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Inset: Robert King (Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office). Background: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gives a joint press conference with Colombian Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia after signing a Biometric Data Sharing Program Letter of Intent in Bogota, Columbia, Thursday, March 27, 2025 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A North Texas man is behind bars for allegedly threatening federal immigration officials on social media — including Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem.
Robert King, 35, stands accused of one count of making terroristic threats causing the impairment or interruption of public services, according to Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office records.
The arrest was announced on Wednesday in a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the Dallas branch of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the major investigative branch of DHS, which often works closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Robert King, a U.S. citizen was recently taken into custody in McKinney, Texas for making terroristic threats against ICE agents and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem,” the post reads. “King’s alarming social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire’ if agents are seen in his neighborhood.”
In the accompanying photo, King is shown handcuffed next to a number of local, state, and federal law enforcement agents. The defendant’s face is visible in the photo provided by the agency while the agents’ faces appear to be blurred using photo-editing software.
A DHS spokesperson shared some of the offending social media posts with Fort Worth-based NBC affiliate KXAS and Newsweek.
“I truly hope, and I mean this with all my heart, that Kristi Noem meets a horrible and agonizing demise I hope she is tried in a war criminal court with the rest of the Nazis when this is all over and I hope she is ripped apart in a gulag,” the defendant allegedly wrote on Facebook. “Nothing less for a Nazi scum. This is America now a Nazi fascist state. Disgusting.”
Robert King, second from right, stands handcuffed in McKinney, Texas on April 2, 2025 (HSI Dallas).
Another such post implored people to shoot ICE agents.
“If I see ICE agents in my neighborhood, I am opening fire,” King allegedly wrote on Facebook. “It’s time to stop being p — and put the second amendment to work. ICE are not real cops, they are a secret police force with no real legal authority. Kill them.”
King’s arrest comes days after Noem took issue with another social media user who allegedly advised people to use firearms against plainclothes ICE agents under the legal rationale of “self-defense.”
“Shoot at ICE agents on sight,” an unidentified man in a since-removed TikTok video said. “That’s right. If ICE agents are trying to take you or a loved one, shoot them on sight.”
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Noem, in turn, quoted the TikTok video on X and wrote: “If you threaten or attempt to harm a law enforcement officer we will find you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
King is currently being detained in the Kaufman County Jail on $7,500 bond. Additional details about his case were not immediately available.
Law&Crime reached out to both the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security for more information on this story but no responses were immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.