Just last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a man in Houston, Texas who had lived in the country for 35 years; he was a father to three sons and a business owner. ICE didn’t even allege that he posed a danger at the time, or had committed crimes in the past. This wasn’t a lone occurrence: Senior White House official Tom Homan recently admitted that at least half of those ICE is currently arresting have no criminal record. And days later, ICE shot another man in Maine.
A new ACLU report, “Agents of Chaos and Cruelty,” illustrates how these types of headline-making abuses committed by ICE are the tip of an iceberg. We closely reviewed and documented more than 1,200 incidents that occurred in eight states in 2025. We found that ICE and the agents working for them — together, what we call the national deportation policing force — have adopted methods and routine tactics that frequently lead to serious civil rights violations. They are committing these violations at a scale and severity without precedent in our nation’s recent history.
The Trump administration is ramping up immigration arrests and deportations to record-breaking levels. Instead of surging into one city at a time — as we saw in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, for instance — the administration is escalating its deportation efforts in communities across the country, at the same time. A larger-than-ever ICE, together with the thousands of state and local police they have deputized, is attempting to arrest scores of people on American streets in the coming weeks to meet a quota. These street arrests, which ICE has never previously conducted at this scale, will endanger everyone’s rights and safety.
Turning American Streets Into Deportation Zones
The Trump administration has repeatedly characterized its actions as targeting “the worst of the worst,” but the reality is that no one is safe from its indiscriminate deportation drive. We identified numerous people who were detained, targeted, or subjected to law enforcement misconduct by the national deportation policing force, including:
- 782 protestors, journalists, elected officials, clergy, and community observers
- 214 children, including 32 who were U.S. citizens
- 155 U.S. citizens
The Trump administration has turned American streets into deportation zones, changing the nature of American life. In our research, we also identified:
- 624 instances when everyday locations like grocery stores, bus stops, and gas stations became the sites of immigration arrests
- 437 likely instances of racial profiling, which has become rampant
- 49 times the national deportation policing force was deployed at or near schools, prompting 40 school lockdowns
- 418 times agents pushed, shoved, tackled, or pinned people and 81 instances when agents used tactics that can limit breathing and become deadly, such as chokeholds
- 361 instances when agents deployed chemical irritants, including 132 times directly aimed at individuals
Agents made the threat of deadly force part of ordinary enforcement – and the cases we reviewed reveal the recklessness of agents. Examples include:
- In Hyattsville, Maryland, agents pinned a man in a busy intersection, pressing against his neck, when one dropped his gun. After scrambling to retrieve it, he turned it toward the crowd. A second agent later drew his weapon and moved toward bystanders.
- In Simi Valley, California, agents detained Rodrigo Almendarez, a U.S. citizen born in Canoga Park, outside his job at a roofing and building supply company. Agents left their SUV in drive when they grabbed him; the SUV rolled forward while one agent chased after it, striking a tree and shattering a side mirror.
- In Bowie, Maryland, agents arrested a father after he had just left home to drive his children to school in the family minivan. His three children — ages 6, 7, and 8 — were in the backseat as masked agents smashed his window, pulled him from the car, pinned him to the ground, pressed a hand on his neck, and pointed a Taser at him while he was pinned. The children later told their mother they saw agents point a gun at their father; video shows an agent pointing the Taser. He was detained one day after his wife said he had checked in for immigration supervision.
This civil rights data is among the largest that has ever been reported regarding ICE, and is based on our meticulous research and analysis. It’s not a full accounting of ICE’s street enforcement actions in 2025 — which exploded to unprecedented levels — but it is a striking sample. The data also expose the gaps in our accountability structures, which largely failed to stop agents who routinely threatened public safety in communities across the country.
The Blueprint for Authoritarian Rule
The tactics that “Agents of Chaos and Cruelty” details are straight from the authoritarian playbook. The Trump administration deploys anti-immigrant scapegoating and nearly explicit white supremacist narratives, even featuring white supremacist slogans and images in its recruitment campaigns. Its deportation drive also involves suppressing dissent, evading checks and balances, and consolidating executive power.
In 2025, senior officials created a national deportation policing force of officers who often appeared masked and menacing in our communities. They treated it as the president’s personal force to be deployed against American cities perceived as hostile to his interests, during political standoffs with the opposing party, and in response to protests. Now, the national deportation policing force is — with little public notice — operating all over the country, with state and local police conducting traffic stops and setting up checkpoints for immigration enforcement.
What we are experiencing mirrors aspects of countries under authoritarian rule, where the loss of basic freedoms grows so widespread that it seems less remarkable over time and simply becomes a fact of life. We must prevent the abuses we’ve seen across the country from becoming an accepted, new normal.
Transforming Our System: The ACLU's Affirmative Vision
It is time for transformative change to an immigration system that has long been cruel and dysfunctional, and has proven vulnerable to exploitation for authoritarian ends. Nearly 25 years since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and its component agency ICE, our immigration system requires a hard reset.
