Is ICE out of control?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, Trump's new ice age.

0:17Just before we start, a warning. There is some swearing and some scenes of violence in this episode that might be upsetting. You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe. Join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst. Drug traffickers, gang members, creditors. Join the mission to protect America with bonuses up to$50 ,000 and generous benefits. Looking for a job? One with a hefty bonus, minimal training, a free mask? And according to the Department of Homeland Security, a chance to help herald in a new golden age of American history. Then, maybe you're exactly what Donald Trump is looking for as he ramps up the biggest deportation campaign in US history.

1:09Yet what we've seen on the streets of cities like Minneapolis after ICE rolls into town doesn't look like a new golden age. It looks like chaos.

1:25And it's already claimed lives, including US citizen Renee Nicole Good, shot in her car by an ICE officer last week.

1:38And seen thousands of people disappear from streets, homes and places of work.

1:50With the Trump administration seeming to remove all the guardrails, ICE officers now outnumber Minneapolis city police officers five to one, turning ICE into something that looks more like a paramilitary force than a federal law enforcement agency. Get back! Get back! Get back!

2:16It's not normal for ICE to be clashing with people in the streets, dragging them out of their cars, you know, screaming and yelling and drawing a crowd. These are all things that ICE has really for the last 20 years sought to avoid as much as possible. And they're really being replaced by folks who are completely committed to helping the president achieve his goals and that everybody working for ICE needs to be as aggressive as they possibly can every day that they go to work. From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today in Focus, is ICE out of control?

2:58Manvi Singh, you're an immigration reporter for Guardian US and you are speaking to us from Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city where Renee Nicole Good was killed by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, last Thursday. A week on, can you just tell me what's the mood like on the ground there? It's pretty tense. There's just the number of agents compared to like the population here. You know, the administration said 2 ,000 agents and then they sent an additional 200. That's a lot, isn't it? Yeah. And I think that is what's striking is it's so quick, just really over the course of maybe a month and a half, you have a city that's really been transformed.

3:36When I came into Minneapolis yesterday, one of the first things I did was meet up with my colleague. We drove up and down the street with maybe like 10 Mexican restaurants and other restaurants as well. and one after another each business was closed and it was the sense that the whole neighborhood had been hollowed out and we went to maybe the only restaurant that was open on that street which was like a classic American diner you know even the workers there were talking about how some of their colleagues hadn't been able to come into work because they were afraid of the ice raids there were ways in which people were checking in with each other the restaurant had a safety plan And it was just this immediate sense of how the whole neighborhood had been transformed.

4:23You know, there's stalled construction projects because workers don't feel safe. There's agents at the Home Depot. There's agents reading work sites. There's these ice patrols all over in front of schools during pickup times. Like nothing is quite as it was. you see these vehicles with ice agents you know often there are these suvs without license plates being driven by masked drivers some carrying weapons Get back! Get back! Get back!

5:08Pretty scary times then. Yeah, you've also seen the city mobilize. Guys.

5:22Driving around this morning, there was volunteers at like every block in one of the neighborhoods that I was at, as well as patrols and cars where you have volunteers looking out for ICE agents ready to send out alerts, warn people who might be especially vulnerable to being picked up. I was on a call with a organizer who does trainings for people who want to be legal observers. There was a training the evening after the shooting. And I think the person I talked to said they were expecting maybe 400 people based on signups, and it was double the number who showed up. You see sort of like local neighborhood Facebook groups lighting up with offers of help for people offering to give children rides to school if their parents are worried about being out on the streets because they have a sensitive immigration status or grocery stores offering to do free home deliveries.

6:19There's like a tow truck company offering free towing services in the neighborhood for immigrants whose cars have been abandoned because they've been arrested.

6:37for protesters that have been in that situation. God, OK, so the idea of there being kind of abandoned cars on the streets because there are so many arrests and a tow company seeing the demand for coming and taking those cars away. And can you just take us back and just give us an overview of what's happened in Minneapolis since ICE were deployed to the city? You've had federal agents in masks carrying weapons.

