Detained workers by ICE agents at Georgia Hyundai-LG plant. (Photo: Corey Bullard, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wikimedia Commons)
By Patrick Anderson[1]
A centerpiece of the new law dubbed by President Trump as “The Big Beautiful Bill” calls for hiring 10,000 new “agents” for ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security. The law raises the total allocation for ICE from about $8 billion annually to almost $30 billion, making ICE surpass the FBI as the largest and highest funded federal law enforcement agency.
The biggest element of the massive influx of money is an intense effort to recruit 10,000 new agents to be stationed primarily in America’s largest cities like New York City and Los Angeles. Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, told reporters, “You’re going to see immigration enforcement on a level you’ve never seen it before.”
Mass deportation of migrants and asylum seekers has been Trump’s most vociferous and repeated rallying cry for MAGA people. The result is masked men claiming to be government agents seizing people off the street and in some cases sending them to overseas gulags without America’s adherence to legal rules and precedence.
All of this is being justified with claims that Americans are being terrorized by immigrant criminals. As Trump infamously says: “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you get whatever it may be.”
The fact of the matter is that the rate of crime has plunged dramatically during the past decade and the rate of crime among immigrants is significantly lower than that of the population at large.
The FBI, especially after 9-11, experienced a much smaller influx of new applicants. The job of FBI agent attracted and prioritized lawyers, accountants, linguists, and PhDs, often with some specialty in language. The motivation for that cohort, in addition to the urgency of the need to combat terrorism, was the high view of FBI agents’ professionalism, effectiveness, and commitment to “The American Way.” That view was no doubt influenced by movie and television depictions of incorruptible crime-fighting agents like Eliott Ness. The well-known malignancy of the agency’s racism and bigotry especially under the leadership of the despotic leader, J. Edgar Hoover, was brushed aside in lieu of the perceived glamor of the FBI. Applicants were rigorously investigated before hiring, thoroughly trained and supervised during their careers. Senior agents served as mentors and role models.
ICE, on the other hand, does not have a long and storied past. Established by Congress in 2003, ICE is a newcomer on the American law enforcement scene. It’s legitimate function was established in the frenetic reaction to fear in the post 9-11 era when the threat of terrorism was foremost in everyone’s mind. During recent years, especially under President Trump’s administrations, the legitimate functions of the agency are forgotten, and in many ways ICE is now functioning as a rogue agency.
Social media and television depictions of masked ICE agents wearing threatening warrior SWAT police gear arresting terrorized suspected undocumented migrants, including children and elderly people, present an image of unfettered power and domination. What kind of people will be attracted to use that kind of power? Who is inspired by the idea of a government job in “law enforcement” where unidentified police with no legal oversight, no legal boundaries, no documentation, offering no due process, no communication, no cause, wearing masks symbolizing no accountability, secret, anonymous, unlimited power? Who will be these new agents’ trainers, role models, supervisors? What policies will inform and direct their decisions?
Many Americans are horrified and outraged by the images of the exercise of government power by unanswerable, independent agents operating outside the law and the U.S. Constitution on some of the most vulnerable, frightened, powerless human beings in America who have nowhere to turn for assistance.
But we must recognize that a good number of Americans will look on those same images and say, “Yeah! I want some of that! Sign me up!”
This massive infusion of funds for the purpose of attracting and hiring thousands of new ICE agents is a cause of great concern to police scholors and criminologists, including me. We learned some important lessons in the 1970s when a similar national effort was made to hire more and better trained police, especially in urban areas, in the wake of highly visible civil unrest by civil rights activists and anti-Vietnam War protesters, along with lawlessness by both protesters and law enforcers. The poor quality of police agencies at the time was easily documented and recognized.
Congress appropriated a lot of money to train and educate existing law enforcement personnel and to recruit, hire and train a new cadre of police manpower. Community colleges, police academies, and law enforcement agencies were awash in federal dollars to make all of that happen.
Here’s what happened. First, a great disagreement emerged between social scientists who thought that the criminal justice system needed to be “reformed.” and criminal justice leaders like police chiefs and sheriffs who thought that the criminal justice system only needed to be “improved.” Reform implied a total re-imagining and restructuring of criminal justice. Many entrenched police leaders wanted the federal money, but only to improve existing practices, a position summed up as, “We know what we are doing; just leave us alone and give us more money and we can do what we are doing better.” The struggle between those two factions has persisted.
A large proportion of police at that time had no more than a high school education and a good many not even that. The prevailing view among the congressional members and their staffs was that a more educated workforce would surely improve the police image and maybe even produce some professionalism. Large sums of money were allocated to educate police officers, and later jail and prison personnel. Incentives were offered to entice officers to go to college, and many thousands did. I taught and trained a great number of them.