“Agents of Chaos and Cruelty” is the first in a new series of ACLU papers and reports making the case for the new immigration system we envision. This system would replace ICE’s abuses with "a new cabinet-level Immigration Management Agency oriented toward service — with a mission to keep families together, support American communities and meet the needs of the American workforce." Our democracy needs an immigration system built with safe, fair, and proportionate tools to hold people accountable to our immigration laws — not a vast paramilitary force operating with claimed immunity and punishing people with deadly, unjust, and unnecessary mass civil detention.
Congress must finally enact a path to citizenship so that millions of our loved ones and neighbors can gain lasting and real protection from deportation, and the equal rights and all protections under the law afforded by citizenship. Bills like the American Dream and Promise Act, which would extend a path to citizenship to an estimated 4.4 million Americans-in-waiting, should be at the top of Congress’ agenda. Congress must also dismantle the national deportation policing force, including by ending ICE’s misuse of state and local police through the 287(g) program. It should rescind the $240 billion in no-strings-attached funding it has provided to our immigration agencies; that money should go to supporting our communities, not attacking them.
Achieving transformative change to our immigration system will require all of us to call our members of Congress, state legislators, and city councils, and keep sharing why this matters.
Facts Only
* ICE shot a man in Houston, Texas, who lived in the country for 35 years; he was a father to three sons and a business owner.
* Senior White House official Tom Homan admitted that at least half of ICE arrests currently have no criminal record.
* ICE shot another man in Maine.
* More than 1,200 incidents were documented across eight states in 2025 by the ACLU.
* The national deportation policing force involves ICE and agents working for them.
* The force is alleged to have adopted methods leading to serious civil rights violations at a scale and severity without precedent.
* Detained or targeted groups included 782 protestors, journalists, elected officials, clergy, and community observers; 214 children, including 32 U.S. citizens; and 155 U.S. citizens.
* 624 instances occurred when locations like grocery stores, bus stops, and gas stations were sites of immigration arrests.
* 437 likely instances of racial profiling were identified.
* 49 times the national deportation policing force was deployed at or near schools, prompting 40 school lockdowns.
* 418 instances occurred when agents pushed, shoved, tackled, or pinned people, and 81 instances involved tactics limiting breathing like chokeholds.
* Instances included an agent pinning a man in Maryland while he dropped his gun; an agent rolling an SUV in California; and an agent pinning a father and his three children in Maryland while pointing a Taser.
Executive Summary
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted over 1,200 documented actions in eight states during 2025. These incidents involved lethal force, arrests, and tactics that resulted in civil rights violations across communities. The text describes the escalation of immigration enforcement through a national deportation policing force, which involves state and local police conducting stops and checkpoints. Specific documented instances include the shooting of an individual in Houston, Texas, and another man in Maine. Furthermore, research identified numerous encounters where everyday locations were used for immigration arrests, and there were high rates of racial profiling, use of physical force like pushing or chokeholds, and deployment of chemical irritants by agents. The text posits that these actions are part of a broader strategy involving the Trump administration's increased deportation efforts and an effort to establish streets as deportation zones.
The narrative further suggests that these tactics align with authoritarian methods, including the use of anti-immigrant rhetoric and the consolidation of executive power through the creation of a national policing force. The ACLU proposes replacing ICE with a new agency focused on service and family reunification, advocating for a path to citizenship and dismantling the national deportation policing force. This vision calls for shifting policy to provide accountability and ensuring that immigration enforcement is based on fair and proportionate legal tools rather than mass civil detention or paramilitary force.
Full Take
The narrative connects specific, documented abuses—such as the use of lethal force, racial profiling, and the deployment of tactics like chokeholds during street enforcement—to a larger ideological framework characterized by authoritarian rule and white supremacist narratives employed by the Trump administration. The pattern suggests that the operationalization of immigration policy moves beyond standard law enforcement into punitive social control, establishing an environment where state and local police are used to enforce federal mandates in ways that circumvent traditional checks and balances. The shift from localized policing to a national deportation policing force reflects a systemic reorganization designed for maximum punitive effect, mirroring historical authoritarian consolidation of power.
The focus on creating "deportation zones" through street arrests transforms public spaces into sites of enforcement, which is an escalation of control over civil life. When analyzing the data concerning profiling and physical restraint, the implication is that accountability structures are fundamentally broken, allowing agents to operate with perceived impunity, as evidenced by the lack of successful recourse for the victims. The proposed solution—dismantling the force and enacting systemic change via a new agency—suggests that structural reform must address both policy objectives and the underlying mindset driving enforcement practices.
What questions remain are centered on the mechanics of immunity and accountability: if agents operated under claimed immunity, how did the specific documented incidents escape meaningful institutional response? Furthermore, when viewing this through the lens of pattern analysis, does the operationalization of fear—creating environments where basic freedoms erode incrementally—demonstrate a deliberate strategy to normalize authoritarian practices across various jurisdictions? Does recognizing these patterns allow for an assessment of whether future accountability mechanisms can effectively counter narratives that equate mass enforcement with necessary security measures?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like a highly synthesized report blending specific documented events with strong political argumentation, suggesting it is either authored by an advocacy organization or heavily framed by its findings.