Between Editions: When ICE Polices Itself
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The most important part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown is no longer the number of people arrested or deported. It is the steady removal of the safeguards meant to restrain the officers carrying it out.
The latest reported change would take away one of the few remaining sources of independent scrutiny by ending FBI investigations into confrontations involving federal immigration agents.
The New York Times reported that FBI managers around the country were told that the bureau would no longer investigate such cases. Written notice was reportedly sent after recent fatal encounters involving immigration officers.
The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security denied that a policy change had occurred, but people briefed on the decision described a clear shift that would probably leave Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE, handling cases involving ICE personnel.
That arrangement would place the agency in the uncomfortable position of policing itself. It would also create a serious legal gap because Homeland Security Investigations does not have the FBI’s authority to investigate federal civil rights violations. A shooting might still receive an internal review, but the central question of whether an agent broke federal law could go unanswered.
Trump sets the direction
Trump’s immigration policy has consistently favored faster enforcement, wider discretion and public displays of strength, even when officials within his own government have tried to slow operations after people were killed.
That pattern appeared again after immigration officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine during separate traffic stops. Neither man was the intended target, and neither encounter was recorded by an ICE body camera. Trump responded to a short-lived pause in traffic stops by ordering agents back onto the roads and declaring that suspending the practice would make the government appear weak.
Katty Kay, the BBC’s U.S. special correspondent and co-host of The Rest Is Politics US, captured the meaning of that decision on the podcast. “This would suggest that the White House has decided, ‘Take the gloves off. Go at it, guys. Don’t worry. You are not going to be investigated,’” Kay said. She then put the consequence plainly. “I think this paves the way for a lot more aggression.”
The point is not that every ICE agent will misuse that freedom. The point is that Trump is removing a reason not to. Independent investigation does more than punish wrongdoing after it occurs.
An agency without an outside referee
The FBI’s previous role was more complicated than simply investigating ICE. Many cases began as investigations of alleged assaults against federal officers. Yet the evidence collected could also reveal misconduct by the officers themselves and support a later prosecution.
Removing the FBI therefore changes which facts are likely to be discovered. An internal investigation may determine whether an officer followed agency policy. A civil rights investigation asks the harder question of whether the officer violated the law. Those are not the same standard.
Kay argued that credible investigations require separation between the agency and the investigators. “It’s very important to have an independent investigation,” she said. Her concern went beyond questions of procedure. If ICE investigates itself, the public may have little reason to trust the findings, particularly when the government has already defended officers before all the evidence has been gathered.
That loss of trust reaches beyond immigrant communities. When the government removes the outside referee, every disputed encounter becomes a contest between official statements and whatever witnesses happened to record.
The record already raises alarms
The reported change comes as the American Civil Liberties Union has released one of the broadest examinations yet of immigration enforcement under Trump. Its study reviewed more than 1,200 enforcement actions across eight states during 2025.
The organization stressed that its findings were not a complete accounting, but the sample was large enough to show that the effects reached well beyond undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records.
The ACLU identified 155 U.S. citizens and 214 children who were detained, targeted or subjected to alleged misconduct. Thirty-two of those children were American citizens. The report also documented 782 protesters, journalists, elected officials, and clergy members who were detained, targeted or subjected to misconduct.
Researchers found 418 incidents in which agents pushed, shoved, tackled or pinned people. They recorded 361 uses of chemical irritants, including 132 instances in which the chemicals were aimed directly at individuals. Agents also appeared at or near schools 49 times, contributing to 40 school lockdowns.
These figures come from an advocacy organization that strongly opposes Trump’s immigration program, and they should be understood in that context. But dismissing the report because of its source would miss the larger point. Its findings identify precisely the kind of allegations that require credible investigation rather than automatic acceptance or rejection.
Kay pointed to the children and American citizens while challenging Trump’s repeated claim that his crackdown targets the “worst of the worst.” “That doesn’t sound like the worst of the worst to me,” she said. Her argument was not that immigration laws should go unenforced. It was that enforcement had spread far beyond the group Trump originally promised to pursue.
The politics of looking strong
Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump White House communications director and Kay’s podcast co-host, acknowledges that the Biden administration had failed to control illegal crossings at the border, but he rejected Trump’s attempt to turn immigration enforcement into a campaign against immigration itself.
The United States needs legal immigration to supply workers, support economic growth and strengthen the tax base, he argued.
Scaramucci called Trump’s approach “classically un-American” and said the crackdown was producing fear among immigrants with legal status as well as those without it. He described a Colombian family he knew whose grandmother, despite being a U.S. citizen, returned to Bogotá because she no longer felt safe. “To me, that is just heartbreaking,” Scaramucci said.
He also argued that Trump is paying a political price. “The American people absolutely hate this, and it polls horrifically for the president and for the Republican Party,” Scaramucci said. Whether that judgment proves correct in the midterm elections will depend partly on whether the public continues seeing what immigration enforcement looks like away from the border.
