This is the kind of article that made me a Preamble paid subscriber – carefully researched, clearly written, and important, without the inflammatory language that has engulfed our politics. Thank you.
We need accountability in order to make democracy work. What disturbs me and so many of us is that this administration is deliberately making it difficult if not impossible to hold people accountable. We need a government agency that enforces our immigration laws, but that agency must be held accountable to the people.
Thanks for putting together such a comprehensive accounting, Casey. Factual reporting with breakdowns of each pillar was really helpful.
I feel like what keeps getting lost in both the administration’s rhetoric and the reporting on ICE is what the ostensible reason for all this was in the first place.
Most reasonable people agreed that the situation at the border was out of control up until the end of the Biden term. Whether it was a priority in the way someone voted in 2024 or not, getting crossings under control and deporting violent criminals was a bipartisan concern. The Trump campaign made promises that far exceeded what could be achieved in reality, but I think most people believed that most of the campaign rhetoric was in service of convincing voters that immigration would be a top priority of a second Trump term.
That is to say: if a second term were to deliver a controlled border and targeted deportations based on violent criminal records, Trump would have enjoyed the bipartisan support on this issue that he seems to crave.
So what’s baffling now is that this flamboyant display of brutality seems to be happening in defiance of seeking public approval rather than in pursuit of it. What exactly are they seeking? Why do they want to be more cruel than even their own supporters wanted them to be? He even got Susan Collins to say the word “excessive”!
The deterrent effect for crossing has already been achieved. So why ship people without criminal records to El Salvador? Why disappear college students for harmless op-eds written in college newspapers? Why escalate armed interactions with unarmed people, ignoring all the training protocols? Why throw canisters of toxic gas under a minivan of children that had nothing to do with protests, causing a newborn to lose consciousness? Why hire at a pace that precludes proper training? Why build a monument to cruelty in the Everglades without pausing to confirm it could even legally function? Why fixate on arbitrary arrest numbers that almost nobody cares about now that the main concerns have already been addressed?
The scary answer is that this was never really about the reasons they are giving in their press releases. For the people driving these decisions, those were always just the publicly acceptable justifications for something else entirely: an ideological project of racial purification dressed up as law enforcement. It’s almost as if now they are pursuing a tactic of getting everyday Americans to be horrified. Why?
The White House official social media accounts are often filling in the gaps where you could read in between the lines, using slogans eerily similar to Nazi propaganda. A black woman arrested for peacefully protesting (Nekima Levy Armstrong) had an image of her arrest altered to darken her skin and used AI to change her composed expression to make it look like she was sobbing and hysterical. This manipulation could have easily been done in a way to hide the alteration, but everything else about the image was identical to the original, so the alteration is obvious. When directly asked about this incident, the official response from ICE was an accusation that the reporter was defending violent criminals by even asking a question.
It’s like ICE wants to be the villain, and wants people of good conscience to be provoked into protest. They’re throwing gasoline on every fire they can find. And our systems seem powerless to confront a criminal organization within the government.
What frustrates me about conversations around immigration is the almost universal need for people to add in the plug, “We can all agree on strengthening the border and getting rid of the worst of the worst”, or some variation of that.
I find it frustrating because as far as the immigrant population goes, the “worst of the worst” numbers are not even that high to begin with. According to a recent study led by Stanford economist, Ran Abramitsky, immigrants have had consistently lower incarceration rates compared to US born individuals, a trend that has held true for 150 years. Additionally, findings from 2024 and 2025 reports indicate that this trend holds true for violent, property, and drug offenses. The “worst of the worst” is not as big of a problem as people, even those who oppose what is happening, have been lead to believe. It’s a narrative that has been so successful in making a mountain out of a molehill that it seems every opposition to what’s going on has to lead with or add in a plug for agreeing that the worst of the worst have to go. It’s a statement that further perpetuates the belief that immigrants are dangerous and unsafe. A belief that in turn makes those of us who are immigrants, especially non-white immigrants, less safe. Why not focus on violent criminals across the board without an unnecessary focus on birthplace?
