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Dear Friends,
This has been a crazy week for me. We launched PAXIS on Monday, and as of this writing, we are almost 75% of the way to our $25,000 fundraising goal! So that’s been incredibly exciting. PAXIS is a real-time, know-your-rights mobile tool designed to help anyone navigate an encounter with ICE. Please help us make PAXIS a reality with a donation of any amount and/or by sharing the campaign with others. Thank you for all of your support!
On the other hand, I also had major surgery this week, and it really knocked me for a loop. So I’ve been laying low and recuperating these last few days. I hope you won’t mind this repost of our recent piece on ICE. Seems fitting this week.
My apologies for the low-activity week. I should be back to fighting shape by next week. Hopefully by then, we’ll have PAXIS up and running as well!
Gratefully,
Joe
The faceless ICE agent has quickly become symbolic of Donald Trump’s fascist Project 2025 agenda. Ominously, in the last few weeks, the Trump Administration has ramped up its recruitment drive to flood Immigration and Customs Enforcement with 10,000 more officers—a number made possible by Congress, which approved $75 billion in new funding for ICE this past summer, making it the largest law enforcement branch in the country by far. And unlike other federal workers, ICE agents worked through the government shutdown.
But who are these guys really? To answer that question, consider this: Trump has a goal of deporting one million people a year. One million. And he wants it done in a way that’s as performatively violent as possible. That takes not only big numbers, but a certain type of person—namely, thousands of unvetted, undertrained zealots with an authoritarian fetish, using the badge as a tool to push existing far-right agendas.
Let me be clear up front: I’m both a border hawk and a strong proponent of immigration, I believe there should be a secure border, and we should encourage as much legal immigration as we can. Do we need an agency that protects Americans by capturing and expelling violent, dangerous criminals who also happen to be undocumented immigrants? Absolutely. And I have nothing but respect for the agents who are doing their jobs in a professional manner with deference to the law. But anyone who’s been paying even a little bit of attention this year knows that’s only a fraction of what’s really going on in 2025.
As we’ve all seen, masked ICE agents, often in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles, are roving the country lawlessly, nabbing decent people—frequently without warrants—from courtrooms, churches, hospitals, and shopping center parking lots. They’re roughing up people who protest their behavior (or who just happen to be in their vicinity), and their “arrest first, ask questions later” approach not only openly violates the Constitution, it means innocent American citizens are getting caught up in their brutality too. And when they do get called out, by the media or concerned citizens, some have outright lied in a ham-fisted attempt to cover up their blatant violations of civil rights.
Trump has always focused on quantity over quality, so it’s no surprise that the administration is filling out the ICE ranks not with competent professionals but with unqualified and potentially dangerous individuals. And that means millions of Americans are under some level of threat because of our own federal government and its growing secret police force.
Unvetted, Undertrained, and Extreme
You’ve seen the commercials, right? $50,000 signing bonuses! Student loan forgiveness! Generous benefits! Get hired quickly! If you want to ramp up arrests, detentions, and deportations, you need to entice people. And it’s working. The Department of Homeland Security is tossing out job offers left and right, with reduced qualifications and minimal scrutiny of candidates. So the question is, what kind of people are they actually recruiting? What’s their experience? What do they stand for? We don’t know for certain, because there’s next to no transparency on the background checks being conducted on these recruits.
ICE has long had training issues, well before now, but at least agents were expected to maintain a minimal level of professionalism or face disciplinary procedures. That may still be true on paper, but in practice? Frankly, we don’t know. New recruits are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia. Caleb Vitello, who oversees training, says the required training has already been reduced by five weeks, and the agency is looking to cut it down even further. One way ICE training has been “streamlined”? By eliminating Spanish-language requirements. What a shock.
And then there’s those recruitment ads. A recent review shows that some feature imagery sympathetic to white nationalist groups. That’s right: ICE is pushing out posts, memes, and videos that literally appeal to far-right extremists, with themes that glorify violence and military-style aggression. Even its tip line tips a cap to white supremacy. The DHS isn’t just looking for people who need a paycheck, but for those seeking a platform to act on their racist, anti-immigrant, or violent ideologies with impunity. And folks like that are finding exactly what they’re looking for in ICE.
