Under Trump, a Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The instructions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents explain in clear terms how to defuse dangerous encounters: Use “minimal force” when trying to remove people from cars. Issue commands in “professional,” “firm,” “courteous” voices.

“First step in arresting an occupant of a vehicle is NOT to reach in and grab him, unless there are specific circumstances requiring that action,” reads one internal ICE document providing legal guidance for uses of force during vehicle stops. It was reviewed by The New York Times, along with other training materials. ICE officials will thoroughly investigate any encounter, but “deadly force” is allowed only when agents believe lives are in danger.

The fatal shooting of Renee Good last week by an ICE agent in Minneapolis — and the quick reaction by Trump administration officials to declare the agent a hero and Ms. Good a villain — has put a new focus on whether federal agents enforcing President Trump’s deportation drive have been properly prepared for confrontations on city streets. The response of Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants to the killing has also underscored how they have embraced what is supposed to be a last resort under the written standards: using lethal force in self-defense.

Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics. » | Hamed Aleaziz and Nicholas Nehamas | Reporting from Washington | Thursday, January 15, 2026

Steve Schmidt: The Real Derangement Belongs to Trump

14 Jan 2026 | Stephen Miller said ICE can kill with impunity while Trump was in Detroit flipping off an American. Steve Schmidt breaks down the latest indignities of Trump’s regime and highlights Trump’s dangerous incoherence.


Elect a criminal, expect a crime! Or, put another way: Elect garbage, expect trash! — © Mark Alexander

How Power Covered Up a Killing in Minneapolis. The Murder of Renee Nicole Macklin Good by ICE.

Jan 8, 2026 | The killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good in Minneapolis was captured on video—and yet, within hours, the Trump administration declared the case closed. But the video tells a very different story. It shows Macklin Good reversing her car, allowing an ICE vehicle to pass. It shows an officer ordering her to exit. It shows her attempting to leave at low speed—and an ICE agent firing multiple shots. The officer is never struck. He remains standing. She is shot in the face and dies at the scene.

ANTHONY DAVIS can be supported on Patreon here.

Strong language alert!

Steve Schmidt: ICE Murdered an American Citizen. Who’s Next?

Jan 8, 2026 | Yesterday, ICE agents killed a United States citizen in broad daylight. Steve Schmidt breaks down the Trump regime’s lies about the murder and warns of the immediate threat to American liberty.

Video Shows ICE Immigration Officer Shooting Dead Woman Driver in Minneapolis | BBC News

Jan 7, 2026 | A US immigration officer on an enforcement raid in Minneapolis has shot dead a woman in a car, provoking outrage from residents and politicians in the city.

The federal agents deployed by the Trump administration shot and killed the woman as she drove her vehicle in the street where they were operating. The shooting was captured on video, taking place as the driver of a dark red SUV tried to slowly drive away from agents who were ordering her to get out of the vehicle and trying to open its door.

In a social media statement, President Trump defended the ICE officers, saying that he had watched a video clip of the incident which he called a “horrible thing to watch”. He described the woman who was shot dead in her car as “very disorderly, obstructing and resisting” and said she “violently, wilfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defence”.

The US Department for Homeland Security described the driver as a “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted “to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them”. It stated: “An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers.”

Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis held a press conference in which he told the ICE immigration officers to leave the city. He said the Department for Homeland Security was: “trying to spin this as an action of self-defence. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bullshit.” He accused the ICE agents of terrorising citizens, saying: “People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart.

Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized and now, somebody is dead.”

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Nada Tawfik.



Donald Trump and his cronies have turned a once progressive nation into a regressive shithouse. What is going on in America today is little better than what went on in Hitler’s Third Reich! — © Mark Alexander

Trump’s ICE Shake-up to Expand Mass Deportations and Silence Dissent

Oct 29, 2025 | The Trump administration has launched one of the biggest leadership shake-ups in U.S. immigration history — replacing half of the top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials with Border Patrol veterans. Reports say frustration inside the White House over slow deportation numbers — and a push to integrate more militarized Border Patrol tactics into ICE’s operations. Critics warn it’s a step toward a nationalized deportation force.

Trump has turned America into a SH**HOUSE! It would have been far better for the Americans (and the rest of the world) if Americans had found their cojones to incarcerate the criminal BEFORE he could do all this damage to the lives of Americans and the fabric of the nation. Had Americans been better judges of character, they'd have known better what to do with the man. — © Mark Alexander

ANTHONY DAVIS can be supported on Patreon here.

The Dangers of ICE — Trump’s Gestapo

Steve Schmidt explains.

When ICE Deports Every Immigrant, Will Trump Aim Their Crosshairs at YOU?

Oct 3, 2025 | What happens when ICE deports all the immigrants? Will the largest police institution just sit still or will ICE start to aim their efforts on liberals, transgender people and anyone else? Donald Trump says isn't American enough.

When Trump's ICE Invades Your City w/ Jordan Chariton

Oct 2, 2025 | Trump is invading 'liberal' cities. ICE is kidnapping people off the street and it is only getting worse according to Jordan Chariton.

Make a criminal the president and this is the SHITSHOW you get! Surprise! Surprise! — © Mark Alexander

Democracy Now! Where Are the Detainees? Hundreds of "Alligator Alcatraz" Prisoners Disappear from ICE Database

Sep 25, 2025 | Hundreds of people who were once detained at the troubled immigration jail in the Florida Everglades, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," have disappeared. Democracy Now! speaks with Shirsho Dasgupta, a Miami Herald reporter who found that, as of late August, about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE's online database, with their families and attorneys unable to locate them. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled the jail could continue to operate despite reports of abuse.

