Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has increase its activity. In the first year of his second term, it was registered over 600,000 deportations. While running for office, he had promised to deport a million “illegal immigrants”.
What is ICE and what it has been doing to the USA population
ICE is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to their official website their mission is to “Protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety”.
The department was created during Bush administration after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, with the purpose of monitoring immigrants arriving in the country and, in case of illegality, deporting or arresting them.
Until 2024, deportations occurred mostly near the Mexican border. However, with Trump’s re-election, agents have been operating throughout the whole country, searching for “undocumented people”. The following changes have been noted in the management and operation of ICE:
- The funding allocated to the institution increased from US$30 billion annually to US$42.5 billion;
- With the DHS recruitment campaigns, the number of agents doubled — from 10,000 to 22,000;
- Recruit training time was reduced so they could become operational faster;
- Trump administration has rescinded a guidance that limited operations in or nearby “sensitive locations”, such as hospitals and schools;
- Starting in May 2025, agents were able to carry out home raids and arrests without a warrant;
- The most recent change requires immigrants to be examined during the process of getting a green card, and it allows to arrest them, even if they are trying to live in the USA legally.
As a result, cases of aggression and abuse of authority have increased in these interactions. Many USA residents, foreigners or not, have been on high alert.
A TikTok user named Rita-Marie who lives in Minnesota reports that agents stand outside of schools to get parents and even kids at pickup or drop off. This harsh approach may scare children and make so that they don’t feel safe anymore.
Some schools even went back to offering online classes so students don’t find themselves at risk, because underage people are also being a target of this system. A famous case is that of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old Ecuadorian child used as bait for further arrests.
Human rights organizations report cases of disappearances, torture, and 31 deaths in immigration detention centers. Acording to Rita-Marie some detainees in Minnesota are suffering from severe injuries, like cracked skulls and brain damage; also, that many of them are abandoned in the woods without clothes, food or anything.
On deportation flights, the situation is no better. Those forced to leave the United States report violence and humiliation. Jeferson Maia, a Brazilian security guard who was on one of the first flights, says: “They assaulted the boys. I sat there until I reached my limit, I couldn’t take it anymore. People fainted; I asked to leave and he choked me. […]”.
Wilian Pereira dos Santos, another deported Brazilian, reveals that he was imprisoned for two months, facing deprivation of water and poor-quality food. He describes such practices as inhumane.
Besides the history of attacks against foreigners, on January 7th, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American woman, in Minneapolis. Seventeen days later, another citizen, Alex Pretti, was shot and killed.
In most of these episodes of violence, Trump and aligned politicians have denied or defended the actions committed by ICE — including the murders of American citizens.
What does this all tell about Donald Trump?
Trump’s discrimination against immigrants, especially towards the Latin Americans, isn’t someting new, and he has made the anti-immigrant agenda a priority since his first mandate.
One of his main goals, back on his first campaign in 2016, was building a wall in the USA border with Mexico. Today, Trump still intends to continue to persue this stratagy, also mentioning wanting to paint it black to make it harder to climb.
During his second campaign in 2024, he called immigrants “murderers”, “illegal aliens” (a term that is constantly used in the official ICE website) and “savage monsters”, and spread false rumors about “immigrants eating dogs and cats”. But it wasn’t by accident nor innocence — these kinds of hate speech were made to promote xenophobic rhetoric and hate against foreigners, so ICE’s actions could be justified.
Even when the violence seemed unjustifiable, Trump was by ICE’s side, saying they were just “defending themselves from dangerous people” and even pushing narratives that the victim was armed, which is a topic that republicans have always been committed to fighting, for their right to carry fire arms.
When the USA forces invaded Venezuela, he also criticized the physical appearance of Venezuelan people; he said: “These people are a mess. […] Where did they find these people? They are the worst looking people I have ever seen”.
Noticing that his speeches are always aimed to latinos and citizens from developing countries, we arrive at the conclusion that this is not a coincidence: Donald Trump’s speeches and actions are xenophobic and racist.
Besides, even if republicans themselves disagree with the aggressions, he keeps the mass deportations going, with rare changes. The only place in which measures were taken so far was Minneapolis, where part of the ICE agents were withdrawn. That is one of the reasons the American president is being considered authoritarian.
How are people dealing with this situation?
Democrats and leftists were against the mass deportations since they began becoming violent and inhumane. A research conducted by AP-NORC shows that 6 out of 10 people in USA think that Trump’s measures went too far, which means they were supported by a part of the country, until they became too extreme.
Protests against these politics were seen in many big cities in during 2025, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Online, those protests were called “music festivals”, to lower the risk of those videos about such events being potentially censored.
Also, residents of some suburbs use whistles to warn about the arrival of ICE vehicles, so they can avoid violent incidents and arrests of immigrants. It is not totally effective, but such things can help protect innocent people.
Trump’s actions have also been very criticized in the artistic field. Many of them were seen wearing a pin saying “ICE OUT” during award ceremonies and speeches, including at the Grammys, when Billie Eilish said: “No one is illegal on stolen lands”, and Bad Bunny, a singer from Puerto Rico, said: “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans”.
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The article above was edited by Rafaela Navarro.
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