The Cruelty and Lawlessness of ICE Under Trump
One of the primary themes across both of Trump’s presidential campaigns and into both presidential terms has been inciting fear of the other in his followers, especially fear of the immigrant. He regularly categorizes all immigrants as criminals, rapists, thugs, and the very worst dregs of society. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. As New York Times opinion columnist Jamell Bouie writes, “It’s been shown again and again that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens do. Stating otherwise is demagogic innuendo meant to short-circuit the rational mind and inflame prejudice.”
A study conducted by Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research found that immigrants (both documented and undocumented) are 30% less likely to be incarcerated than white U.S.-born citizens, and—when the study included Black Americans (whose disproportionately high rates of incarceration are a serious injustice, but beyond the scope of this piece)—immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than all American-born citizens.
In another study undertaken by the Department of Justice and published in September 2024 (which has since been removed from the DOJ’s website, presumably because its findings do not support Trump’s continued claims that all immigrants are criminals), researchers used data from Texas, which is the only state that differentiates at the time of an arrest whether an individual is a citizen, a documented immigrant, or an undocumented immigrant. The results were even more compelling than Stanford’s findings.
The study tracked felony crime rates from 2012 through 2018, and the rates were relatively consistent across the years, allowing for generally straightforward comparisons across the categories of people (See chart). What is crystal clear is that undocumented immigrants are by far the least likely group to commit a crime. While U.S.-born citizens, as was found in the Stanford study, were more likely to commit a crime than documented immigrants, they were 250% more likely to commit a crime than an undocumented immigrant. While we do have problems with crime in this country, the facts continue to prove that immigrants are not the cause, and Trump’s baseless efforts to blame immigrants are just another tactic to divide us and capitalize on fear of the other.
Now that Trump’s in office and trying to fulfill his campaign promise to expel “all of the illegal criminals,” he’s having a hard time of it for the reasons just explained above—the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are not criminals. So it’s no wonder Trump is struggling to meet his self-imposed goal of deporting one million criminal undocumented immigrants this year—they simply don’t exist.
Instead of backing down, Trump’s immigration team is going after innocent people, the ones who follow the law, regularly check in with ICE, work with the proper authorization, and pay taxes while they wait for their cases to work through the immigration system. To achieve Trump’s arbitrary one million deportations goal, ICE is ignoring our most basic rights, from due process to privacy, and immigrants and U.S.-born citizens alike are paying the price.
Smashing Car Windows
In late March, a mother and daughter were in their car together in Maryland when ICE agents stopped them without providing a reason or a warrant despite repeated requests to see one. After the agents smashed in a car window (you can watch video the daughter recorded of the whole ordeal here), they dragged the mother, Elsy Berrios, out of the car and took her away, never providing a warrant or an explanation. According to Ms. Berrios’ attorney, Anna Tijerina, Ms. Berrios is in the process of seeking asylum and has an employee authorization document valid for five years, meaning she has the legal right to live and work in the U.S. for at least that long. When contacted by the local news network, an ICE spokesperson alleged that Ms. Berrios is a “known affiliate of the violent transnational street gang, MS-13,” but provided no evidence to corroborate the allegation, and, when last reached, Ms. Berrios’ attorney remained unaware of what charges would be filed against her client, if any.
In April, another man suffered a similar fate in Massachusetts. When he and his wife were driving to a dentist appointment, pulling away from the building where they live, they were surrounded by ICE agents asking to speak with someone named Antonio, but no Antonio was in their car. The man driving, whose name is Juan Francisco Mendez, tried to explain that to the agents, but they didn’t care and continued to demand that Mr. Mendez and his wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, get out of the car. The couple spoke calmly to the agents, explaining that their attorney was on the way to sort out whatever the trouble could be, which the wife recorded on her phone, but to no avail. The agents smashed in their car window with a pickaxe and dragged Mr. Mendez away just as their attorney arrived on scene, and refused to let her speak with her client before driving him away. (You can watch that video as well, here.) According to their attorney, Ondine Gálvez, Mr. Mendez should have never been taken into custody as he is in the process of applying for asylum. “Agents could have easily confirmed what his status was and they would have seen that he was in the process of legalizing his status and therefore there wouldn’t have been any justification for them to take him into custody,” his attorney said.
