ICE is a bipartisan project

I wrote this as a Facebook post for some reason (who does that in 2025?) so it's unedited. Added a few links that I thought were helpful but otherwise I'm just leaving this here cause I don't see enough people talking about it.

ICE is and always has been a bipartisan project. It began after the combination of two federal agencies during the Bush admin after 9/11. Under Obama's administration, its workforce and surveillance capabilities expanded drastically, with Obama deporting more people than any other president before him (so much so that Janet Murguía nicknamed him "Deporter in Chief").

Obama was the first president to use formal removals and nonjudicial removals as the main method of deportation, which is the same playbook the Trump admin uses today. Prior to Obama, most deportations were voluntary, ie. they did not leave a permanent mark on someone's record. Obama's ICE pursued an aggressive strategy of punishing undocumented immigrants via formal removal proceedings, which remain on their permanent record. Furthermore, under him ICE used fast-track deportations for more than 75% of his removals, which deport people without them having seen a judge. According to the ACLU in 2014:

"By contrast, nonjudicial removals are fast-track proceedings wholly controlled by the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS"), sometimes involving only a single border agent who acts as both judge and jury. Those facing nonjudicial removal have no lawyer and no chance to appeal.

The Obama administration has prioritized speed over fairness in the removal system, sacrificing individualized due process in the pursuit of record removal numbers.

A deportation system that herds 75 percent of people through fast-track, streamlined removal is a system devoid of fairness and individualized due process. Nonjudicial removals violate our constitutional tradition and cannot be reconciled with an administration that has repeatedly stated its commitment to immigration reform."

Obama refocused ICE to target 'criminals' (who often only had minor offenses), creating and giving fodder to the narrative that 'all illegal immigrants are criminals'. Despite Obama doing some good things for undocumented people (DACA), his DHS created and encouraged the infrastructure the Trump admin is wielding today with impunity.

During the first Trump admin, all Trump did was remove the guardrails. With the infrastructure Obama built (including a vast network of local partnerships and fingerprint sharing with the FBI), he simply directed ICE to stop prioritizing people with criminal records, ie. targeting all undocumented people. Deportations under Trump's first term were actually lower than Obama's first term or second term because of the number of court challenges he received. It didn't matter though, as the legal precedent for using tools like nonjudicial removals was already established by Obama, which enabled Trump to pursue his more aggressive deportation strategy. Trump did not need to create new power structures that did not exist, it was all set up for him on a silver platter by the previous admin.

The Biden admin attempted a return to 'normalcy', ie. Obama's former policy. They rolled back more of Trump's aggressive enforcement, adding more restrictions and restoring prosecutorial discretion. However under Biden, deportations remained at around the same level they were at with the Trump admin and did not decrease. Funding to ICE did not decrease. The apparatus was still there, just a little more restrained.

Towards the middle and end of Biden's admin, we saw a shocking continuation of Trump's more abhorrent policies, including keeping kids in cages, failing to reunite separated families, and Haitian migrants being whipped by border patrol agents. Biden established more asylum restrictions, including illegally preventing people from coming into the US to apply for asylum. After Tital 42 expired in 2023, Biden immediately and aggressively pivoted to higher-speed Tital 8 deporations, resulting in them reaching the highest number since 2010. Expidited removal increased under him, resulting in more people being deported without having seen a judge or legal counsel.

During the debates vs Trump, both Biden and Harris both continuously attempted to claim that it was the Democrats who were more 'tough on illegal immigrants' than the Republicans. This again gave legitimacy to the right-wing framing of the issue, which in turn was a contributing factor of them losing the election.

And that brings us to now. The abhorrent actions we're seeing the Trump administration take today are not uniquely evil. They did not materialize out of a void. They're really just small tweaks of prior immigration infrastructure and policy built by both Democrat and Republican administrations alike. Rather than attempt to limit the power of an agency like ICE, Democrats decided not to listen to the most vulnerable in their communities and gave it more funding, equipment, staff, and legal standing, allowing the current Trump administration to inherit a vast and well-funded agency that is able to act with impunity and little-to-no accountability. This is not the product of one uniquely evil person doing something uniquely terrible. It is the product of two decades of history and increasing encroachment on Americans' civil liberties by an unaccountable police force.

The reason why this is a bipartisan project is because it is profoundly profitable for private corporations. As ICE grows and deportations increase, a market for detention centers, property, munitions, arms, uniforms, food, supplies, legal counsel, and more has been created. Private military contractors now have a new arm of the government they can siphon money from. Private prison corporations now have the most well-funded police force in America that they can sell to. All of these corporations and private interests have lobbying groups that donate millions to candidates or give kickbacks or favors to the administration (as we've seen more openly now). This results in the government ignoring the interests and will of the people, and instead doubling down on the aggressive enforcement strategy that its always taken. It is a bipartisan project because both parties have been bought out by private interests, and (as we've seen with the defense industry and the military industrial complex) it is next to impossible to decrease the level of funding for something like this after this kind of an industry has sprung up.

Instead of just focusing on (rightful) moral outrage, it's important to understand the history and interests behind the growth and maturation of ICE's abhorrent enforcement tactics. Instead of focusing on partisan politics and blaming a single party, it's better to understand the power structures at play and the influence they have. Because it's only possible to change things once we truly understand them.