The ICE Storm: a year-long escalation

Funding, law, rhetoric, violence. How each has fed the other to lead here

What we are seeing in Minneapolis right now is horrendous, frightening, and heartbreaking. But it is not a surprise. Over the past year, the Trump administration has deliberately escalated immigration enforcement - expanding funding and capacity for ICE, normalising violent and racist rhetoric, and expanding legal support for immigration enforcement while stripping back oversight. On the ground, federal immigration agents have grown bolder and more aggressive.

Where we are now traces directly back to the very beginning of Trump’s second term. In this post I trace out the actions since January 2025, highlighting the key events that tell the story of how we ended up here.

Below is a chart of actions over the last year – I’ve logged almost 200 and so have only been able to label the most significant on the chart below (high resolution version). The full list, along with links to relevant news stories, can be accessed here.

The first nine months: removing guardrails, increasing funding, desensitising the population

On his first day in office, Trump signed a Proclamation titled “Guaranteeing The States Protection Against Invasion”. This classified southern border crossings as an “invasion” and authorised the Department for Homeland Security (DHS), under which ICE sits, to take “all appropriate action” to “repel, repatriate, or remove” people deemed part of that invasion. Two days later, DHS signed an additional memo authorising ICE agents to expel 1.4 million immigrants who had been allowed to remain under Biden-era policies. The scene was set for the mass deportation efforts to follow.

In March 2025, three watchdogs agencies within DHS were shut down removing important oversight of ICE activities. DHS started deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison CECOT without due process. By Spring, ICE is arresting people as they turn up for their immigration hearings, wrongly arrests US citizens, all while reports of human rights abuses in detention facilities increase. In May 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrongly asserts that the president has “a constitutional right” to deport people without due process.

In terms of building capacity, Trump increased ICE’s budget by $70 billion over four years, a six-fold increase. The American Immigration Council called this “a fundamental reshaping of American society” and said that ICE “would become more powerful than every other federal law enforcement agency”. ICE also started to ramp up its surveillance technologies, with facial recognition apps, spyware, and sharing of sensitive federal data, while some paperwork requirements for arrests were scrapped and funding for bodycams cut. Meanwhile, ICE started a recruitment drive, offering signing-on bonuses and lowering entry requirements.

June saw the National Guard and marines deployed to Los Angeles, followed by DC. Concentrated ICE and Border Patrol deployments targeted LA, Portland, DC, Memphis, New York and Chicago over the summer and early autumn. The National Guard in DC go from being unarmed, to being “maybe armed”, to all being armed. The Department for Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to comply with state rules on identification, and agents continue to detain people while wearing face masks and plain clothes and using unmarked cars.

Dissent is legislated against and punished. In late August, Trump signs an Executive Order to establish specialised National Guard units to address “public order issues”. The next day, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, calls the Democrat Party “a domestic extremist organization” for opposing deployment of the National Guard in DC. US politicians are arrested for demanding access to ICE facilities in New York and DHS threatens federal assault charges against anyone ‘attacking’ ICE agents. In mid September, ICE agents kill a man in a Chicago while trying to arrest him – and are later shown to have lied about what happened.

I believe that the summer gave the administration the reassurance it needed so that it could escalate ICE tactics. While there had been many civilian protests against ICE and National Guard deployment, and many successful legal challenges, Congress did not step in, Fox News and the MAGA base stayed onside. It was safe to continue.

An autumn of increasing brutality, lawlessness and violent rhetoric

By early October, Trump had called Portland, Oregon “war-ravaged” and authorised “full force” against anyone ‘threatening’ ICE facilities. A few days later, Trump suggested that the military could use “dangerous cities” as “training grounds”. ICE had spent more than $70m on new weapons in 2025 and at least 16 deaths of detainees held in ICE facilities had been recorded since January.

In late October, Stephen Miller said anyone interfering in ICE operations could be arrested for engaging in “criminal conspiracy” against the US. Trump said he’s prepared to send “more than the National Guard” into American cities and the Pentagon ordered states’ National Guard units to form “quick reaction forces” for “crowd control”. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) increasingly painted opponents to ICE activity as “domestic terrorists” and as “lawless”.