“Deporting” U.S.-Citizen Children
In late April, three U.S.-citizen children were “deported” out of the country to Honduras with their mothers. I use quotation marks around “deported” because a government cannot legally deport one of its own citizens, yet that appears to be exactly what happened. According to the ACLU, two Louisiana families who have been living here for years without incident were “deported from the U.S. under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.”
When asked why the citizen children were forced to leave the country with their mothers, Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, said, “They weren’t deported. We don’t deport US citizens. Their parents made that decision, not the United States government.” However, a Trump-appointed federal judge has already cast serious doubt on Homan’s assertion. The judge, who is overseeing one family’s case, expressed a “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
The judge’s suspicion is further supported by what that child’s father conveyed to immigration attorney Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project. According to Attorney Willis, “at every single point ICE denied anybody the ability to know where this family was, denied everybody the ability to contact with them and communicate with them.” Attorney Willis added that the child’s father “barely had any opportunity to speak with the mother about what was best for the child before an ICE officer hung up the phone as he tried to give her the number for an attorney.”
ICE had asked the mother, who is pregnant, to bring her two-year-old with her to her next routine ICE check-in appointment, and the two were arrested when they arrived and taken to a facility three hours away. The child’s father filed an emergency petition with the court to keep his U.S.-citizen child here with him, but the child was put on a plane and flown out before the court could open.
The story of the other mother deported with her children is even more heartbreaking, because one of her two young children suffers from Stage 4 cancer and receives treatment from his doctors in Louisiana. Despite ICE knowing of the child’s condition in advance, his mother wasn’t allowed to contact his doctors or even obtain medicine to take with them on the plane before they were flown to Honduras. According to Attorney Willis, her team had been in the process of completing a habeas corpus petition to keep the sick boy here, but he and his sister were flown out on an ICE charter flight before they could file it.
Attorney Willis summarized what ICE put these mothers through: “Both of these mothers were held without the ability to speak with their co-parents and the guardians of their children while making this incredibly personal and difficult assessment about what was best for their children.” And Attorney Erin Herbert, who works with Attorney Willis, spoke of the consequences the perpetrators must face: “The speed, brutality, and clandestine manner in which these children were deported is beyond unconscionable, and every official responsible for it should be held accountable.”
Late Night Home Invasions of U.S. Citizens
On April 24th, in the middle of the night, a family’s worst nightmare became reality. A woman, a U.S.-born citizen who the press is calling Marissa to protect her identity, and her three daughters were sleeping alone in their new home in Oklahoma. They had recently moved from Baltimore to Oklahoma City looking for a quieter pace of life, and the woman’s husband had remained behind in Baltimore for a couple of weeks to finalize the moving process. While sleeping in this seemingly safe new neighborhood, Marissa awoke in absolute terror when 20 armed men broke down her front door and rushed into her home.
The men claimed to be federal agents, with ICE, the U.S. Marshals, and the FBI, but did not provide her with any badges or even leave her with a business card when the whole ordeal was over. They claimed to have a warrant for the house, which they did show Marissa, but when Marissa explained that her family had just recently moved in and that none of the names on the warrant matched her family’s, the agents didn’t care.
The agents forced Marissa and her daughters out of the house and into the rainy night without even letting them put on proper clothes (Marissa was especially upset that her teenaged daughter was exposed in front of all of these men in only her underwear). While Marissa and her daughters suffered through the humiliation and the cold, the agents tore apart every inch of the house, confiscated all of the family’s electronics, including all of their laptops and cell phones, and took with them a large amount of cash that Marissa had brought with her, which she identified as her lifesavings. As morning dawned, the agents had nothing to offer Marissa when she asked for help. She had no way to contact anyone, since they’d taken her phone, and no way to get money for basic things like gas or groceries for her daughters. The only comment she received from any of the agents before they left was, “I know it was a little rough this morning.” In recounting this to a KFOR News reporter, Marissa continued, “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it ‘was a little rough’? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
On April 30th, KFOR News reported that the “U.S. Department of Homeland Security admits they know the mom and three daughters who say ICE agents left them traumatized when they raided their Oklahoma City home were not the suspects they were after.” DHS further confirmed to KFOR News that they had been searching for the house’s previous residents and that the Maryland family members were not suspected of any involvement.
