It’s not just Minneapolis. In cities across America, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested hundreds of thousands of immigrants and clashed with protesters in what is on its way to becoming one of the largest deportation efforts in U.S. history.
The White House says it’s deporting both criminals and people who are working in the country illegally.
But ICE is increasingly unpopular, and it’s getting more headlines for its sometimes-violent tactics than it is for getting supposed bad guys off the streets.
“They’re going to make a mistake sometimes, too rough with somebody,” President Donald Trump said of ICE. “You know they are rough people.”
ICE’s reach is only expected to spread. It has been infused with billions more from the Republicans’ tax bill, and the Brennan Center for Justice estimates it will become one of America’s largest police forces. It is spending $100 million to try to hire gun rights supporters and military enthusiasts.
“By the end of this, almost everyone is going to know someone who had a friend or family member or colleague affected, or who witnessed an arrest happening,” said David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “I think it’s unnerving to see people targeted who don’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, just going to work or doing their jobs.”
Here’s more about what’s happening.
What ICE is doing on the streets
There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. ICE can’t be everywhere all at once, so the agency typically works with local authorities to help arrest people in the country illegally.
But now agents are on a mission to deport as many people as possible.
What was once a job largely out of the public eye is now taking place on city streets, parking lots of big-box stores, deep in local neighborhoods, and at churches and workplaces as agents mine federal data and go door-to-door to create what the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute says is an unprecedented show of force in cities.
Immigration agents have surged into Chicago, Los Angeles, D.C., Minneapolis and Charlotte, rushing into upscale neighborhoods and shops, country clubs and near schools. Sometimes they are in plain clothes; many times they are masked.
They’ve been recently empowered by the Supreme Courtto stop people based on factors such as race, ethnicity, language or job.
Some agents are using chokeholds to arrest people; others have been filmed smashing car windows to get at someone. U.S. citizens of color say they’re being asked to show paperwork (including off-duty police officers).
Trump and his administration say they are targeting “the worst of the worst.” But there’s no evidence migrants commit crimes at a higher rate than Americans, and most migrants arrested don’t have a criminal record, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
A record number of children are being detained, and data suggests families are being separated, ProPublica finds. The New York Times reported on a Cuban migrant arriving for a check-in with ICE and being immediately separated from her 17-month-old daughter she was breastfeeding and deported.
“It feels like a member of my family is under attack,” one Charlotte woman told The Washington Post after telling her children’s caregiver to stay at home.
Trump is cracking down hard on protesters
Communities of activists have sprung up to try to slow or stop arrests and film what’s happening.
“I’ve been in touch with friends and former students in Minneapolis as well as Chicago, Los Angeles and now, Maine,” Robert Reich, a former labor secretary and prominent Trump critic, wrote this week. “Some have been extraordinarily brave. A few tell me they’ve tailed ICE agents and whistled loudly to warn others of ICE’s whereabouts. Some have sought to block agents from entering schools, courthouses, and clinics. Others have been taking videos to give to the media or use in court.”
Trump has responded with force. His administration has tried to label protesters as “domestic terrorists” (which legal experts say isn’t an actual designation) and has sought to deploy the National Guard where there are protests. He’s also threatened to send in the military to arrest protesters in Minneapolis. Vice President JD Vance said the ICE agent who killed protester Renée Good has “absolute immunity.” ICE agents are launching tear gas and pointing guns at protesters. The Trump administration has launched criminal investigations into Democratic officials in Minnesota who have criticized ICE.
Yet for all the conflict, Bier is tracking federal charges of protesters and finds it’s rare, suggesting many of their actions are protected by the First Amendment.
ICE detentions are also controversial
Trump is building some of largest deportation centers in history, including makeshift facilities and plans by ICE to hold up to 80,000 immigrants in seven large-scale warehouses, The Post reported.
Conditions can be tough. Some ICE facilities have been described as “inhumane,” with reports of spoiled food, undrinkable water or lights on 24 hours a day. The pro-immigration American Immigration Council writes that ICE is “trapping hundreds of thousands of noncitizens in an increasingly opaque world of remote jails and private prisons.”
An ICE detainee died in January; witnesses say he was choked, and his death may be classified as a homicide. (The government disputes that account of events.) He is one of dozens who have died in ICE custody since Trump took office a year ago.
ICE may be getting harder to defend politically
Polls show that Trump’s ICE raids have strong support from Republicans.
“Letting millions of illegal immigrants come to work in the U.S. will depress wages, and we can’t allow that to happen,” says Nick Iacovella with the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a conservative, pro-tariff group that also supports Trump’s mass deportations.
But a new Economist/YouGov poll finds 47 percent of Americans think ICE is making America less safe, compared with 34 percent who said more safe. And for months now, a majority of Americans have disapproved of how Trump is handling immigration overall, on what used to be his strongest issue. Republicans are particularly concerned mass deportations are hurting them with Latino voters, who helped Trump win the presidency again.
“For the first time,” Republican former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory told Politico this fall, “immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”
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