7:08Going into residential neighborhoods and business districts. Shooting, firing. I got hit in the head, man. So I believe it was something that they threw or fired. You've had arrests at department stores. They do it on Target. Places where people work or shop or live.

7:41That's what I think has been or felt overwhelming to some of the residents I've talked to. It's like it's hard to predict where you might encounter an ICE agent. It's all happening so quickly. People are being arrested so quickly and very quickly. they might be flown out to detention centers in Texas or Louisiana or, you know, totally different parts of the United States before they're even able to alert their family members or loved ones that they have been arrested. And so there's this sort of mad scramble to find people and then get them legal representation as they're being arrested. Before they leave the city.

8:16Mm hmm. What's your name? Jonathan Garcia. I'm literally a U.S. citizen. I'm literally a U.S. citizen.

8:28And you're obviously an immigration reporter for The Guardian. Could you describe what kind of impact this arrival of ICE into people's communities has on families, not just in Minnesota, but in other parts of the U.S. that you've also been reporting on? Yeah, I think when you have such a massive ICE presence in a city, in many ways, it can bring daily life to a standstill for so many families, for immigrant workers, but also just people of color. What's happened in Minneapolis is also a little bit unique in that there's been a lot of right-wing conspiracy theories about immigrant-run daycare centers in the city.

9:15Here's another one. supposedly they were sending money like on a regular basis back to Somalia and they were catching them at TSA in Minnesota. Sure. See if that's true, Jamie. And so a lot of daycare centers are fielding calls that are sort of weird or threatening. Families are worried about sending their kids to these daycare centers. And at the same time, childcare workers, many of whom are immigrants, are worried to show up to work. They're worried about being arrested at work. in one really heartbreaking call I had I was talking to a child care worker who said that they have these drills at their daycare center that they've sort of ramped up ever since the immigration raids but also since they've been getting threatening phone calls and it's similar to an active shooter drill where they usher all the children into the bathrooms or closets and they sort of go in there and read quietly we've seen multiple US citizens be detained by ICE despite, you know, showing them proof of citizenship, if they are even carrying that.

10:20The fact that U.S. citizens, me included, now carry my passport around, I think is notable in itself. So, you know, you're seeing the ways in which this operation is not only affecting immigrants and immigrant communities, but also everybody. And I think Renee Nicole Good's death really emphasized that for a lot of people.

10:51So, Kathleen Dickerson, you are a journalist for The Atlantic, and you've won many prizes covering immigration in the US. So you are very well placed to answer what is a pretty basic question. Can you just tell us, what is ICE and what is its remit? So ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is a federal law enforcement agency that was created after 9-11, when the United States became really focused on trying to prevent another terrorist attack, started this new federal department, the Department of Homeland Security, and then within it created ICE to carry out domestic immigration enforcement.

11:31So we have the Border Patrol that focuses on the border of the country, and ICE really looks in the interior and is looking for people who've overstayed their visas or who came into the United States illegally and trying to process them for deportation. And can you tell us who is ICE's boss? Where does it sit in terms of the kind of federal law enforcement structure in the United States? So there's a director of ICE who works and reports to the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, and Kristi Noem is a cabinet secretary, so she reports directly to the president. Why are we arguing with a president who's working to keep people safe?

12:08Why are we arguing with law enforcement operations that have gone on in this country for years and we're working to collect murderers and rapists and drug traffickers and fraudsters? But in addition, under the Trump administration specifically, you have another direct line from the White House to ICE officers on the ground, and that is Tom Homan, the border czar. So first of all, they created the problem with millions of illegal alien criminals in this country. Second of all, Minneapolis. He has been the public face of this deportation effort, and he's just one more person exerting pressure directly from the White House onto agents on the ground.