Many were eager to have the credential on record of college courses completed, mostly in criminal justice courses which were often taught by retired FBI agents who reinforced J. Edgar Hoover’s discredited ideas of justice. A smaller number of in-service students were interested in a true college experience which would entail broadening their knowledge and understanding of society in courses taught by faculty with PhDs in the Arts and Sciences.[2]
We learned that even a highly and broadly educated police force will not necessarily result in better decisions by police or a more just criminal justice system. Just because a person has a college degree or certificates from training academies, does not mean more and better peace keeping, protection and service by police in society. In my experience, I contended that the quality of policing depends on the quality of the people doing the policing. In my view, the wrong person educated and trained is still the wrong person. The opposite also holds. Most police and other criminal justice personnel approach their profession with high purpose, a deep desire to help others, to uphold the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution, to serve the causes of justice and propriety.
On the other hand, some people are drawn to careers in criminal justice because they are enticed by the opportunities they believe police jobs offer to exercise their own bad values and needs. Some seek to be in a position of power and authority. The uniform, weapons, badge, and other symbols of the job give an aura of domination which can lead to excessive force, discrimination, and bullying of vulnerable individuals. Some of them even engage in other forms of criminal behavior while using the badge as a shield. When nefarious reasons for entering the role of law enforcement are joined with a lack of respect for the law and courts throughout the administration of justice from top to bottom, we can expect to see more use of force, a punitive focus, the unjust exercise of power and control. When combined with cavalier ulterior motives and problematic or nonexistent social boundaries, trouble follows.
When a law enforcement agency seeks to hire personnel, the question should always be, “What kind of persons do we want to work in this agency?” The Immigration Customs Enforcement agency implicitly and explicitly states who they want. They will hire people with total fealty to Donald Trump and his administration. President Trump has stated that he wants ICE to be ruthless, overly aggressive, forceful in their jobs. He empowers them to respond to any interference or criticism with overwhelming force. ICE along with the entire administration of justice apparatus, has defied court rulings, ignored the Bill of Rights, and misled the public about what they are doing in the effort to find and deport as many migrants as they can without regard to criminal records, legal status, documentation or anything else. This fulfills a deliberate intention to exploit the position of power for immoral or unethical purposes.
Immigration advocates say they are bracing for more masked agents to descend upon local communities with heavy-handed tactics. “There’s an incredible sense of dread, frankly,” said Chris Newman, the legal director and general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents day laborer groups across the country.
So far, he said, Mr. Trump has tried to expand his power over immigration through executive actions, some of which have been blocked by the lower federal courts. “But this is legislation, signed into law, and gives people an impression of a sense of permanence, which is ominous,” Mr. Newman said.
America’s criminal justice network, already seen by many as in great need of reform, faces a comprehensive effort to establish a police system that is most favored by police states in fascist regimes such as Russia and North Korea. I reach that conclusion when I see the images of ICE agents and other police officers rousting and hauling away peaceful day laborers, students, citizens attending court hearings, anguished family members and neighbors futilely asking for explanations and restraint from the masked strangers posing as and acting as agents of our country.
America is not living up to its promise of liberty and justice for all and the outlook is bleak.
— Patrick Anderson is editor of Christian Ethics Today.
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[1] My wife, Carolyn, and I were students at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX when we were burglarized and had virtually everything we owned stolen. Police officers told us that the thieves must be juveniles because the fingerprints were small. That experience began a life-long interest in and fascination with crime and justice. At the beginning of my 3rd year in the MDiv program, I secured a job as a juvenile probation officer in Ft. Worth and worked there for four years. The direction of our lives shifted and although sometimes serving as a bi-vocational pastor, or interim pastor, I experienced a long career as a criminologist. My PhD is in Criminology. I was a scholar, professor, trainer, and expert on criminal justice custom and practice. I published books and articles in academic journals. I was certified in federal court as an expert witness and fulfilled that role in nearly 100 cases regarding police use of force and custody deaths. Foy Valentine contracted with me while I was on the faculty of Louisiana State University to study the social effects of legalized gambling, including crime, and to serve as an expert witness in legislative hearings regarding the expansion of legalized gambling. (I testified against it) That’s how I became acquainted with Foy and later, with Christian Ethics Today.
[2] Lawrence W. Sherman conducted a two-year study of criminal justice education, published by Jossey-Bass Publishing Company and the Police Foundation on January 2, 1978 as Quality of Police Education: A Critical Review With Recommendations for Improving Programs in Higher Education. It was a devasting critique of police education.
