New Jersey manhunt after driver allegedly hits ICE agent with car

Authorities in Ocean County were searching Monday for a driver who allegedly struck a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent with a vehicle and fled after agents tried to apprehend a suspect in Stafford Township. The confrontation unfolded at about 9:30 a.m. on Route 72 near Mermaid Drive in the Manahawkin section, where a substantial law-enforcement response closed in around the roadway and evidence markers were later visible at the scene.

Stafford Township police said ICE was attempting to detain a suspect when that person fled in a vehicle, hit the agent and drove away. Police said the agent then fired his weapon at the fleeing vehicle and reportedly struck it. By the time authorities described the incident, the suspect had not been located, and it was not clear whether the suspect was injured.

The ICE agent also sustained injuries, though the extent was not immediately known. Police said they were not assisting in the ICE operation itself and were only handling traffic control and securing the scene while the investigation proceeded. They also said there was no reason to believe the public was in danger, a detail meant to calm nearby drivers as officers directed traffic away from the stretch of Route 72.

The episode lands in New Jersey at a time when immigration enforcement has been under intense scrutiny and has drawn repeated protests elsewhere in the state. In Newark, confrontations outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility have become a recurring flashpoint, with demonstrators and police clashing during earlier rounds of enforcement activity. Monday’s incident in Stafford Township added another high-profile case to that climate, placing the risks faced by federal agents, the speed of local police response, and the broader public unease around ICE operations in the same frame.