A Federal government agency is "a paramilitary group operating illegally inside the US?" What?
"I think they're being employed in a shitty and potentially illegal manner outside their remit" is a perfectly arguable take that doesn't require tinfoil-hattery.
You might not like the tone, but I don't see what makes the words false. "Paramilitary" describes a non-military group behaving similarly to a military group, and we're talking about armed masked men sweeping homes, taking prisoners, and engaging in violent conflicts. "Operating illegally" means that federal, state, or local laws have been broken, and that seems to be the case, e.g. Gonzalez v. ICE.
Federal law supersedes state law.
ICE is simply enforcing federal immigration laws.
> Federal law supersedes state law
It does. That doesn’t mean federal agents supersede state law.
California restricted civil arrests at its courts [1]. The Congress can pass a law superseding this. What ICE can’t unilaterally do, legally, is ignore it. They have, the same as they’ve ignored federal court orders.
[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
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> I'd imagine the California arrest restriction at it's courts is not constitutional as it conflicts with enforcement of existing federal immigration laws
Preëmption is about conflicts of laws [1]. You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preëmpt California law.
> Even if it's for cheap labor, Democrats
I live in a red state. We started to see ICE enforcement and then our Senators told them to fuck off.
To the extent we have a safe zone from immigration enforcement, it's in Republican economic strongholds [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-walks-back-limits-raids...
>You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preempt California law.
Legally, it's up for debate on how much power localities can regulate Federal Law Enforcement operations. Federal Government takes the view that it's restrictions on operations by states is almost zero. There is 9th Circuit Ruling that says states can if "a federal officer [must do] no more than is necessary and proper in the performance of his duty" but that's pretty untested ruling.
States are loath to attempt to regulate Federal Law Enforcement by running it up the courts since their worry is it hits SCOTUS and they come back with "States have no power, LOLZ"
> There is 9th Circuit Ruling that says states can if "a federal officer [must do] no more than is necessary and proper in the performance of his duty" but that's pretty untested ruling
What? States have been fighting over this since the 19th century [1].
> States are loath to attempt to regulate Federal Law Enforcement by running it up the courts since their worry is it hits SCOTUS and they come back with "States have no power, LOLZ"
Source for states being "loath to attempt to regulate federal law enforcment"?
We literally have multiple states--led by California--passing laws which "attempt to regulate" just that. (Exhibit A: the comment you responded to.)
[1] https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2025/explainer-...
Sure, States have been fighting over this since US Government was formed, however, I'm some ruling from 1812 does not matter.
If you look at recent legal history, Federal Government has won in every case where Federal Law Enforcement was acting as Federal Law Enforcement Officers.
My point is California has passed laws attempting to regulate but as of yet, has not attempted to enforce their laws at all. So are they really attempting or just doing performance art with laws?
> If you look at recent legal history, Federal Government has won in every case where Federal Law Enforcement was acting as Federal Law Enforcement Officers
Not disputing, but do you have sources?
> My point is California has passed laws attempting to regulate but as of yet, has not attempted to enforce their laws at all. So are they really attempting or just doing performance art with laws?
This is fair. I think one of the smartest things a Democrat Governor could do right now is start arresting federal agents who are breaking state laws, e.g. around where they can be and how they must identify themselves.
As you say, it will probably be met sceptically by the courts, and almost certainly so by SCOTUS. But it will gum up the works and turn that person into a hero. If Trump fucks up and arrests them, their political ascendancy is assured.
From your source:
>Decades later, in 1992, another high-profile prosecution of a federal official involved the siege of anti-government separatist Randall Weaver’s cabin near Ruby Ridge, Idaho.[33] Amid a controversial series of events, an FBI sniper accidentally killed Weaver’s unarmed wife, Vicki Weaver.[34] The U.S. Attorney General decided not to prosecute the sniper under federal law, but Idaho prosecutors charged him with involuntary manslaughter under state law.[35] After some uncertainty in prior court decisions, a split federal appeals court concluded that the Idaho case could tentatively go ahead because disputed facts left it unclear whether the sniper “acted in an objectively reasonable manner in carrying out [his] duties.”[36] A week after that decision, however, the newly elected county prosecutor in Idaho chose to drop the charges.[37]
And in a case from 2006, Wyoming prosecutors charged federal wildlife officers with trespass and littering for entering private land while collaring wolves as part of a federal monitoring program.[38] The Tenth Circuit concluded that the officers were immune from prosecution because they had an “objectively reasonable and well-founded” belief that they were on public land when conducting the collaring.[39] The court also concluded that the prosecution “was not a bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law, which requires knowledge on the part of a trespasser, but rather an attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program.”[40]
Other recent high-profile cases include a Virginia prosecution of U.S. Park Police officers who shot and killed a man in 2017,[41] a Boston municipal court judge finding a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in contempt of court and referring the matter to the district attorney for prosecution after the agent detained a man in the middle of a municipal court trial,[42] and an Oregon prosecution of a Drug Enforcement Administration officer who hit and killed a cyclist in 2023 while pursuing a suspected fentanyl trafficker.[43] The first two cases were dismissed,[44] and the Oregon case is still pending in a federal appeals court.[45]
I don't know why this was flagged. It may be wrong, but I think it worth discussing to correct.
