ICE Just Got a License to Terrorize
But Here's What You Can Do About It
Masked Agents. No Warrant. No Badge. No Problem.
This is what Trump’s America looks like now: a man in a ski mask bangs on your door, refuses to identify himself, says he’s “with immigration,” and demands you hand over your uncle. He doesn’t have to show a warrant. He doesn’t have to say who he is. And if you resist? Good luck.
This is already happening. The difference now is they’re funded to scale it up, with unmarked vans, new camps, and legal cover.
Still think you’re not next?
On July 4, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill—a 940-page legislative battering ram that delivers massive tax cuts, deep Medicaid rollbacks, and one especially dark centerpiece: $170 billion to ICE.
🥷 ICE Is Now the Largest Domestic Force in America
Let’s skip the euphemisms: this bill makes ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in U.S. history, leaving the FBI, DEA, and ATF in the dust.
Here’s what the spending spree buys:
10,000 new ICE agents
$45 billion for detention centers—enough to jail 116,000 people daily
$46.6 billion for border wall construction—more than triple what Trump spent during his entire first term
A new pricing menu for desperation: asylum seekers must now pay hundreds in fees, and applying for a work permit costs more, too
The bill includes a 265% increase in detention spending. And it’s not just more cells—it’s longer stays, including for families and children, possibly in violation of longstanding legal settlements.
🎭 This Isn’t About Enforcement. It’s About Performance.
What Trump’s doing isn’t law enforcement—it’s stagecraft. Raids are reality TV. Detention is messaging. Unmarked agents snatching people in broad daylight? That’s a campaign ad in motion.
Greg Sargent and Simon Rosenberg were blunt: Trump isn’t hiding the authoritarian playbook—he’s reading from it on camera.
🐊 “Alligator Alcatraz” Is Just the Beginning
In early July, Trump toured a new migrant detention facility deep in the Florida Everglades. Remote, hidden, inaccessible to the press. He called it a “model.”
It’s been nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz. This bill just financed a dozen more.
📋 Three Thousand Arrests a Day. That’s the Goal.
According to internal reports, White House advisor Stephen Miller set the bar: 3,000 arrests a day. That’s one million deportations per year.
ICE has already arrested veterans, citizens, green card holders, and parents dropping off kids at school. Now they have quotas, money, and permission to keep going.
📉 This Bill Is Also an Economic Wrecking Ball
Even if ICE doesn’t knock on your door, this policy hits your paycheck.
Cato’s David Bier estimates the deportation campaign could add $1 trillion to the deficit, due to lost tax revenue and mass labor disruptions.
EPI’s Ben Zipperer calculates the plan will destroy 6 million jobs, hurting both immigrants and native-born workers, especially in sectors like construction and childcare.
This isn’t fiscal conservatism. It’s economic arson.
🧨 This Is What Fascism With a Paper Trail Looks Like
It’s passed. It’s funded. It’s happening.
Masked men at your door. No warrant. No badge number. Just the word “immigration” and an outstretched hand.
And if you say no?
Good luck explaining that to the unmarked van idling at the curb.
✊ What You Can Do (While You Still Can)
ICE just got everything it ever wanted. That doesn’t mean you have to give them what they need next: your silence, your fear, and your permission.
If this feels like a warning, it is. But warnings are useless without choices. So here are a few:
Beyond that, here are some practical ways to slow things down and stop them:
1. Cut the cord between ICE and your community.
Call your mayor, your city council, your state rep. Ask one question: “Is my city cooperating with ICE?” If the answer is yes, demand a reversal. Raids depend on local support—cut it off.
2. Back the people already fighting this.
Support orgs that do real immigrant defense—court accompaniment, deportation defense, bond funds, and legal aid:
3. Don’t wait until it’s your neighbor. Or your coworker. Or you.
If ICE shows up on your block, document everything. Film. Ask to see a warrant signed by a judge. Post what you record. These men operate in the shadows. Drag them into the light.
4. Tell your elected officials the performance is over.
Call your members of Congress. Email them this article. Ask them why they’re letting this happen. Ask them what oversight means if it doesn’t stop this.
5. Don’t let this get normalized.
Talk about it. Post about it. Write about it. Speak like it matters, because it does. Don’t wait for a knock at your door to realize what side of history you’re on.
6. Get (and carry) a Passport Card.
A U.S. passport card is a wallet-sized, plastic document that serves as proof of U.S. citizenship and identity.
Sources
Greg Sargent & Simon Rosenberg, The Daily Blast, July 7, 2025, The New Republic
Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, “How Trump’s bill will supercharge mass deportations by funneling $170bn to ICE”
David Bier, Cato Institute, “Deportations Will Add Almost $1 Trillion to the Costs of the GOP’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’”
Ben Zipperer, Economic Policy Institute, “Trump’s deportation agenda will destroy millions of jobs”
ICE are paid prostitutes with mask.