In early November, a US citizen is shot (but not killed) from behind by ICE agents. The only consequence is that ICE is trying to prosecute him for “assault”, alleging he tried to run them over. The latest ICE operation – this time targeting Minnesota – is announced on 2 December.

Recruitment drives for ICE continue into winter, the Southern border is increasingly militarised, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is providing passenger lists to immigration enforcement. By Christmas, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserts (wrongly) that recording or following ICE agents is “obstruction of justice”, despite it being protected free speech. This argument will be repeatedly used to justify violence against – and the killing of – observers and protesters in January.

January – Minnesota becomes the test case for military takeover of a US city by ICE and other federal immigration agents.

The first few weeks of 2026 have seen Minneapolis at the centre of the deportation effort – and of lawful protest and observation. ICE agents have been testing the limits of what they can get away with. So far, the administration has protected and even celebrated their violence.

On 7 January 2026, US citizen Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents, while trying to get out of their way. The administration immediately characterised her as a “domestic terrorist” who was trying to run over and kill the agents. Video directly contradicted this account. An autopsy released by her family showed that the first two bullets were not life-threatening, but the third killed her – when an ICE agent leaned into the driver’s side window and shot her in the head at close range. JD Vance said afterwards that ICE agents had “absolute immunity” (a claim he has later walked back). The investigation was taken over by the central FBI, with local law enforcement excluded. A civil rights case opened to investigate her shooting was altered to be an investigation of Renee Good for “criminal activity” (and later thrown out by a judge). Good’s widowed wife is being investigated as a potential terrorist. The Department of Justice has now confirmed it sees no need to investigate Good’s death.

Since then, DHS promised to send another 1,000 agents to Minnesota. Federal immigration agents in Minnesota have been filmed breaking into a US citizen’s house and dragging him out in his underwear in subzero temperatures; arresting a 5-year old boy on his way home from school and then his dad (both are still in custody); pepper spraying an observer directly in the face while restraining them on the ground; pepper spraying a Minnesota state attorney at close range; and deploying tear gas against a family of six in their car, resulting in their baby needing hospital. And those are just a fraction of the stories.

The administration has leaned into white supremacist imagery and defence of ICE. Trump threatened to invoke the insurrection act in Minnesota, with 1,500 troops reported to be on standby in Alaska. Civil rights and the rule of law were further weakened. Kristi Noem said ICE was allowed to ask citizens for their citizenship papers. Minnesota’s governor, attorney general, and Minneapolis’ mayor have all been targeted for judicial investigation into ‘obstruction’ of ICE activities.

Elsewhere, a Cuban immigrant was killed in detention while being held in a chokehold by staff. A new ICE operation began in Maine, explicitly targeting Somali immigrants.

And then, on Saturday, federal immigration agents restrained, then killed, US citizen Alex Pretti, who was helping a fellow protester in Minneapolis after she was pushed to the ground by agents. They sprayed him in the face with pepper spray, wrestled him to the ground, and then fatally shot him multiple times. It was witnessed and multiple videos exist showing the shooting from different angles.

The administration has repeatedly lied about what happened, falsely asserting that Pretti was threatening agents and attempting to shoot them, while local police say that the Department of Homeland Security is taking control of the investigation and blocking their access to evidence. Trump, Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller have all backed ICE and Border Patrol.

On thin ICE?

The lawlessness of ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies has been increasing – and been increasingly blatant – for the last year. So far, the administration has covered for them, celebrated them, enabled them, and funded them. Minnesotans have shown how concerted and coordinated local action can make a difference and the crucial importance of witnessing, and recording, what is happening.

Calls are growing, including from former President Obama, for proper investigations and an end to ICE’s deliberate brutality in Democrat cities. Some Republicans are also now speaking up, calling for investigations and questioning the immigration crackdown.

Will Trump and his team listen? If they don’t, will a Republican-led Congress finally assert its authority through legislation, hearings, appropriations powers and even impeachment? Because if there are no consequences to the violence we are witnessing, then it will keep spreading. That is what unchecked power does.