A Hard Look at ICE

Over the past year I have written about immigration, ICE, and other politically charged issues.  I have attempted to keep my opinions to a minimum by looking for the facts.  My life has been shaped by the idea that the truth is only discoverable when you ask questions and look for accurate information.  That’s difficult today where there are so many instant sources, many with less than Walter Cronkite honesty!

The shooting of Alex Pretti by ICE agents yesterday clearly points out the hypocrisy of the Trump administration.  Watch the videos and look at the stills.  The story fabricated by Noem, Bondi, and Bovino can’t begin to defend the actions of these ICE officers.  It is clear that Pretti was observing and recording the actions of ICE agents. He had his cell phone in his hand.  It is clear that an ICE agent pushed a woman into a snow pile.  It is clear that Pretti was attempting to help her up.  It is also clear that as he helped this woman, an ICE agent dispensed spray at Pretti, followed by additional officers taking him to the ground.  Pretti was doing nothing wrong!  He was shot because an overly excited and poorly trained officer likely informed his peers that there was a gun.  There was a gun.  However, the gun was not visible in his hand as claimed by ICE, but in his holster. 

The shooting of Alex Pretti is the fifth deadly shooting by ICE since January.  The killing of Renee Nicole Good was not the first time that federal officers have killed civilians.  Federal officers have fatally shot at least three other people in the last five months. In September, Silverio Villegas González, a father originally from Mexico who worked as a cook, was killed while reportedly trying to flee from officers in a Chicago suburb (WBEZ). In December, a border patrol agent killed a 31-year-old Mexican citizen while trying to detain him in Rio Grande City, Texas. And on New Year’s Eve, an off-duty ICE agent used his service weapon to shoot a man in Los Angeles, California. Authorities mistakenly said the man had raised a rifle at the officer (CBS News).  Agents have also shot other people. The Trace, the nonprofit news organization covering gun violence, has counted more than a dozen such shootings. In some cases, the victims survived, including a woman who suffered multiple bullet wounds in an incident in Chicago in October (Marshall Project).

My examination of media reports points in the direction of an ICE operation that exceeded general mandates.  In a prior post, I noted that the training that ICE officers receive does not prepare them for police work. Several mistakes were made by ICE officers during this Minneapolis confrontation.  While at least some of the officers involved had received more than the 47 hours of training now mandated, the training was in enforcement of ICE mandates, arrests and warrants– not police tactics.  The most significant example of not having proper training is a simple axiom taught in most police academies: TIME + DISTANCE = OPTIONS.  Other mistakes, such as the approach of ICE officers, violate another key point in police training.  DE-ESCALATE THE TENSION in any given situation.  This recent ICE citizen interaction shows ICE escalating the situation, not de-escalating!

To be clear, the entire ICE operation is based on fabricated stories about immigrants.  Immigrants are invading America.  “There are many rapists, killers, and gang members among our immigrants.”  The Trump administration is increasing deportation of these “dangerous” criminals.  The reality of this portion of President Trump’s immigration plan is like many of his proposed operations. It is a show that is harming American citizens and illegal immigrants.  Being an illegal immigrant is not a felony.  It is a misdemeanor punishable with no more than a six-month jail term for the first offense.  Citizens who support the immigrant community have the right to free speech and demonstration. They have a right to life!

While being an illegal immigrant is a misdemeanor crime, President Trump has said that ICE would focus on “the worst of the worst,” those with felony convictions.  Federal officials and DHS communications assert that a large majority of arrests target people with criminal convictions or pending charges (officially cited by DHS as about 70%), However, independent analyses of ICE and detention data finds that roughly three quarters of people held in ICE detention in late 2025 had no criminal convictions, and that only a small share—about 5%—had violent convictions (CATO Institute).

Indeed, relative to native-born citizens and legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants have the lowest felony arrest rates across all crime types. In fact, the gaps between native-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are substantial. US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes (National Institute of Health study). Trump used a false narrative to instill fear in his MAGA base. 

Immigration reform has been a topic of debate for decades.  During the end of the Biden administration, a bipartisan immigration reform bill was finally on its way through Congress. The bill, a $118 billion package, was introduced by Senators James Lankford, Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona. It included $20.23 billion to strengthen border security and stop the flow of fentanyl and other narcotics through the border into the United States.  The package gave the secretary of Homeland Security the power to close the border if more than 4,000 encounters with migrants occurred during a period of seven consecutive days. The immigration overhaul also included:  raising the bar for migrants claiming asylum; clarification of the White House’s use of parole authority to grant temporary protections to migrants; and no longer allowing migrants to live in the U.S. while waiting for their case to be heard by an immigration judge. It didn’t get passed because candidate Trump wanted the immigration issue to remain as a campaign issue (Associated Press, February 2024).

It is also worth noting that under President Obama deportation figures were the highest of any president.  During his tenure, 2.7 to 3 million people were deported.  The daily average ranged from a high of 1,000 to a low of 800.  All of this was accomplished without a surge in ICE arrests.  In contrast, to date, Trump’s ICE is averaging 810 arrests per day with pending deportation.  Most of these individuals are being held in detention centers on a misdemeanor charge.

Why do we need an ICE force that is now 22,000 strong and growing? This number is double that of the 10,000 officers in the organization under past administrations.    Just 10 years ago, the annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was less than $6 billion. But ICE’s budget has skyrocketed during President Trump’s second term, becoming the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, at $85 billion. And why does the operating budget include bonuses for arrests?  Do we really want this type of federal immigration enforcement?  Do we support ICE officers who receive only 47 hours of training?

Minneapolis and prior ICE operations in Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and a few other cities are a harbinger of possible things to come.  There was no crisis that required the surge in ICE operations!  This was perhaps only a political ploy.  While most MAGAs likely support this move, the majority of Americans are appalled.  A recent FOX News report found that only 35% of those polled support ICE actions in Minneapolis. When thousands of demonstrators take to the streets to protect the immigrants in their communities, that should tell us that there is something wrong with the administration’s policies.  Americans must make their voices heard when the protection that the Trump administration says it is providing becomes a greater threat than the fabricated problem! 

  We deserve to know why so many ICE officers are being hired.  We should demand that all federal officers receive at least a minimum of 400 hours of training, the minimum required by our states for police officers, not 47 hours as currently for ICE officers.  Also, consider the fact that ICE officers are not subject to the stringent pre-employment screening which most police department applicants face.  ICE officers not only lack training in police tactics, such as de-escalation, but some may even have tendencies toward violence. Contact your legislators (specifically Republicans) and tell them not to support the funding of ICE operations until Americans get answers to questions regarding Trump’s false narrative on immigration.