Tracking the Activities of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforement)

(Note: I originally wrote the posts below in the Trump 2.0 Tracker thread. That thread is becoming unwieldy, and I also thought this issue warranted a separate thread, so I’m moving those posts here. I’m actually writing this on 1/24/2026.)

August 14, 2025

Trump critics warn that Trump will likely use ICE, the national guard or U.S. military like an authoritarian ruler. Sounds extreme, right? I want to track any stories that support or go against this notion. (I want to include the reports on the way Trump handled the L.A. riots and how he recently announced taking over the D.C. police.)

Here’s a recent article today that is relevant: Border Agents Show Up in Force at Newsom Rally from the NYT.

As the governor was preparing to speak inside the Japanese American National Museum in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, the agents assembled outside, many of them masked and armed, and some wearing tactical helmets and carrying rifles.

Mayor Karen Bass expressed outrage at this, saying there was no justification for this. Here how the Dept. of Homeland Security responded

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a post on social media that Ms. Bass “must be misinformed.”

“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law — not about Gavin Newsom,” Ms. McLaughlin said.

Trump has decried the weaponization of federal agencies, but this is one of many examples that show he doesn’t care about this. At the very least he doesn’t care about a federal agency behaving in a political manner.

Another example,

A video shared on social media by Mr. Newsom’s press office shows the agents gathering outside the museum. In the video, Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol chief who is leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Southern California, says, “We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place, since we don’t have politicians who can do that. We do that ourselves.”

If Bovino did say this, this is pretty blatant politicization of what they’re doing.

5 thoughts on “Tracking the Activities of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforement)”

  1. Washington D.C. (originally posted 8/28/2025)

    Trump Orders National Guard to Washington and Takeover of Capital’s Police from the NYT

    Check out James Fallows’s reporting in D.C., basically walking around the city, after Trump’s crackdown.

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  2. Chicago (originally posted 8/28/2025)

    Deploy National Guard to Chicago? Trump Says He Has ‘The Right to Do Anything I Want to Do.’ (8/26/2025) from the NYT

    “You have a guy in Illinois, the governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently and Trump is a dictator,” Mr. Trump said. “Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way.”

    “Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

    Referring to Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Trump continued: “No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they’d call and they say, ‘Would you do it?’”

    Mr. Pritzker, responding on social media, said: “No, Donald. You can’t do whatever you want.”

    One thing we can say with certainty: Trump really doesn’t care if he appears to be a dictator.

    (10/1/2025)

    Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: ‘I feel defeated’ from the Chicago Sun Times

    The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid. DHS said some of those arrested “are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators.”

    The feds also claimed the South Shore neighborhood was “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates,” but DHS gave no evidence to support the assertion, and authorities did not confirm that any of the people arrested were members of the Venezuelan gang.

    Alleged Tren de Aragua members have been charged and detained in the city as recently as August. But the Chicago Sun-Times has found little evidence tying them to violence in Chicago.

    Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties.

    Johnson said he was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go.

    “I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” Johnson said. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

    In a similar raid, in another part of Chicago, one witness testified to seeing

    Watson said she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans. Kids were separated from their mothers, she said.

    “It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Watson. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”

    (10/5/2025)
    Pritzker Says Federal Agents Are Trying to Make Chicago a ‘War Zone’ from the NYT

    Mr. Pritzker singled out a late-night Border Patrol raid last week at an apartment building on Chicago’s South Side, when video taken by bystanders showed residents of the building restrained with zip ties.

    Federal agents were “just picking up people who are brown and Black and then checking their credentials,” Mr. Pritzker said. He added: “They are the ones that are making it a war zone. They need to get out of Chicago if they’re not going to focus on the worst of the worst, which is what the president said they were going to do.”

    According to the article Kristi Noem recently described Chicago as a “war zone.” Trump and his officials are using scarmongering language, and it’s hard not to conclude that he wants Americans to be afraid, even if it’s not warranted. This is the opposite of what responsible–normal–presidents do.

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  3. Portland, Oregon (originally posted on August 28, 2025)

    On Truth Social, Trump posted (9/27/2025):

    At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists. I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

    It’s a good thing we left Portland before the “War ravaging” occurred.

    Reply

  4. ICE agent shoots and kills Minnesota woman originally posted 1/8/2026)

    Trump blames the woman for trying to run over the agent. He shows the reporters a video to prove this, but the video doesn’t show the car running over anyone.

    Trump blames the woman for trying to run over the agent. He shows the reporters a video to prove this, but the video doesn’t show the car running over anyone.

    Trump’s response on Truth-Social.

    I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!

    Also, today in Portland, Oregon

    Federal Agents Shoot 2 During Traffic Stop in Portland, Ore. from the NYT

    (1/14/2026)

    From yesterday, Trump posted this on Truth Social:

    Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention. All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign Countries who illegally entered the USA though Sleepy Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE Open Border’s Policy. Every place we go, crime comes down. In Chicago, despite a weak and incompetent Governor and Mayor fighting us all the way, a big improvement was made. Thousands of Criminals were removed! Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off of the 19 Billion Dollars that was stolen by really bad and deranged people. FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!

    (1/20/2026)

    ICE Arrest of a Citizen, Barely Dressed, Sows Fear in Twin Cities from the NYT

    Masked federal agents descended on a one-story home in St. Paul, Minn., on Sunday and dragged a man wearing nothing but his underwear and slip-on shoes from his doorstep, through an icy snowbank and into an idling S.U.V.

    Tires screeched. Whistles sounded. Neighbors shrieked in the background. And then the agents and the man were gone.

    The arrested man was identified as ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen with no criminal record, according to his family. He was released about an hour later without being charged, they said.

    Also, according to this Minnesota police chief (starting at 1:42), off-duty officers were approached and harassed by ICE agents. All of the officers were people of color.

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  5. What We Know About a Second Fatal Shooting by Federal Agents in Minneapolis from the NYT

    Chief O’Hara said he asked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to lead the investigation.

    Drew Evans, the superintendent of the bureau, said at a news conference that the Department of Homeland Security had blocked state agents from the scene of the shooting on Saturday.

    I believe something similar happened with Renee Good’s killing.

    Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says from AP News (1/21/2026)

    According to the article a whistleblower got a hold of an internal DHS memo (in May 2025) which authorizes the following:

    The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.

    According to the article, this is (was) the norm:

    Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.

    All law enforcement operations — including those conducted by ICE and Customs and Border Protection — are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures.

    People can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents only have an administrative warrant, with some limited exceptions.

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