"What we're seeing at Alligator Alcatraz is basically a new model of immigration detention, where a state-run facility is operating as an extrajudicial black site, completely outside of the previous models of immigration detention in this country. And it's making what was already a terrible system somehow even worse," says Thomas Kennedy, policy analyst at the Florida Immigrant Coalition.


Democracy Now! can be supported here.

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown: Non-criminal Immigrants Now Largest Group in ICE Detention

Sep 27, 2025 | New DHS data reveals that immigrants with no criminal record now make up the largest share of people in U.S. immigration detention for the first time under Donald Trump’s second administration. Nearly 60,000 are currently being held nationwide, with growing numbers of “collateral arrests” sweeping up individuals who have lived peacefully in the U.S. for years.

ANTHONY DAVIS can be supported on Patreon here.

South China Morning Post: ICE Raids Affect Asian Immigrant Communities in the US

Sep 8, 2025 | Tens of thousands of people have been detained and deported by officers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as President Donald Trump’s administration carries out his election promise to expel millions of illegal migrants from the country. ICE has set a target to arrest at least 3,000 people per day. The aggressive operations have targeted not only Latin American communities, but they are also creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among Asian immigrant families across the country.

‘It's Not Right’: Massachusetts Governor Slams Trump as Cities Fight against Federal Crackdown

Sep 7, 2025 | As ICE begins a major operation in Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey joins The Weekend to break down how she and her fellow elected officials are doing to resist Trump's meddling in the Bay State.

Why, oh why, were Americans so naïve as to be taken in by 'The Orange One’, the Dictator-in-Chief? They could have spared themselves, and the rest of the world, so much pain and trouble had they given him a pass. — © Mark Alexander

Etats-Unis : les méthodes musclées et contestées de la police de l'immigration • FRANCE 24

C’est l’une des priorités de son mandat : Donald Trump veut réaliser la plus grande opération d’expulsions de l’histoire des États-Unis. Pour y parvenir, il a octroyé des moyens colossaux à la police anti-immigration. Objectif : 1 million d’expulsions en un an. Dans les grandes villes, les arrestations de clandestins se multiplient, lors d’opérations souvent musclées qui suscitent une vague de résistance citoyenne.

Quelle honte ! Quelle cruauté ! Quelle inhumanité ! Et tout cela ne serait jamais arrivé s'ils avaient emprisonné Trump quand ils en avaient l'occasion. — © Mark Alexander

ICE Deporting Working Migrants to Hawaii Prison from US Mainland as Detention Facilities Overflow

Aug 13, 2025 | ICE's new resources will fuel an intense initiative to recruit as many as 10,000 new agents who will have a presence in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. And the money comes as a windfall for private prison companies, who have already rushed to pitch the administration on new contracts to run detention facilities. For now, ICE is deporting migrants across the Pacific, to Honolulu.

ANTHONY DAVIS can be supported on Patreon here.

One can but wonder whether the ignorant voters who put Trump back into the White House are suffering from buyers’ remorse! © Mark Alexander

ICE’s War on Disability

Aug 2, 2025 | ICE took away his phone so he couldn’t communicate. ‘I can’t sign with my hands cuffed. They took my power,’ Javier Diaz Santana told the Los Angeles Times. Even as a DACA recipient, Diaz wasn’t safe from being detained or deported, and his case highlights how unprepared — and unfair — ICE is when it comes to treating people with disabilities: There seems to be no limit to the cruelty they’re willing to inflict.

How ICE Raids Send Shockwaves through Local Communities | DW News

Jul 26, 2025 | In the United States, the Trump administration is ramping up its deportation campaign of undocumented migrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been conducting mass raids nationwide. DW's Washington bureau chief, Ines Pohl, reports now from the farming region of Oxnard in California, which is known as the "breadbasket of America". Farmers there say most of their workers are no longer showing up, out of fear of being detained.

ICE Moves to Shackle Some 180,000 Immigrants with GPS Ankle Monitors

THE WASHINGTON POST: A June 9 memo directed ICE field officers to significantly expand the number of immigrants under round-the-clock surveillance.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors, as the Trump administration widens surveillance of people it is targeting for deportation, according to an internal ICE document reviewed by The Washington Post.

In a June 9 memo, ICE ordered staff to place ankle monitors on all people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program “whenever possible.” About 183,000 adult migrants are enrolled in ATD and had previously consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while they waited for their immigration cases to be resolved. Currently, just 24,000 of these individuals wear ankle monitors. » | Douglas MacMillan and Silvia Foster-Frau | Thursday, July 24, 2025

"Unprecedented": Trump Raises ICE Arrest and Detention Quotas to Fulfil Anti-immigrant Agenda

Jul 22, 2025 | ICE is reportedly racing to build more detention tent camps nationwide after Congress allocated an unprecedented $45 billion in new funding over the next four years to lock up immigrants, as part of Trump's massive tax and spending package. The Department of Homeland Security is also preparing to start detaining immigrants at more military bases, including in New Jersey and Indiana, as well as to transfer more immigrants to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to NPR.

This comes as the Trump administration is moving to revoke access to bond hearings for people who entered the U.S. through "non-approved channels."

The new policy could potentially impact millions of undocumented people and orders officers to detain immigrants for the length of their removal proceedings — a process which can take months or even years.

"This administration is using every tool that it has to target the immigrant community, to scare the immigrant community," says Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.

Orozco notes that most immigrants will likely never get the chance to fight their case before a judge under Trump's aggressive deportation policies.

Ice Chief Says He Will Continue to Allow Agents to Wear Masks during Arrest Raids

THE GUARDIAN: Legal advocates and attorneys general argue practice poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear

The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday that he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.

As Donald Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear. » | Michael Sainato | Sunday, July 20, 2025