That may explain why independent investigation matters politically as well as legally. Evidence can interfere with a carefully managed story. An administration that portrays every agent as heroic and every target as dangerous has little interest in investigations that may produce a more complicated account.
Trump has made strength the measure of his immigration policy. Pauses suggest weakness, restraint looks like retreat and outside scrutiny becomes an obstacle. But a government does not demonstrate strength by shielding armed officers from independent examination. It demonstrates fear of what an honest investigation might find.
The decision therefore about more than a dispute between two federal agencies. Trump is giving immigration officers greater freedom while making it harder to hold them responsible when something goes wrong. He owns that choice, and the public will live with its consequences long after the latest arrest totals have been forgotten.
Trump Builds Another Deportation Pipeline
President Trump has spent much of his second term searching for ways to deport people faster and with fewer obstacles. When one route has been slowed by the courts, his government has looked for another.
The latest effort reaches back 30 years to a court never used by any president until now. The Justice Department has filed its first application, asking the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to remove an unnamed noncitizen.
The one-page public filing does not identify the person, describe the alleged conduct or explain why the ordinary immigration system would be inadequate. Nearly everything important remains under seal.
The precedent may matter more than this unidentified person. Trump is asking a court built for rare national security cases to open for business, creating another route to label someone a terrorist and seek deportation with much of the evidence hidden.
A court waiting for a case
Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in 1996 following the Oklahoma City bombing, which was committed by Americans, but the court was designed for cases involving noncitizens suspected of terrorism when an ordinary immigration hearing might expose classified information.
Five federal district judges serve on the court. Unlike immigration judges, who work inside the Justice Department, they hold lifetime appointments. The presiding judge is Joan N. Ericksen, a Minnesota judge appointed by President George W. Bush.
For three decades, the court existed mostly on paper. Officials considered about 100 possible cases by 2000 but decided that ordinary immigration charges were sufficient. Six administrations passed without filing an application.
“There’s been six administrations that have basically found the current immigration proceedings to be sufficient,” said Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump White House communications director who now co-hosts The Rest Is Politics US. “You have other routes. You have other methods. Could you please explain why this case cannot go through the regular system?”
A process built around secrecy
The court gives the government advantages unavailable in a normal courtroom. Its first stage is private, with the Justice Department presenting its application to one judge. Prosecutors must show probable cause that the person meets the legal definition of an alien terrorist and that ordinary removal proceedings would risk national security.
If the application is accepted, the case moves to a public hearing where the accused has the right to attend, receive counsel and present evidence. The government must prove that the person qualifies for removal under the terrorism provisions.
Classified evidence can be shown to the judge without being shown to the person facing deportation. Lawful permanent residents can have a special lawyer challenge it, although the lawyer cannot reveal it to the client. Other noncitizens may have to defend themselves without knowing the government’s full case.
Katty Kay, the BBC’s U.S. special correspondent and Scaramucci’s podcast co-host, said the danger lies in how broadly Trump may use the terrorism label. His government appears to want “yet more routes to go after people, label them as terrorists” and remove them along with their families, Kay said.
The law can reach people accused of carrying out or preparing terrorist activity, but also those accused of endorsing terrorism, belonging to certain groups or encouraging terrorist acts. Whether it remains a narrow national security measure will depend on judges demanding evidence rather than accepting labels.
The judge applies the brakes
Trump’s Justice Department did not receive immediate approval. Judge Ericksen held a private hearing one day after the application was filed, where government lawyers offered arguments but no sworn testimony.
Ericksen questioned the connection between the unnamed person’s alleged actions and the terrorism provisions cited by prosecutors. Her order said the government “could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration” and directed it to submit additional facts and legal analysis.
Kay described the response plainly. Ericksen “didn’t rubber-stamp what the administration was trying to do,” she said.
The judge could authorize the first public removal hearing in the court’s history, reject the application or approve a narrowly defined case without providing the broad precedent Trump may want.
The power of the terrorist label
Trump has repeatedly blurred the line between illegal immigration, ordinary crime and terrorism. His government invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua, arguing that the gang’s presence amounted to an invasion. The Supreme Court required that those targeted receive notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.
But the process allows Trump to attach the word terrorist to a person while keeping much of the supporting evidence secret. Even if the court rejects a case, the accusation can shape public opinion before the legal process ends.
Scaramucci accused Trump of overturning normal procedures in his determination to remove more people. The danger is that an exceptional process created for rare national security cases could become another political tool.
Ericksen’s initial order suggests the judges will not simply accept whatever the Justice Department puts before them. That is encouraging, but one skeptical order is not a lasting safeguard.
Trump’s immigration program advances by testing boundaries. Each successful test becomes the starting point for the next one. This court may remain a narrow path, but Trump has placed it inside a much larger deportation campaign. The question is no longer why the court remained unused for so long. It is how far the president will try to take it now that the door is open.