12:52That's also in a way true of Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, who's his lead advisor on immigration. He has, I believe, daily calls with ICE leadership. To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. So there is a lot of pressure being exerted from the top to get these deportations done at any cost. Wow. OK. And I think probably another quite a basic question, but I think one that lots of people outside the states are wondering. We now see all these different kind of law enforcement officers on the streets of the cities.

13:35Could you just tell us what is the actual difference between, say, like a police officer, a cop and an ICE agent? So the difference is really significant. Police officers are carrying out criminal investigations when they're making arrests or entering people's homes or cars. They've got criminal warrants and have the weight of our criminal legal system behind their work. You know, if a police officer comes to your house and has a warrant to arrest you, you don't have an option at that point. You're you're going to be under arrest. ICE is supposed to be different. So living in the United States without legal status, it's a civil infraction.

14:10It's more akin to a traffic ticket than it is to a crime. It is the case that crossing the border illegally was at some point criminalized. But ICE agents aren't responsible for addressing that criminal issue. That would be U.S. attorneys and police officers. ICE is carrying out, as I said, civil warrants. And so that really explains why the tactics they're using have been confusing to people. That's so interesting. And I think part of that now is down to the fact that ICE has become this hugely kind of really well-funded kind of enforcement arm of Trump's immigration plan. When the president-elect started his second term, Trump, he said that the mass deportation campaign came with like no price tag.

14:58And that certainly has come to pass, hasn't it? Could you just give us an idea of just how well-funded ICE is? So ICE is the highest funded federal law enforcement agency in the country. And the budget that the Congress handed over to Homeland Security officials carrying out immigration enforcement efforts during this administration is larger than the military budgets of every country in the world, except for the United States and China. My God, really? More than$170 billion. Wow. It's a military-sized budget for a very large country. ICE alone now has about$28 billion per year, so their budget more than tripled.

15:40And that's why they're hoping to more than double the size of their force of officers. They're also working now with$45 billion additional dollars to build detention facilities and expand the jails where immigrants are detained. Billions have gone to technology investments that are meant to help ICE do a better job of surveilling the immigrant population, collecting data on them to try to track people down. Lots of concerns associated with this budget increase, but they essentially have a blank check at this point. Right. So ICE has been given all of this money. What's it actually being asked to do now with this influx of cash?

16:20President Trump, when he was running for office, promised at least a million deportations per year. And we've never seen that number in the United States. And we didn't hit it last year. But the goal for them is to get as many deportations as possible. And also really to send a message that will encourage people to self-deport. And that's why you see so much emphasis on social media. ICE filming its tactics in the street. you know even in the the shooting death of Renee Good last week the officer who shot her was filming up until the moment that he did it's a an illustration of just how much they're prioritizing these videos that are meant to to convince people not to protest and not to push back against their work but also if they don't have legal status in the United States to deport on their own.

17:12So it's just kind of fear fear fear and hoping that people get too scared and and comply and help him reach that target. Exactly. So, you know, in the past, I described ICE carrying out deportations by going to people's homes. And part of the reason for that is that their mandate always involved making arrests in ways that were as seamless as one can be and that were as safe as possible. So they would actually go to people's homes often around five or six in the morning when people were still sleeping and try to catch someone to bring people into custody without a potentially violent clash. Now, the approach that they're taking is the opposite.

17:55And it's very much with intention. Right. And there must also be kind of a lot of pressure on ICE to meet these targets, right? Do you think that that's also contributing to this kind of frantic effort to just scoop up as many people as possible? Absolutely. Everyone at ICE is facing pressure. And in fact, you've had leadership within the agency and within the field offices across the country replaced several times during this administration because the White House determined that those areas or those members of leadership weren't performing. They may have been, in the eyes of the administration, too attached to those former techniques that, as I mentioned, prioritized safety and prioritized things going as smoothly and legally as possible.

