The Dangers of ICE Expansion

There is a lot to say about the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is now the One Big Beautiful Bill law after cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump signed it. While the law is far from beautiful, it is indeed big. It will take years to understand its full impact. Democrats and Republicans alike have been expressing surprise about changes to how gambling losses can be deducted from taxes. Apparently, most didn't know the provision was included in the OBBB, and many are having regrets about the change. But that is a small change compared to the impact the law will have on the availability of healthcare coverage and electricity rates. The fact that the law contains tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations is probably well known. But the law also provides massive benefits to Trump's deportation efforts. The law contains $178 billion in immigration enforcement funding over the next decade, most of it going to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. This is going to remake law enforcement in the United States in ways of which most Americans have no idea.

Catherine Rampell had an article in the Washington Post on Tuesday that attempted to spread some light on these forthcoming changes. As Rampell notes, this is not simply about border security, but rather the money is "largely for more detention centers and boots on the ground within the U.S. interior." In other words, ICE is going to build a network of detention camps and a massive law enforcement organization aimed at filling them. Moreover, the recent record of ICE shows that they are not generally detaining rapists, murders, or gang members. Even the vast majority of those renditioned to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center or CECOT had crime-free records. CBS News found that only 22% of those sent to CECOT had criminal records and that the "vast majority are for non-violent offenses like theft, shoplifting and trespassing." Keep in mind that the Trump administration has described this group as consisting of violent gang members. If these are the "worst of the worst" as the Trump administration would have it, imagine who is among those not considered dangerous? As Rampell says, "the administration is going after your family, neighbors and friends, regardless of how long they’ve been here, whether they present any ‘safety’ threat or how much they’ve contributed to their communities."

The ICE funding is simply astronomical. As Rampell notes, ICE's annual budget "will be larger than that for most other law enforcement agencies combined. This includes the FBI, Bureau of Prisons, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." The agency will have a larger staff than the FBI and a budget larger than most countries' militaries. ICE's budget will be larger than Israel's defense budget, if you can believe that.

One of the best analyses of the dangers of this level of funding for Trump's immigration enforcement efforts was written by Garrett Graff, an independent journalist who publishes, "Doomsday Scenario". His report was republished by Mother Jones. Graff describes four reasons that "we should be deeply fearful about what pouring $200 billion of combustible rocket fuel on our immigration enforcement will do to our country." The first concern cited by Graff is that ICE cannot effectively grow as fast as its new budget will fund. Law enforcement agencies are particularly difficult to expand without creating problems. As Graff says, "Hiring standards fall, training is cut short, field training officers end up being too inexperienced to do the right training, and supervisors are too green to know how to enforce policies and procedures well." While reading this part of his article, I was reminded of the Washington Metropolitan Police class of 1989 whose size then Mayor Marion Barry tried to increase by half. For those who have paid attention to crime and policing in DC since that time, this class was notorious for its problematic officers. Low and behold, further down in the article, Graff mentioned this as an example of the dangers of massive expansion. As he notes, there were "widespread corruption problems that took years to fix."

Graff's second concern is about exactly who will be hired in the hiring spree. As he mentions, ICE has developed an extremely negative stigma. Indeed, ICE officers almost universally hide their faces with masks, claiming a need to protect their identities. This masking, as well as their adornment in military-style outfits and weapons, has given them a particularly authoritarian appearance. Simply put, there is probably no law enforcement group hated as much as ICE right now. As Graff says, "normal" police officers will not want to be part of this environment. Instead, ICE will attract "applicants who are specifically attracted by the rough-em-up, masked secret police tactics, no-holds-barred lawlessness that ICE has pursued since January." Graff says that the recruitment pitch these days is aimed at those who are "excited to rough up abuelas, hog-tie the guy cutting the lawn down the street, or manhandle a member of Congress". This is exactly who ICE should not be hiring. Graff also warns that ICE’s adoption of "masked operations in unmarked vehicles with no clear law enforcement identification" — practices other law enforcement agencies avoid — is a "resounding indictment of the current leadership at ICE and a warning sign of what’s to come."

Graff's third warning is that the astronomical level of funding will change the fundamental balance of the rule of law and federal law enforcement. As Graff points out, the Department of Homeland Security already has more law enforcement officers than the Department of Justice. The new funding will result in DHS absolutely dominating the DOJ. Why this is important is that the two departments have very different recruitment and training standards, with DOJ's being much higher. Moreover, DOJ employees operate in an environment of Article III courts, meaning courts from the Judicial branch. As such, they have to be concerned with maintaining standards of evidence, respect for constitutional rights, and other issues that might cause a case to be tossed out if ignored. DHS, on the other hand, primarily works with Article I courts, which are simply administrative structures. DHS agents do not require a judicial warrant for an arrest, those they detain are presented to immigration courts which are part of the executive branch, and they are far less encumbered by what many might consider "normal" policing standards. To put it another way, whereas DOJ is expected to operate in an environment of checks and balances between branches of government, DHS is not. DHS is naturally more authoritarian and less willing to accept constraints on its activities.

The fourth and final point that Graff raises is perhaps the most concerning: the vast increase in spending will occur during the rule of an increasingly lawless administration. As Graff writes, "the courts are still battling over exactly what kind of due process the administration is required to provide before kidnapping you off the street and expelling you to a country where you may or may not have ever been in your life." One thing of which I was not aware until reading this article is that while funding for officers and detention facilities was massively increased by this bill, the number of immigration judges will only increase from 700 to 800. That is not even enough to address the current backlog of cases. Graff argues, convincingly in my view, that the fact that there is not a proportionate increase in the number of immigration judges "makes clear that the Trump administration, DHS, and DOJ have no intention of normal due process." Graff suggests that this should be considered in the context of recent declarations by Trump related to the TikTok ban in which Trump claimed that he can simply choose not to enforce any law that he does not like that touches on national security. We are heading towards a world in which DHS will have a network of massive detention camps, a huge army of thuggish agents charged with filling those camps, and a President who believes that he can simply ignore any law that stands in their way. The likelihood of abuse is so extreme that we must assume that it is actually an expected goal.

All of us have a tendency to ignore developments that don't directly impact us. We might assure ourselves that Trump is planning to deport criminals. But, in fact, the vast majority of those being detained and deported do not have criminal records. We can tell ourselves that Trump is only going after those who entered this country without authorization. Wrong again. Trump has created entirely new categories of immigrants who are threatened by deportation by changing the rules. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the U.S. legally under various programs, including Afghan allies who took huge personal risks to support U.S. military efforts, are being "undocumented" as Trump withdraws their authorizations. Trump is also attempting to deport legal permanent residents and even prioritizing the denaturalization of some U.S. citizens. But, even if you are still not convinced that you personally are threatened, consider a future in which masked, unidentified agents seize you off the street, send you to a remote detention facility, and then decide that you should be deported to South Sudan? Without due process, you will have no way to defend yourself in this process. But why would it happen to you? Who knows? Maybe you were misidentified, maybe the agent had an argument with his wife that morning and decided to take it out on you, maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? In a lawless society, there may not even be an explanation. An expanded, increasingly lawless ICE is a danger to us all.