ICE existed under the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. While there have been significant levels of deportation under Bush, Obama, and Biden, immigration enforcement is the most aggressive it has ever been in modern history under Trump’s second presidency.
For about a decade, ICE’s budget hovered around $6B-$10B per year. Under President Trump, ICE has become the largest and most well-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history, receiving $90B last year, with Senate Republicans pushing for even more. With such rapid growth, the way ICE has operated has become more controversial, more reckless, and more violent, resulting in a culture of fear and mass surveillance of noncitizens and citizens alike.
There is grave concern about the rapid recruitment of ICE agents, their fitness for the role, and the little training they receive. Investigative journalist Laura Jadeed reported being hired after only six minutes without completing any background paperwork at an ICE career expo. Without a serious vetting process and in light of the white supremacist tropes featured in their recruitment advertisements, it’s no surprise that the Washington Post reported that some ICE agents have ties to white supremacist groups. Despite these valid concerns about their competence and ethics, there has been a shift toward absolute immunity for ICE officers, which means they will not be held accountable for their actions, as lawsuits are dismissed without the investigative discovery phase. This lack of accountability, vetting, and training is just one piece of the puzzle that makes ICE more aggressive overall.
ICE officers also have access to a wide range of surveillance tools, like facial recognition, to identify immigrants for potential detention and citizen observers, and they have adopted raid-style tactics to broadly sweep people into detention. In 2026 alone, ICE has detained over 60,000 people, almost twice as many as those detained under Biden and Obama. Unlike previous administrations, there is seemingly no discretion in who is detained. Instead of targeting specific enforcement priorities, ICE is now detaining pregnant and nursing women, families, and 86-year-old women with no criminal history.
The rapid and widespread growth of for-profit ICE detention centers has been alarming. Even though being undocumented or overstaying your visa is not a criminal offense (it is a civil violation akin to a traffic violation), people who are waiting for the decision on their immigration status are often incarcerated in immigration detention centers in terrible, jail-like conditions. Some people have experienced solitary confinement, starvation, and abuse, and deaths in ICE detention have not been this high since 2004. Some people have entered ICE detention and vanished from the ICE locator system entirely. Some people have been disappeared to countries like El Salvador, without an opportunity to notify relatives, speak to a lawyer, or fight the removal. On multiple occasions, ICE has even deported people in violation of federal court orders.
This escalation is reflected in the growing number of people that Acacia’s programs serve in ICE detention facilities and the increasing barriers they face in accessing counsel, connecting with family, or meaningfully participating in their case.
The threat of encountering ICE agents and being disappeared has made many people withdraw from public life for fear that they will be targeted. This fear has led some people to be too afraid to call the police or an ambulance when they need help. ICE has a history of detaining people as they show up for their scheduled immigration court hearing, making it an impossible choice to follow the law or get detained. Through Acacia’s Witness for Justice court observation project, court observers have documented ICE activity in and around immigration courts, including patterns of enforcement that undermine access to due process and that discourage people from attending their hearings. ICE has created a culture of fear that makes communities less safe for everyone and more difficult for people to adhere to their legally required immigration court schedule.