18:37Those people are gone now. It's extraordinary as well to look at the kind of recruitment website to look at all the memes, the kind of recruitment videos, incredibly aggressive, incredibly strong language used. I was looking at the recruitment website, kind of, you know, had a picture of Uncle Sam saying, let's get rid of predators and criminals out of our country. I mean, this is really incendiary stuff, isn't it? It is. And some of the imagery that ICE has been publishing really invokes kind of a white nationalist and racist message that really speaks to this goal of returning the United States to a power and supremacy of white Americans kind of above others.

19:21They're being very lax in terms of who they're allowing in. And I think that's because of a real desperation to hit these goals. And the fact that this work is more politicized than it's ever been, but it's always been politicized. I, for years, have heard from ICE agents that they don't tell their neighbors and their kids, friends, parents at school, they don't talk about what they do for a living because it's upsetting. And as a result of that, the administration is left to hire with a much diminished pool of people. That's so interesting, especially if they've got to have, I think it was 10 ,000 more ICE officers, that was the target they're supposed to be hitting.

19:58How has that affected the recruitment practices, the training? So the training that ICE officers are undergoing now is less than half the time that they used to spend working on learning the immigration law, learning safe protocols for arrests. Specifically, the Trump administration cut the Spanish language requirement that was part of the basic training for ICE officers, which is really helpful because the vast majority of people they're arresting are Spanish speakers. And so you want to be able to explain to people their rights and who you are and what's going on. That is gone. You know, ICE has always been, and I've written about this, easier to get into than other law enforcement agencies, frankly.

20:40So you don't have to have a college degree to go and work for ICE. And historically, it has been a place where people who are maybe rejected from state police academy or from other federal law enforcement agencies go because they usually can find a place at ICE. We are aware of the desperation that exists to bring people on as quickly as possible at a time when many people are very discouraged from working with this agency, as you can imagine. Right. And that, I guess, explains the bonuses and all of the kind of perks that they're also offering, which would probably also trying to appeal to people who are maybe in kind of a desperate search for work as well.

21:20Exactly. So ICE is offering hiring and retention bonuses to try to draw people in really significant amounts of money, up to$50 ,000. They're also trying to draw people out of retirement. But so many ICE officials I've known over the years have told me that they wouldn't go near the agency with a 10-foot pole at this point. But of course, we're in a time of economic strain in the United States. And so for some people, that bonus is enough to get them to come forward and do this work, even if they have complex feelings about it. Right. So everything you've described, you've got these targets they've got to reach.

21:58You've got this huge amount of money that then, you know, the Trump administration is going to want to see results. You've got quotas on their number of arrests, the push for ICE to recruit thousands of new officers, lowering the training, lowering the recruitment, all of this kind of pulling in people who might be drawn in by this very incendiary, kind of nationalistic, dangerous language that they're using in the recruitment videos. This all seems like a real tinderbox. Absolutely. You have so many factors coming together. And I think, as I mentioned, the biggest one is that these confrontations are part of the goal now.

22:33They're part of the mandate. The goal is not to carry out these deportations in a way that's quiet. It's meant to be visible because it's meant to encourage more people to leave on their own and to spread fear. And so in that sense, the agency has been very successful. The way that they present themselves on the street as well, I mean, they look like a paramilitary force, don't they? You've got masked men in unmarked cars with guns, not identifying themselves, dragging people off the street, smashing people's car windows. Do you feel that's all part of this deliberate strategy as well? I think that the show of force that comes in the style of uniform and in the gear and the weapons that agents are carrying is definitely part of the image that they're trying to convey to the country, this image of intimidation.

23:24And it's also a reflection of these new aggressive tactics that they're taking, right? I mean, they wouldn't be able to be as forceful, whether it's cracking somebody's car window and pulling them out or, you know, discharging a weapon if they didn't have that gear on them. And so I think it's all related. When the Department of Homeland Security and ICE were created, deportation officers didn't even have the legal authority to make an arrest. Deportation officers essentially carried out logistics. These were desk jobs. 20 years later, we're now talking about officers who are using battering rams and guns and picks to crack open windows and drag people out of their cars.