The new 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 the scapegoating of opponents of the Far-Right? The Far-Right scapegoats in part to remove political enemies, but scapegoating also serves the purpose of deflecting blame for the Far-Right’s self-inflicted economic problems onto others. And, bit, today that is sorely needed given the grotesque and rising levels of income inequality, massive corruption, worsening fiscal balances, environmental degradation, and failures to address the consequences of an ageing population and deportations, including erosion of public services.

The Far-Right’s first scapegoats are always the most vulnerable, such as refugees. Or Jews in the case of Nazi Germany. Once the ‘easy’ targets are gone and the populists feel more emboldened, they move on to bigger targets, such as political opponents, intellectuals, trade unionists, judges, and journalists.

Scapegoating obviously contravenes the most basic rights and protections afforded to victims in domestic and international law, so the judiciary typically exerts considerable counter-pressure.

However, the Trump Administration is challenging court decisions seemingly with impunity and the US Supreme Court is under Trump’s control, so no one should place faith in the Rule of Law as a safeguard of liberty in the US today (see here).

The Far-Right eventually runs out of domestic scapegoats, when all known domestic enemies are either languishing in detention, have been intimidated into silence, or otherwise rendered ineffective. At this point, since the economic problems remain the Far-Right will start to look for external scapegoats, including actual or perceived enemies abroad. This is why international conflict and war always make an unwelcome appearance in the final stages of Far-Right populism.

In other words, the new ICE age has only just begun.

The End