Second, the “we can all agree on strengthening the border” or some version of support for border security. Why? Why is this such a pressing issue for white America? What would be viewed as lax border security by today’s standards, is what allowed many of white American’s ancestors to make it in. Why is it now such a pressing issue? I don’t mean that question rhetorically. I would genuinely like to hear from anyone who feels like border security is a pressing issue, why you feel that way. Is it a desire to vet who is coming into the country? If that’s the case, then it seems to me the solution is not a stronger border but easier pathways to enter the country legally. Pathways that are less expensive, time consuming, or confusing, so that more people feel that choice is accessible and better than crossing at a border. That solution would increase the ability to vet who is entering the country because more people would choose it. Further, I feel shocked at the numbers shared in the article that show approval for Trump’s handling of border security but not on his handling of immigration and deportations, when his “success” at border security is a result of the inhumane tactics he’s using in immigration and deportations. His administration has been open about their goal of using fear in immigration and deportation policy to decrease border crossings. Therefore, it seems rather Machiavellian to me, that the public disapproves of the measures that are leading to results at the border that they approve of. It troubles me because I fear these results at the border, that the public approves of, will be propped up as an example that although the methods may be ugly, they are successful and bring the desired result, and therefore must continue. I also feel that if border security is going to be so critically important to the majority of US Americans, then they must be willing to learn about what causes people to leave their home countries for this one. There must be a willingness to have the hard conversations about world history, the United State’s interventions in many countries and its intentional destabilization of other countries for it’s benefit, and how that causes the very immigration en masse that troubles the public so deeply.
To wrap up my lengthy comment, I have a simple plea. Please stop adding in the plug, “We can all agree on strengthening the border and getting rid of the worst of the worst”, or some variation of it. It adds to the harm and the issue’s we’re facing.
There is no doubt in my mind that there have been some failures in administrating this immigration procedure that warrants further scrutiny and exposure to assure there will be better ways to regulate by allowing due process to be practiced , which doesn't appear to be happening now. I'm all for getting the "worst of the worst" removed from our country, but not at the expense of harming the constitutional rights of the "by catch" ( i.e. those who are not guilty of any crimes and are still detained or deported).
Thank you for this article- it provides helpful facts in an accessible summary. One question that might be hard to find- how much money is the trump regime making from this brutality? How much money are we paying for this?
I wonder, Prof Burgat, if you could include possible "Why's" in your article. Why have the numbers of arrests, detainees and deportations gone up in Trump's second term? Why has ICE had to go into the interior of the US, instead of focusing mainly on the border? ICE has been doing this for 20 years under both political parties, so why do you think their tactics had to change? Without rhetoric or slogans, I would sincerely love your thoughts.
This is the kind of article that made me a Preamble paid subscriber – carefully researched, clearly written, and important, without the inflammatory language that has engulfed our politics. Thank you.
We need accountability in order to make democracy work. What disturbs me and so many of us is that this administration is deliberately making it difficult if not impossible to hold people accountable. We need a government agency that enforces our immigration laws, but that agency must be held accountable to the people.
Thanks for putting together such a comprehensive accounting, Casey. Factual reporting with breakdowns of each pillar was really helpful.
I feel like what keeps getting lost in both the administration’s rhetoric and the reporting on ICE is what the ostensible reason for all this was in the first place.
Most reasonable people agreed that the situation at the border was out of control up until the end of the Biden term. Whether it was a priority in the way someone voted in 2024 or not, getting crossings under control and deporting violent criminals was a bipartisan concern. The Trump campaign made promises that far exceeded what could be achieved in reality, but I think most people believed that most of the campaign rhetoric was in service of convincing voters that immigration would be a top priority of a second Trump term.
That is to say: if a second term were to deliver a controlled border and targeted deportations based on violent criminal records, Trump would have enjoyed the bipartisan support on this issue that he seems to crave.
So what’s baffling now is that this flamboyant display of brutality seems to be happening in defiance of seeking public approval rather than in pursuit of it. What exactly are they seeking? Why do they want to be more cruel than even their own supporters wanted them to be? He even got Susan Collins to say the word “excessive”!
The deterrent effect for crossing has already been achieved. So why ship people without criminal records to El Salvador? Why disappear college students for harmless op-eds written in college newspapers? Why escalate armed interactions with unarmed people, ignoring all the training protocols? Why throw canisters of toxic gas under a minivan of children that had nothing to do with protests, causing a newborn to lose consciousness? Why hire at a pace that precludes proper training? Why build a monument to cruelty in the Everglades without pausing to confirm it could even legally function? Why fixate on arbitrary arrest numbers that almost nobody cares about now that the main concerns have already been addressed?
The scary answer is that this was never really about the reasons they are giving in their press releases. For the people driving these decisions, those were always just the publicly acceptable justifications for something else entirely: an ideological project of racial purification dressed up as law enforcement. It’s almost as if now they are pursuing a tactic of getting everyday Americans to be horrified. Why?
