ICE: The New Gestapo

Let’s stop pretending. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that hulking, unaccountable Frankenstein of a government agency, is not simply “doing its job.” It is doing a job — one chillingly reminiscent of the early 20th-century secret police forces that citizens now universally condemn… unless, apparently, those forces wear a badge with an American flag.

ICE wasn’t even a thing until 2003. That’s right — like a lot of bad ideas, it was born in a post-9/11 frenzy of bureaucratic overreach and fear-mongering, as if the answer to terrorism was to harass day laborers and tear infants from their mothers’ arms at the border. Since then, the agency has blossomed into something much more ambitious: a de facto domestic surveillance and deportation squad with a penchant for secrecy, a disregard for due process, and a blank check from the government. If that doesn’t scream “police state,” perhaps your moral compass is demagnetized.

Let’s talk methods. Forget about due process and innocent until proven guilty. Raids in the middle of the night. Detention without trial. Family separations. Infiltration of communities. A complete indifference to whether someone has lived in the U.S. for two decades, paid taxes, or committed zero crimes. Replace “undocumented immigrant” with “enemy of the state” and see how fast the historical parallels start stacking up like ICE’s list of human rights complaints.

In the past two months alone, ICE’s actions have escalated alarmingly:

Alberto Lovo Rojas, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker in Spokane, was arrested despite years of compliance with ICE check-ins and a stable family life in the U.S. His detention appears to be part of a Trump-era mass deportation revival that disregards nuance and targets even low-risk individuals.

Rumors of raids in California’s Central Valley have caused such fear that people skip church, keep children home from school, and avoid grocery stores. When law enforcement operates like a terror cell, the community reacts accordingly.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and Palestinian activist, was taken from his apartment on murky charges and old anti-communist laws, as if free speech and dissent are now illegal for immigrants — a signal that ICE is not just targeting undocumented workers, but intellectuals and political actors too.

And the worst part? Americans shrug. ICE’s abuses don’t seem to register, possibly because they primarily affect people without the luxury of political clout or cable news airtime. But if history has taught us anything (and clearly, for some, it hasn’t), it’s that agencies like ICE rarely stop at the margins. Power expands. Precedents spread. Sooner or later, your paperwork might not be in order.

So no, ICE is not simply “enforcing the law.” It is enforcing an ideology — one that paints foreigners as threats, devalues human dignity, and prioritizes punishment over protection. And if that sounds familiar, it should. We’ve seen this movie before. It was in black and white the last time. Maybe this time, with color and high-def, we’ll finally get the ending right.

So what can we do? Here’s a start:

Call it what it is. Don’t sugarcoat. ICE isn’t keeping America safe — it’s terrorizing communities. Say it. Share it. Make people uncomfortable with complacency.

Pressure lawmakers. Demand your congressional reps defund ICE. Not “reform” it — defund it. The whole agency needs to be dismantled, not rebranded.

Support sanctuary cities and legal defense funds. Groups like the National Immigration Law Center and RAICES provide legal aid, while local sanctuary networks offer literal shelter.

Show up. Protest raids. Attend ICE check-ins with vulnerable immigrants. Be a physical barrier between people and an agency that thrives on isolation.

Vote. Vote like your neighbors’ lives depend on it — because they do. Any candidate who supports the continued expansion of ICE’s powers is unfit for public office.

History will judge how we responded to this chapter. “Just following orders” didn’t cut it then, and it won’t cut it now. The Gestapo wore different uniforms, but their mission was the same: control through fear. Let’s make sure ICE doesn’t finish writing their playbook in our silence.