Welcome to the ICE age

Source: yoogoofball

On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law Public Law 119-21, which provides over USD 170 billion to US border and immigration enforcement agencies over the next four years, with a substantial portion dedicated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Within this overall increase, ICE’s recurrent budget nearly triples from around USD 10bn annually to close to USD 28bn. ICE’s budget for detention centres rises by a whopping USD 45bn, which is a 365% increase compared to the current annual capital spend. As the American Immigration Council notes, this is 62 per cent more than the budget for the entire US prison system and could result in daily detention of at least 116,000 immigrants. Finally, USD 30bn is allocated to enforcement and deportation operations, a three-fold increase.

US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his wish to expel upwards of 12 million immigrants from the United States. He now has the means to do so.

The budget boost for ICE raises many concerns. For one, American xenophobia will now destroy millions of lives. Deportations will also be millstone around the neck of the US economy, especially construction, agriculture, and services. Thirdly, governments rarely increase spending by such magnitudes without major corruption and wastage.

However, these are not even the greatest areas of concern. Immigrants will only stay in Trump’s new detention facilities for a short time before they are deported. Once they are gone – to El Salvador, Rwanda, or some other country from which they may or may never re-emerge – who will occupy the cells in Trump’s shiny new prisons?

In my view, it is naïve and extremely dangerous to believe that Trump’s scapegoating will stop once the immigrants are gone. As I explained in a previous blog, Donald Trump and his fascist henchmen have a long list of enemies. When Trump is done with the immigrants, he will move to the next targets on his list, which will include vocal critics and political enemies.

Americans.

ICE, with its masked, well-funded, and fanatical Trump foot soldiers, will be tasked with making the arrests and the victims will be sent to Trump’s new detention centres.

Welcome to the new ICE age.

What is the logic behind scapegoating of opponents of the Far-Right? The Far-Right is using ICE to silence or entirely get rid of political enemies. ICE terror also helps to deflect blame onto others for the Far-Right’s self-inflicted economic problems. This is particularly useful at a time of grotesque and rising levels of income inequality, massive corruption, worsening fiscal balances, environmental degradation, and failures to address the economic consequences of deportations, including the erosion of public services.

ICE is deliberately being sent to attack the most vulnerable first, such as refugees and other immigrants, for the same reason that the Nazis began by targeting jews; they are easy targets. Once the ‘easy’ targets are gone and the Far-Right feels more emboldened, it sends ICE to attack bigger targets, such as activists, intellectuals, trade unionists. Eventually, once they are strong enough, ICE will be deployed to take out the Far-Right's real targets, namely independent-minded judges, journalists, and, of course, US political opponents.

Scapegoating by ICE units contravenes the most basic rights and protections under domestic and international law, so the judiciary typically presents a problem for the Far-Right. To counter the courts, the Trump Administration is challenging all court decisions and has turned the Department of Justice into a political attack dog. The US Supreme Court has also been placed under Trump’s control. No one should should therefore place faith in the Rule of Law as a safeguard of liberty in the US today (see here).

When all domestic enemies are either languishing in detention, have been intimidated into silence, or otherwise rendered ineffective, the Far-Right will turn their attention to external scapegoats, including actual or perceived enemies abroad. This is why international conflict and war tend to be a feature of Far-Right populism. We are already seeing this in the Trump Administration's attacks and threats against Venezuela and Greenland.

The ICE age has only just begun.

The End