‘Clouded in mystery': how Ice became a rogue agency that does Trump's bidding

The Guardian

10 hours ago

Across the US, group chats and community threads have started spiking with warnings. Not just the typical alerts about traffic or out of service subway stations, but where and when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raid was last seen. What places to avoid. What the plainclothes agents might look like.
'Hey all,' a Brooklyn, New York, resident wrote in a closed chat with neighbors last week. 'A little birdie just told me ICE is out.'
Another person quickly followed suit.
'The witness says they saw 3 people picked up by 2 agents with ICE on their vests,' they said, with details on where the location of the arrests occurred and what the undercover vehicles looked like. 'If anyone sees any ICE agents or activity you can drop a description at this link for local rapid-response folks.'
These kinds of exchanges are commonplace now in in America. There have been Ice raids under previous administrations, but it's notable that an American law enforcement agency has struck such a successful campaign of measurable, national fear.
Border crossings are at historic lows. Fans are avoiding an international soccer tournament featuring the world's biggest clubs and global superstars, in fear of Ice agents. Taco truck workers are being arrested. Some farms are so short on field hands that crops are rotting in the sun.
Even a four-year-old child and lawful US citizen with cancer was deported to Honduras along with their family. In an appearance on CBS News, Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, showed indifference to the case.
'When you enter the country illegally and you know you're here illegally and you choose to have a US citizen child,' he said, justifying the deportation of a young cancer patient, 'that's on you, that's not on this administration.'
In the public consciousness, Ice has become defined as Trump's personal rogue agency doing his bidding regardless of accepted norms and laws. They have become a kind of domestic enforcer for Maga's agenda, rounding up 'illegals' and deporting what they say are criminals to El Salvador, to face justice in a place without trials. When Trump promised 'retribution' in the lead-up to his second presidency, activists say these are now the soldiers carrying it out.
Many people have wondered, is this DHS and Ice mandate even legal? Answers to that are varied, aspects of which are being argued over in courts, but in theory, the marriage of a national police force with local policing should have boundaries.
'So long as Ice, DHS and other federal agencies define their missions narrowly on immigration matters, local police can and should remain separate,' said the Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan.
'But as we saw in [Los Angeles], these boundaries become blurry when civilians gather to protest and raise issues that spill over to the public safety mission of local police.'
Protests over mass Ice roundups in LA, led to Trump sending 4,000 national guard troops (against the wishes of the state) and deploying 700 active-duty marines. California has taken the Trump administration to court over what it sees as the unlawful deployment of the national guard to counter protests even the Los Angeles police department characterized as mostly under control.
'The concerns that animated the protest of federal actions inevitably will spill over to local police when demonstrations take place,' said Fagan. 'Keeping them separate will become increasingly difficult as the federal immigration campaign grows wider and deeper.'
If Ice isn't carrying out the arrests, their actions have undoubtedly spread chaos and unprecedented uses of state power. In late April, the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judge for obstructing immigration authorities arresting a man in her courthouse.
Facing up against Ice has equally become a Democratic and leftwing rallying cry and all over the US, opposition to the raids have grown from the grassroots. Some polls show the deportations have become a toxic circus for Trump and the Republican party. Rival politicians have also seized the moment to showcase their resistance: the California senator Alex Padilla was arrested and cuffed while trying to question the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, at a news conference. In another dystopian scene at an immigration court, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, Brad Lander, was brazenly arrested by masked agents who hauled him away.
'I don't know of any publicly available information on who exactly these masked men are,' said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, who teaches a course at the University of Southern California on policing.
'We know that agents from the IRS and other executive departments have been reassigned to this work, but it is all a bit mysterious.'
Beirich continued: 'The fact that they won't identify themselves in many cases that have been reported on makes this all the more ominous. It's part of Trump's authoritarian playbook to have people arrested by agents who don't give their names or their agencies and just swoop people off the street into unmarked vehicles.'
Dictatorships around the world and countries with major corruption problems often have masked police who protect their identities from the public purview. For example, in Vladimir Putin's Russia, a country and leader admired by Trump, masked police are a regular fixture. Now, Ice have adopted the tactic on the streets of the US.
DHS propaganda has also become weaponized as a tool of the administration, breeding fear and promoting ratlines. In a reference to second world war posters asking citizens to keep watch for, what was at the time, a real threat of enemy spies in the country, DHS posted a similar image on X.
'Help your country locate and arrest illegal aliens,' the agency posted, with a caricature of Uncle Sam and a DHS number to call in sightings.
Beirich says the blurred lines between what is either a federal law enforcement agency or Trump's own private armed force, is now tough to discern for some.
'Clearly, Ice and DHS have become much more ominous and clouded in mystery, and clearly weapons for the Trump regime to violate rights and literally disappear people,' she said.