As federal agents swarm American cities on the orders of President Donald Trump, it’s getting harder and harder to tell “law enforcement” from the criminals they claim to protect us from. In just the past two weeks, in Chicago alone, it’s all too easy to find accounts and videos of federal immigration authorities committing wanton violence rather than serving the public.
On the city’s South Side, an apartment building was stormed in a late-night, military-style raid, with dozens of residents dragged indiscriminately from their beds and homes. Witnesses said they saw children separated from their parents and restrained by zip ties. (Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied this, calling it “a shameful and disgusting lie.”)
At Humboldt Park Hospital, Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes was manhandled and handcuffed by federal agents in civilian clothing for the “crime” of asking them to produce a judicial warrant. Video of the incident clearly shows that Fuentes remained calm, neither touching nor hampering the agents.
In Brighton Park, immigration agents opened fire on a woman who had been filming them from her car. The Department of Homeland Security claimed the woman had been trying to run them down in her vehicle — an account her attorney says is contradicted by the agents’ own body camera footage.
This list is, alas, illustrative rather than exhaustive, and it’s not hard to see why such incidents are not only becoming commonplace, but likely to get worse.
At the best of times, law enforcement jobs, unfortunately, appeal not only to people who wish to serve and protect their communities, but also to bullies who see an outlet for their anger, aggression and need to dominate others. Ideally, law enforcement agencies screen applicants to attempt to weed out such candidates and mitigate the harm done by those who slip through via rigorous training and a carefully cultivated culture of professionalism and courtesy. That is, to put it mildly, not what we are seeing at the Department of Homeland Security.
Flush with cash following a massive and unprecedented budget hike, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is currently on a hiring spree, seeking to add a whopping 10,000 officers — and dangling hefty bonuses for new hires — in order to make good on Trump’s campaign pledge to conduct mass deportations.
We know what that kind of breakneck expansion of the workforce may result in because we’ve seen it before, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: an explosion of corruption and misconduct.
It’s getting harder and harder to tell “law enforcement” from the criminals they claim to protect us from.
The reality is that it’s simply infeasible to grow a workforce that quickly while maintaining high standards. If you care about high standards, that is: One of Trump’s very first acts in office was to dismantle a federal police misconduct database, designed to help law enforcement agencies spot “job hopping” applicants who’d been disciplined or fired for misconduct in prior roles.
In the current environment, that effect seems certain to be even worse. ICE already had an ugly track record, but consider what sort of person wants to start working there in 2025. The Trump administration still pays lip service to the idea that the agency is focused on dangerous criminals, but it has long been clear there aren’t nearly enough of those to meet Trump’s ambitious deportation targets. Which means ICE is now pulling from a pool of applicants who see televised images of sobbing children in handcuffs, or masked men in tactical gear roughing up Latino laborers, and don’t recoil in horror.
The administration is also doing its best to send all the worst possible signals to existing agents, from every level of the hierarchy. The president ominously declares we are engaged in a “war within” — with domestic urban populations cast as the enemy combatants. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem poses for ghoulish and dehumanizing propaganda videos using the shirtless bodies of imprisoned deportees as props, while her department’s social media teams post a flood of unabashedly white-supremacist memes. When California’s acting U.S. attorney reminds a Border Patrol chief that his agents must comply with court orders — a suggestion one hopes would be uncontroversial — he arranges to have her fired. Meanwhile, ICE agents are constantly being told by administration officials that they must behave as though they’re constantly in dire personal danger. ICE officials have claimed — without producing any hard data to substantiate the claims — that assaults on immigration agents are up 413%. Or 500%. Or 830%. Or, most recently, 1,000%. The heightened risk may not be completely fabricated, however, as the administration is relentlessly pursuing policies that make violent resistance more likely. A target who believes, in the worst case, that they may be returned to their country of origin after being afforded due process in court has ample reason to comply peacefully. One who thinks they’re at risk of being summarily spirited away to a foreign gulag notorious for human rights abuses, or simply disappeared without a trace, might reasonably conclude that fighting back can’t make their prospects any worse. In short, the Trump administration has engaged in a campaign that is attracting the worst possible people for roles in immigration enforcement, shown little interest in legal niceties and professional standards, and pursued policies likely to generate conflict between enforcement officers and the communities they purport to serve. Little surprise that, on the pretext of rounding up dangerous gangsters, Trump has created one more dangerous armed gang.
Julian Sanchez
Julian Sanchez is the author of the politics and technology newsletter Non-Content and co-host of the podcast "WatchCats," which focuses on the Department of Government Efficiency. 