The White House official social media accounts are often filling in the gaps where you could read in between the lines, using slogans eerily similar to Nazi propaganda. A black woman arrested for peacefully protesting (Nekima Levy Armstrong) had an image of her arrest altered to darken her skin and used AI to change her composed expression to make it look like she was sobbing and hysterical. This manipulation could have easily been done in a way to hide the alteration, but everything else about the image was identical to the original, so the alteration is obvious. When directly asked about this incident, the official response from ICE was an accusation that the reporter was defending violent criminals by even asking a question.
It’s like ICE wants to be the villain, and wants people of good conscience to be provoked into protest. They’re throwing gasoline on every fire they can find. And our systems seem powerless to confront a criminal organization within the government.
Let’s just name them for what they are, Brownshirts.
Why, indeed.
What frustrates me about conversations around immigration is the almost universal need for people to add in the plug, “We can all agree on strengthening the border and getting rid of the worst of the worst”, or some variation of that.
I find it frustrating because as far as the immigrant population goes, the “worst of the worst” numbers are not even that high to begin with. According to a recent study led by Stanford economist, Ran Abramitsky, immigrants have had consistently lower incarceration rates compared to US born individuals, a trend that has held true for 150 years. Additionally, findings from 2024 and 2025 reports indicate that this trend holds true for violent, property, and drug offenses. The “worst of the worst” is not as big of a problem as people, even those who oppose what is happening, have been lead to believe. It’s a narrative that has been so successful in making a mountain out of a molehill that it seems every opposition to what’s going on has to lead with or add in a plug for agreeing that the worst of the worst have to go. It’s a statement that further perpetuates the belief that immigrants are dangerous and unsafe. A belief that in turn makes those of us who are immigrants, especially non-white immigrants, less safe. Why not focus on violent criminals across the board without an unnecessary focus on birthplace?
Second, the “we can all agree on strengthening the border” or some version of support for border security. Why? Why is this such a pressing issue for white America? What would be viewed as lax border security by today’s standards, is what allowed many of white American’s ancestors to make it in. Why is it now such a pressing issue? I don’t mean that question rhetorically. I would genuinely like to hear from anyone who feels like border security is a pressing issue, why you feel that way. Is it a desire to vet who is coming into the country? If that’s the case, then it seems to me the solution is not a stronger border but easier pathways to enter the country legally. Pathways that are less expensive, time consuming, or confusing, so that more people feel that choice is accessible and better than crossing at a border. That solution would increase the ability to vet who is entering the country because more people would choose it. Further, I feel shocked at the numbers shared in the article that show approval for Trump’s handling of border security but not on his handling of immigration and deportations, when his “success” at border security is a result of the inhumane tactics he’s using in immigration and deportations. His administration has been open about their goal of using fear in immigration and deportation policy to decrease border crossings. Therefore, it seems rather Machiavellian to me, that the public disapproves of the measures that are leading to results at the border that they approve of. It troubles me because I fear these results at the border, that the public approves of, will be propped up as an example that although the methods may be ugly, they are successful and bring the desired result, and therefore must continue. I also feel that if border security is going to be so critically important to the majority of US Americans, then they must be willing to learn about what causes people to leave their home countries for this one. There must be a willingness to have the hard conversations about world history, the United State’s interventions in many countries and its intentional destabilization of other countries for it’s benefit, and how that causes the very immigration en masse that troubles the public so deeply.
To wrap up my lengthy comment, I have a simple plea. Please stop adding in the plug, “We can all agree on strengthening the border and getting rid of the worst of the worst”, or some variation of it. It adds to the harm and the issue’s we’re facing.
Well said, Casey.
There is no doubt in my mind that there have been some failures in administrating this immigration procedure that warrants further scrutiny and exposure to assure there will be better ways to regulate by allowing due process to be practiced , which doesn't appear to be happening now. I'm all for getting the "worst of the worst" removed from our country, but not at the expense of harming the constitutional rights of the "by catch" ( i.e. those who are not guilty of any crimes and are still detained or deported).
Thank you for this article- it provides helpful facts in an accessible summary. One question that might be hard to find- how much money is the trump regime making from this brutality? How much money are we paying for this?
I wonder, Prof Burgat, if you could include possible "Why's" in your article. Why have the numbers of arrests, detainees and deportations gone up in Trump's second term? Why has ICE had to go into the interior of the US, instead of focusing mainly on the border? ICE has been doing this for 20 years under both political parties, so why do you think their tactics had to change? Without rhetoric or slogans, I would sincerely love your thoughts.