Trump's ICE Love-In Has Become Uncomfortable

The United States of America was founded on 4^th July 1776 on the values of liberty, equality and individual rights, a place of self-determination and agency, where citizens can attain their highest potential. Now, 250 years later, the very pillars that formed the United States are being called into question through the over-centralisation of power by the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in American cities.

To date, at least 8 people have died after encounters with ICE agents in 2026. These are not statistics; they are people with lives and families. The January 24^th shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis may now be acting as a catalyst for a wider reckoning of Trump’s execution of power in relation to immigration control. While it is unlikely that it will act as a check on his power on a long-term basis, it is, however, revealing the wider mood on this issue across America. Of course, particularly in deep red states there will be those who relish crackdowns on predominantly ethnic individuals; but this barbarity and brute force is also horrifying the MAGA crowd. Acknowledging this government overreach on an episode of his podcast ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, Joe Rogan questioned the need for the arrest of individuals who did not have their paperwork on them, revealing to the world, and to Trump, that it is not just the ‘woke left’ questioning his execution of power.

Could this be another distraction to draw attention from the Epstein Files? It wouldn’t be naive to assume so. Trump knows how damaging the optics are surrounding his association with the insidious paedophile, and has a proven track record of trying to make everyone look the other way.  The direct assault on citizens in Minneapolis, Portland, New York City and Los Angeles (all Democratic cities) is a confrontation with the left to further intimidate and subvert.

Stephen Miller, a White House senior adviser, used his X account to describe Pretti as a ‘would-be assassin’ despite footage depicting the antithesis. The ICU nurse’s murder has made the disinformation propagated by ICE extremely obvious, graduating from an issue of one person’s word against another, with bystanders recording the agents to ensure that the true turn of events reaches the public. Indeed, it is the public condemnation of these actions that has influenced Trump’s decision to commence a ‘de-escalation’.

After an apparently productive phone call with Tim Walz, Trump took to Truth Social saying that ‘It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength’.

This ordeal echoes another immigration related nightmare that took place back in Trump’s first term – the zero-tolerance immigration policy. 

Back in 2018, the Trump administration believed that the threat of criminal prosecution would deter individuals from trying to get into the United States. However, it seemed to have the opposite effect, with an influx of migrants continuing to try to puncture the border. Adults who were intercepted were sent to federal custody, and because children legally cannot be held in criminal jails, they were separated and sent to government shelters. As a result, 2342 children were separated from 2206 parents between 5^th May and 19^th June 2018, and a Walmart in Texas even had to be converted into a detention centre to keep up with the sudden increase in numbers.

At the time, the Head of the American Academy of Paediatrics described the policy as ‘child abuse’. The internet, flooded with images of inconsolable children, was outraged and brought criticism to Trump’s door from both ends of the political spectrum.

Both of these cruel exhibitions of aggression reveal a pattern in Trump’s behaviour. He allows the barbarity to ensue, sitting back and allowing ICE and other personnel to act until it seems to boil over. Furthermore, it exemplifies how the absolutism of Trump’s power can wane when placed under pressure from the public. The distance that the president is attempting to insert between himself and ICE will be a harder corner to get out of. Bystanders have done their due diligence by videoing the murder of Alex Pretti and have subsequently debunked the assertions made by The Department of Homeland Security that Pretti had ‘violently resisted officers’. The phone that he was holding as the officers accosted him has still not been released, and the chances remain slim that it ever will be. If Trump does initiate a placation in Minnesota, it will not extinguish the fear that now resides in the hearts of so many Americans. 

An America where citizens feel safer carrying identity papers echoes the atmosphere of European fascist states in the 1930s – not the superpower that has been the key architect of the post-war world.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Myotus (Joe Hoover)

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