An ICE officer was struck by a van and hospitalized Monday morning after a Peruvian illegal immigrant allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon during a targeted enforcement stop on Route 72 in Manahawkin, New Jersey, then sped away before agents could take him into custody.

Friedrich Castillo-Ormeno, whom officials identified as an illegal immigrant from Peru who had already been ordered deported, remained at large early Monday evening. The ICE officer who was hit opened fire on the fleeing van. Authorities shut down Route 72 in both directions as they searched for the vehicle and its driver.

The confrontation is the latest in a staggering surge of vehicle attacks against immigration agents. DHS data provided to the New York Post showed agents reported 66 such attacks between January 21, 2025, and January 7, 2026, compared to just two during the same period in 2024. That amounts to a rise of more than 3,300 percent.

What happened on Route 72

ICE said immigration officers attempted to pull over and arrest Castillo-Ormeno around 9:30 a.m. near Mermaid Drive in Manahawkin, a community in Stafford Township. An ICE spokesperson described the operation as a "targeted vehicle stop", standard enforcement language for a planned apprehension based on a known subject's location.

What followed was anything but routine.

The spokesperson told the New York Post:

"ICE law enforcement officers attempted to conduct a vehicle stop. The driver then weaponized his vehicle and struck an officer resulting in the officer discharging his weapon."

Witnesses told reporters the fleeing vehicle was a white van. Breitbart reported that witnesses said the van struck the ICE officer before the agent fired, shattering the back window. NBC Philadelphia separately reported the van's rear window may have been blown out when the agent discharged his weapon.

Local police arrived and administered first aid to the injured officer. Stafford Township police wrote that officers "facilitated his transport for further treatment." The agent was taken to an area hospital. His name has not been released, and his medical condition remained unclear Monday evening.

Aerial footage from the scene showed about two dozen ICE agents in tactical gear deployed along Route 72 as the search unfolded.

A deportation order already on the books

Castillo-Ormeno was not some unknown figure to federal immigration authorities. Officials said an immigration judge ordered him removed from the country in a January 30 order. He had been released into the United States under the Biden administration, though the specific circumstances and date of that release were not detailed.

In other words, this was a man the system had already processed, already adjudicated, and already ordered out of the country. He was still here. And when officers finally caught up with him, he allegedly turned his van into a weapon.

The FBI is now investigating the incident, Newsmax reported. As of Monday evening, no charges against Castillo-Ormeno had been publicly announced, and he had not been located.

A pattern federal officials say is getting worse

The Manahawkin incident did not happen in a vacuum. Federal officials have pointed to a sharp and dangerous escalation in violence against ICE personnel since the start of President Trump's second term, as enforcement operations have ramped up across the country.

An ICE spokesperson framed the problem bluntly:

"There is a pattern of vehicle attacks against our officers."

The numbers back that claim. The DHS data covering January 21, 2025, through January 7, 2026, documented 66 attacks on agents, a figure that dwarfs the two attacks reported during the comparable window in 2024. Federal officials blamed the surge on what they called "radical rhetoric from sanctuary politicians."

That accusation cuts to a real tension. As ICE has expanded enforcement under the current administration, elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions have intensified their opposition, publicly refusing cooperation, warning communities about planned operations, and casting immigration agents as threats rather than law enforcement officers doing their jobs. Whether or not that rhetoric directly causes someone to ram a van into a federal agent, the climate it creates is not lost on the men and women conducting these stops.

The cost of non-enforcement

Castillo-Ormeno's case illustrates a familiar and maddening pattern. An illegal immigrant enters the country. He is released, in this case, under the prior administration. A judge orders him deported. The order goes unenforced or unexecuted. And when agents finally move to carry it out, the encounter turns violent.

Every link in that chain represents a failure. The initial release. The gap between the deportation order and its execution. The environment in which a suspect apparently calculates that fleeing, and striking a federal officer with a vehicle, is preferable to compliance.

None of this is theoretical. An ICE agent is in a hospital bed. A fugitive with a deportation order is driving a white van somewhere in New Jersey. Route 72 was shut down in both directions while families and commuters waited.

Open questions

Several facts remain unclear. Authorities have not disclosed the full extent of the ICE officer's injuries. No charges against Castillo-Ormeno have been publicly announced. The precise circumstances of his original release into the country under the Biden administration have not been detailed. And it is unknown whether Castillo-Ormeno was struck by the agent's gunfire.

Stafford Township police noted in their statement that "it is unknown if the suspect was injured at this time."

What is known is that a man who had every legal reason to be gone from this country was still here, and that the agent who tried to enforce that fact paid for it with his safety.

Deportation orders mean nothing if no one carries them out. And when the people tasked with enforcing them face vehicles used as weapons, the cost of years of lax enforcement stops being abstract and starts being measured in hospital visits.