An ICE prosecutor in Texas was found to be running a private white nationalist group. There are multiple reports of ICE agents with ties to far-right militias. Hell, some of these guys were even at the January 6th insurrection. These aren’t one-off incidents. There’s a clear pattern here—ICE isn’t unintentionally but deliberately recruiting extremists. Think about that for a second: this is an agency tasked with enforcing the law. But they’re actively recruiting people who hate the very communities they’re supposed to work with.
The Militarization of ICE
But this isn’t really about law enforcement, and it’s not just about deporting hardcore criminals, who make up less than half of those who have been apprehended thus far. Some veteran ICE agents, who focus on serious crime, such as human trafficking and transnational gangs, have even been reassigned to standard enforcement operations. Because this is all about Trump turning ICE into his personal army. The recruitment material that portrays ICE agents as modern-day heroes, saving the country from “invasion,” is straight-up propaganda. It’s intended to fuel the fire of a far-right culture war, where the real “enemy” comes from “within.”
The hyper-militarized rhetoric feeds into the narrative of an existential “holy war” happening in the U.S., not just against immigrants, but against anyone Trump perceives to be a threat. If you’re someone who’s sympathetic to that narrative, you’ll love the idea of wielding a badge as a weapon to carry out your own violent political agenda—against immigrants, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, journalists, academics, liberals of all sorts, and anyone else who stands in the way of your worldview. And you’ll love the idea of having the power of the U.S. government behind you every step of the way.
And what happens when an agency tasked with enforcing the law becomes a magnet for extremists and would-be vigilantes? We’ve already seen it in other sectors—violent police tactics, white supremacy infiltrating law enforcement, unchecked militarization of local police. Except now it’s happening nationally, with few checks. That puts the safety and rights of immigrants and American citizens in grave jeopardy. It undermines the rule of law, turning what should be an agency of neutral enforcement into a political tool wielded by madmen. It is actively harmful to the fabric of American society.
We Need Accountability. Now.
If we had a functioning Congress, there would be serious, bipartisan investigations into this and appropriate oversight. There would be calls for reform from both sides of the aisle—starting with rigorous vetting, enhanced training, and clear ethical guidelines for every agent. There would be inspector general reports to provide the American public with the transparency they deserve when it comes to who is being hired to carry out the government’s most aggressive deportation policies.
That’s not going to happen, which means We the People have to do it ourselves. We need to hold ICE accountable. Here’s what you can do:
HELP US BUILD PAXIS! Learn more and donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/PAXIS
If ICE is actively engaged in your town or city, protest peacefully—and have your phone in hand. Be aware that it does carry some risk. Even if you are doing nothing more than standing in a public area, recording ICE agents, or requesting to see a warrant or judge’s order, you may be approached by ICE agents or even accosted. So take necessary precautions and be prepared. And above all, remain peaceful.
If ICE is not currently active in your community, or if you are unable to protest in person, write or call your representatives—daily, if you can. Demand rigorous background checks to weed out candidates with clear biases against marginalized communities; serious training for ICE recruits in upholding Constitutional rights; and real oversight over all ICE operations, so that agents can be held accountable for their behavior when necessary.
If you own a business, consider posting something like this on your door or in your window:
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We’ve all witnessed the disgraceful, lawless, and downright cruel, sadistic behavior of some ICE agents over the past eight months, and we all know where it is heading next. Trump has every intention of using ICE as a personal weapon of political oppression. It’s coming. We know this because he has told us as much. As a free people who still believe in our Constitution, democracy, the rule of law, and basic human decency, we have no choice but to fight back, to use the peaceful, Constitutional means at our disposal to fight for what we believe in. Because no one else is going to do it for us.
Trump Is Recruiting for ICE at DoD and VA —The Breakdown with Allison Gill
ICE Spends Millions on Ads to Recruit Police for Mass Deportation Efforts —PBS News
ICE Is Leaning Hard on Recruitment, but Immigration Experts Say That Could Come at a Price —NBC News
The Price of Cruelty: How Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda Endangers Us All —National Immigration Law Center
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