Not all of Federal law supersedes state law. The Tenth Amendment clarifies:
> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
If it's not given to the federal government to regulate, the federal government can't regulate it.
It hasn't been flagged.
Do you agree enforcing immigration laws in this way is good and/or important? If so, can I ask why? What is our end goal?
> can I ask why?
Simply put, Americans gave Republicans a popular mandate to reduce illegal immigration.
Much of this was economic: illegal immigrants dilute the labour force. Some, particularly among Latin Americans, rose from perceived injustice: it’s frustrating to go through the American immigration process only to see someone who skipped it live a similar life. Some, e.g. those focused on crime, were just racists.
If ICE were simply enforcing the law, I don’t think there would be a national outcry. The problem is they aren’t. All while blowing the military budget of Saudi Arabia [1][2] to accomplish what Obama did with a tenth as much.
[1] https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/saudi-arabia-increases-d...
[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-budget-big-beautiful-b...
It was an extremely weak mandate, and in normal times (e.g., assuming the concept of limited government), a weak mandate would be a mandate to act with restraint. Thus a "mandate" doesn't justify what's happening.
The Republicans abandoned the economic debate, and shifted focus to social issues. This is what caught the Democrats, including myself, off guard. Rather than stealing our jobs, the immigrants were accused of stealing our cats.
Framing it as an economic issue in hindsight seems like a polite way of "steelmanning" the voting base, but I'm not sure it's really justifiable.
> Much of this was economic: illegal immigrants dilute the labour force.
Then why are the farmers complaining about it? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-farm-groups-want-trump-s...
You’re asking why massive buyers of labour want cheaper labour?
> Americans gave Republicans a popular mandate
Trump's win wasn't even close to being a mandate. Also, people (now) hate his enforcement policies.
> illegal immigrants dilute the labour force
ICE is not simply going after illegal immigrants for one thing. Also, immigrants support the economy. They do jobs Americans won't for one thing. But I'd love to see data on the amount of labor force dilution immigrants are doing. We should really one looking at the ownership class sitting on trillions of dollars of wealth and not sharing.
> perceived injustice
Exactly. We should have solidarity, not be pulling up the drawbridge behind us. But the current arrangement suits Capital just fine.
> If ICE were simply enforcing the law, I don’t think there would be a national outcry. The problem is they aren’t.
Agree. They're doing fascism.
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> much easier for Obama to do it because there were not throngs of protesters trying to stop his ICE officers
Yes there were [1][2]. New York City Council members were arrested [3].
Obama's ICE was simply more focussed on detaining and deterring illegal immigrants because immigration was a political liability for him. For Trump, efficiacy isn't as important as messaging.
[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/barack-obama-immigration-raids-pro...
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3793700
[3] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/protest-arrests/211895...
Assumed political liability.
At the time, sure. With the benefit of hindsight, one of Democrats’ strategic fuckups over the last decade was forgetting that it is one.
I think the Democrat's strategic fuck up is not standing for up for US democracy, always.
Part of that is saying "immigration is good, actually", instead of conceding political positions to the right as they poison our politics.
The Dems should have created a counter-narrative. If you believe in liberal, multi-ethnic democracy, then you must say so. The lesson (that I suppose people have forgotten from history) is that our freedoms (as I am talking about it) must be defended, always, and not taken for granted.
What's the cause and what's the effect? Less protests because ICE under Obama wasn't taking such a heavy handed and legally gray approach perhaps?
Great question! It was pretty clear that people would be protesting Trump from the day he was re-elected. His methods undoubtedly haven't helped, but I'm pretty sure there would have been protesters regardless.
I don't have the links handy, but ISTR that both Obama and Biden counted turning folks away at the border as equivalent to a deportation. That juices the deportation metrics without being nearly so disruptive.
> ICE is simply enforcing federal immigration laws
“From January to June, the average number of detainees per day in ICE custody rose 43 percent, to more than 57,000. But since July, when the [OBBA] funding was approved, the detainee population has increased only about 5 percent, to roughly 60,000, the latest statistics show.
The stream of social-media clips showing masked federal agents kicking down doors, raiding Home Depot parking lots, and pulling people from their car have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign. ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer” [1].
Meanwhile, with first-year deportations around 400,000 [2], they stand to match what Obama did in 2012 [3], despite spending $40 to 70bn, or 10 to 15x, more [4][5].
