The Department of Homeland Security is warning employees of an increased level of threat to their safety with a series of violent acts taken against them and their children due to the current debate over immigration policy.
In a letter sent to employees, the department said there is a “heightened threat against DHS employees,” according to ABC Radio.
“This assessment is based on specific and credible threats that have been levied against certain DHS employees and a sharp increase in the overall number of general threats against DHS employees,” Claire Grady, acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, said in the letter.
Threats seem to have advanced well beyond mere talk. The department reported that one official living in Washington, D.C., found a decapitated and burnt animal carcass on his porch.
The threats come as some elected Democrat officials have engaged in extreme rhetoric against those with whom they disagree politically.
California Democrat Maxine Waters, for instance, urged followers to attack Trump administration officials and their children at their homes and public places like restaurants.
Democrat acolytes seem to have taken such suggestions to heart and have stepped up pressure on Republicans in a multitude of venues, including in private life. In the last few days, Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service in a Virginia restaurant, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was chased out of a D.C. Mexican restaurant, and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was harassed in a Movie theater.
Last year a Democrat operative who had worked for Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went on a shooting rampage at a Virginia baseball park in an effort to kill Republican members of Congress. Several were wounded, including House Majority Whip, Republican Steve Scalise, who has been seriously and permanently crippled by the wounds.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.