%Mother Jones: 9.2%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 8.3%Sophie Hurwitz: 2.0%Mother Jones: 1.8%Indoctrination8.3%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 4.9%Mother Jones: 4.5%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 1.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sophie Hurwitz: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

551 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers22%attributed speech429writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageLynn Tramonte • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageDepartment of Homeland Security • 28 words • 0.0% coverageDepartment of Homeland Security • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 0.0% coverageLynn Tramonte • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 33 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageLynn Tramonte • 30 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 0.0% coverageLynn Tramonte • 16 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Lynn Tramonte

85%flagged-word coverage
81 attributed words66% of attributed speech61% writer coverage
0%30.0%60.0%Indoctrination+56.8 ptsWriter: 0.0%Lynn Tramonte: 56.8%56.8%Quote-first Misdirection-4.4 ptsWriter: 4.4%Lynn Tramonte: 0.0%0.0%

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

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

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