However, not long after, DHS felt the need to change its story after U.S. Representative Becca Balint (D-VT) took to the House floor to make the following statement:
“This is what we have created here. This is Trump’s America. These were citizens who were treated like this. This is what we want you to open your eyes to. If it can happen, as we’ve said, time and time again, if it can happen to folks with green cards, it can happen to citizens and in Oklahoma City we see a perfect example of that. This is what we’re talking about. It’s not other people. It’s us. It’s our neighbors. It’s our friends. It’s people who just moved from Maryland to Oklahoma for a better life and have their house destroyed, and they can’t get answers. If we watch the rest of the news clip there, they’re asking ICE ‘who’s responsible for this?’ And then they’re sending them to another agency, and they’re sending them to another agency and nobody is accountable for what happened to them.”
Despite having already confirmed that the raid had been a mistake and that ICE was looking for the home’s previous residents, the Department took to social media to make new, absurd, and entirely contradictory allegations in a Twitter post, going as far as to imply that three young girls could be operatives in a human smuggling ring, posting this:
Wrong.
The April 24 Oklahoma ICE operation was a lawful, court-authorized action explicitly targeting a property, that was a hub for human smuggling, not specific individuals, as falsely suggested by media reports.
The day prior to the search warrant issuance and the day of the search warrant, HSI agents conducted surveillance, and confirmed via utility records that a member of the Lima Lopez Transnational Criminal Organization was still paying utilities at the residence. The warrant, issued by a Federal Judge was based on an 84-page affidavit detailing probable cause that the address served as a “stash house” for human smuggling, authorizing the seizure of evidence such as electronic devices and documents, regardless of who was present.
The warrant targeted the property itself, not specific individuals, and its execution was not contingent on the presence of any person. HSI, with Oklahoma state police support, executed the warrant with precision, seizing electronic devices as authorized.
This court-authorized search was a critical strike against a dangerous human smuggling network in furtherance of our mission to protect American communities from the chaos unleashed by the Biden administration’s open-border policies. This is an ongoing investigation, and we have not ruled out current occupants involvement in the smuggling ring.
With that completely unnerving (but sadly unsurprising) turn of events,[1] I’ll leave you with what Marissa said when KFOR News interviewed her, because while it’s a call for the agents who accosted her family to show some humanity, it is a call every American ought to heed, before we lose what remains of the American Dream.
“What if I would have been armed? You’re breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women? A little bit of mercy. Care a little bit about your fellow human, about your fellow citizen, fellow resident. We bleed too. We work. We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We’re scared. You could see our faces that we were terrified. What makes you so much more worthy of your peace? What makes you so much more worthy of protecting your children? What makes you so much more worthy of your citizenship? What makes you more worthy of safety? Of being given the right that they took from me to protect my daughters?”
Shouldn’t the answer to Marissa’s questions be that we are all worthy?
But the people in charge of this country don’t believe that. And that’s why we must keep fighting. Because we know that the least of us is equally as worthy as the best of us. And when we win, together we can build a society that reflects our belief in the inherent worth of us all.
[1] Does that whiplash feel familiar? Remind you of the shifting Kilmar Abrego Garcia story, perhaps? Or when Stephen Miller said that the White House had won a SCOTUS decision 9-0, when they’d in fact lost that decision 9-0? If you haven’t realized it yet, I hope you are seeing it now: This administration is not trustworthy. And it’s not just Trump and his usual constant lies that you need to worry about this term; it’s the entire administration. They are all liars. For the first time in this country, we need to rely only on outside fact checkers, trustworthy investigative journalists, and independent journalism to know what’s happening with this administration, because the Trump administration will absolutely not be telling us the truth. This is a dangerous escalation from Trump’s first term that we need to acknowledge so that we can arm ourselves against it.