![\"ICE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Courtesy-Photo-Immigration-and-Customs-Enforcement.jpg\")
ICE agents arrest a suspect during an enforcement action. Credit: Courtesy Photo \/ Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/p>\nBad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ICE agents arrest a suspect during an enforcement action. Credit: Courtesy Photo \/ Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/p>\n
There are two types of people: those who feel safer when the cops show up and those who feel on edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since I spent my youth smoking copious amounts of a plant known to induce paranoia, I tend to fall into the second category. A recent trip across West Texas, for example, was made decidedly less fun by multiple Border Patrol checkpoints and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers speeding around in SUVs.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve had it easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same can\u2019t be said for Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a college student near Boston who intended to surprise her parents on Thanksgiving by flying back home to Austin. Border Patrol agents slapped the cuffs on her at Logan Airport instead. Although a judge ordered an emergency stay to pause her deportation for 72 hours pending a review of her immigration status, Belloza was flown to a country she\u2019s not set foot in since age 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI burst into tears because I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d she told ABC News<\/a> via phone from Honduras.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re from San Antonio, you\u2019re likely aware of the recent raid on an after-hours food truck park near San Pedro Avenue and Basse Road. Federal agents rounded up more than 140 people<\/a>, ultimately charging two Honduran men with illegal reentry, while claiming some 51 of those arrested were \u201cconfirmed\u201d members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.\u00a0<\/p>\n The feds have offered no proof of gang affiliation as of press time, and elected officials are still seeking<\/a> answers<\/a>, to uncertain avail. \u00a0<\/p>\n Lest we confuse Donald Trump\u2019s intensifying immigration crackdowns with a zeal for bringing drug traffickers to justice, he last week suspended the 45-year prison sentence<\/a> of the former president of Honduras for conspiracy to smuggle 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.<\/p>\n Non-presidents, however, have a tougher row to hoe.<\/p>\n Take George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Iraq War veteran detained by ICE on his way to work this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOne ICE agent\u2019s knee was on his neck, another\u2019s was grinding his back. Drenched with tear gas and pepper spray, Retes might have wished that he were back in Kirkuk,\u201d conservative columnist George Will wrote of the ordeal<\/a>, adding sardonically, \u201ca glimpse of your tax dollars at work.\u201d<\/p>\n Retes, who remained locked up for three days without a lawyer, has since sued the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis doesn\u2019t just affect one person,\u201d he told National Public Radio. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t just affect the Left or the Right. This is a civil rights problem that affects everyone. There\u2019s no accountability. There\u2019s no justice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Goodness help the soldiers without their papers in order.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 100,000 U.S. military veterans lack citizenship,\u201d Rolling Stone disclosed earlier this fall<\/a>. \u201cSome are lawful permanent residents who enlisted on the promise of a fast-track to naturalization. Many of them have family members who believed their loved one\u2019s sacrifice would protect them from immigration enforcement. Instead, they live with the constant fear that ICE could knock on the door at dawn, or grab them off the street, and ship them to countries they\u2019ve never been to<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n As videos of families being ripped apart<\/a> outside court hearings go viral, people ranging from hospital staff<\/a> to farm hands<\/a> now live in fear. The consequences aren\u2019t just heartbreaking but lethal. More than a dozen inmates have died in ICE custody this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAcross the country, people are being held in abhorrent conditions and indefinite detention,\u201d Zoe Bowman, a supervising attorney with the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said early in Trump\u2019s second term<\/a>. \u201cImmigration officials have proven time and time again to be unable and unwilling to prioritize the health and safety of the women, mothers, fathers, children and families that make up the people in their care.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe same conditions that allowed [tuberculosis] to flourish at the end of the 1800s are hallmarks of immigration detention, including overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a breakdown of health protocols,\u201d medical experts informed progressive magazine American Prospect<\/a>. \u201cAnd, of course, the disease doesn\u2019t recognize the limits of prison walls.\u201d<\/p>\n You needn\u2019t be a non-citizen to be subjected to such harm. ProPublica documented<\/a> 170 U.S. citizens who endured incarceration for alleged immigration violations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if you don\u2019t land behind bars, you can still be watched.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBorder Patrol agents and local law enforcement shared information about U.S. citizens\u2019 social media profiles and home addresses with each other after stopping them on the road,\u201d the Associated Press uncovered last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n In one pending case, a Houstonian named Alex Schott had his car ransacked after a tipoff from immigration agents who\u2019d seen that he made an \u201covernight trip from Houston to Carrizo Springs, and back \u2026 stayed overnight in a hotel about 80 miles from the US-Mexico border \u2026 and met a female colleague there before they drove together to a business meeting.\u201d Bexar County deputies held Schott on the side of the road for over an hour, only to find nothing incriminating.<\/p>\n With a $28 billion yearly budget, ICE is now the country\u2019s largest domestic law enforcement agency. Reviewing procurement records, Lever News journalist Katya Schwenk ran across<\/a> a $5.7 million contract signed with Zignal Labs, \u201ca social media monitoring platform used by the Israeli military and the Pentagon,\u201d adding to ICE\u2019s \u201cgrowing arsenal of social media surveillance tools, many of which employ artificial intelligence to generate leads and identify \u2018threats\u2019 from vast quantities of online data.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHundreds of specialized ICE investigative agents, who normally focus on serious crimes such as human trafficking and transnational gangs, have been reassigned to routine immigration enforcement,\u201d news agency Reuters revealed in August<\/a> after interviewing current and former ICE officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, the administration\u2019s mass deportation agenda is literally sparing the so-called \u201cworst of the worst\u201d<\/a> to hound folks who have lived and worked here for years. ICE\u2019s massive recruitment efforts are also poaching beat cops, as Popular Information reported that same month<\/a>, which \u201cwill shift resources from fighting local crime to arresting non-violent immigrants with no criminal record.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re told only the guilty need be afraid \u2014 the usual menacing excuse,\u201d right-of-center blogger Andrew Sullivan recently warned<\/a>. \u201cBut the effect of all this performative (and real) authoritarianism is that everyone \u2014 citizen and non-citizen \u2014 will become used to masked men with the power to arrest walking the streets of the country. We will become used to policing our words so we are not bundled into a van by mistake. We will carry passports to avoid being thrown into jail by mistake. That is not a free country. It is not America. And on this scale, it has never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tA third of the city\u2019s construction workers are foreign-born, and worksites are already losing staff due to fear of enforcement sweeps. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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