Instead of enforcing our immigration laws, ICE is involved in domestic policing, partisan intimidation and the illegal detention of American citizens.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/ice-imm...
[2] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09/23/new-milestone-over-2-mil...
[3] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20200109/110349/HHRG...
[4] https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/budget2012 $5.8bn, FY2012, $8.2bn CPI adjusted to ‘25
[5] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-budget-big-beautiful-b... $45 to 75 billion under OBBBA
Difference between deportations under Obama vs Trump is they aren't coming right back over.
Easy to inflate deportations when you catch the same fish and the river is flowing.
Much slower when you dam off the river and have to dig the remaining catfish out of the mud.
> Difference between deportations under Obama vs Trump is they aren't coming right back over
“U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively.
So ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus 2012. ($250 to 440 thousand if we average Obama’s second-term numbers.)
These numbers 10x even San Francisco’s circa 2016 homeless-industrial profligacy [2]. Unless ICE is a ball of wormy corruption, they’re clearly not focused on immigration enforcement.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/10/icymi-illegal-cr...
[2] https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-...
Interior enforcement is the focus currently.
Crossings are lower overall due to securing of the border.
> Interior enforcement is the focus currently
If it is, it's being pursued corruptly and incompetently.
From the top of the thread, ICE is spending boatloads more money to deport just about as many people as Obama did with a tenth of the budget [1]. Cross-border encounters are within 100,000, so the difference is not explained by recividism.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506994
They're enforcing the law in profoundly illegal ways.
It doesn't require any tinfoil-hattery though because everything they're doing is very public. Like you look at their actions Chicago [1] and I think it's impossible to NOT think they're an illegal paramilitary group. They're rounding up, detaining and arresting US citizens and destroying their property under the guise of sweeping illegal immigrants. They've violated people's constitutional rights multiple times over.
[1] https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-...
>They're rounding up, detaining and arresting US citizens and destroying their property under the guise of sweeping illegal immigrants.
What's the proportion of US citizens arrested compared to actual illegal immigrants?
I'm sorry, why does the proportion matter? What happened to the presumption of innocence? Are you saying you, personally, would be OK with being rounded up and arrested as long as they got X illegal immigrants along the way?
Presumption of innocence applies to your trial, not to being apprehended. E.g. the state has to prove that you are guilty.
If I'm a US citizen and I get swept up in an immigration raid, my lawyer calls my wife who brings my US passport and I'm released. A pain in the ass, but not a violation of my civil rights. Now if I get beat up by ICE, or they file a false claim for resisting, then sure, we've got grounds for a case that my rights were violated. But constitutional rights are not a blanket "I can never be arrested if I think I'm innocent"
You cannot be arrested without probable cause. Being arrested in a dragnet immigration raid is just a crystal clear fourth amendment violation. Simple as that.
I was 'not' arrested by DHS/CBP.
They simply got a warrant retroactively after they already did it. Released without charge, but they just invented some paperwork afterwards that an anonymous dog had alerted (judge signed it about 12 hours after I was 'not' arrested). No mention on the PC paperwork who the dog was or who the handler was, as far as I know they didn't exist.
So yeah that's nice in theory but in practice they can simply jail you without recording an arrest, then retroactively invent PC. When I ran a federal background check it came up with no arrests, despite the fact I was imprisoned.
The Supreme Court was clear that if your skin is not white, this is probable cause. Also location is important (like being at a car wash) or speaking with an accent.
Is Yiddish accent still OK? Or is that scheduled for next term?
ICE has been denying due process to the people they've kidnapped, including US citizens and children.
The whole point is people are being arrested and deported without probable cause, or based on their race, and deported without real due process.
There is no chance for these people to call their lawyer or wife, in fact ICE can't even tell you where some of these people are being detained.
Understand what is happening here.
It matters because the wording of the OP implies they're targeting citizens, but in reality they're getting caught in the dragnet. That's regrettable, but it's unclear how it's worse than any other sort of law enforcement, which also have false positives. According to wikipedia the felony conviction rate in the US is only 68%, which implies for every 100 "criminals" that are arrested, there are 32 "innocent" people. That's probably far worse than ICE's rate of catching citizens, so does that mean we can call the entire US law enforcement apparatus a "paramilitary force"? One final thing to note, Canada's conviction rate is even lower at 62%, and China's is even higher at 99.975%.
If they can violate any one's rights, they can violate anyone's rights.
More than zero.
The number US citizens actually deported is greater than zero, although I'm not sure how many under Trump.
How is what is supposed to be "law enforcement" repelling from helicopters to ziptie children and running over protesters with armored personnel carriers and receiving satellite and cellphone intelligence and coordinating with that national guard ....not "paramilitary"
They bring their own ill-fitting gear and jump out of U-hauls. Sure they have the occasional off-the-shelf imsi catcher. "Wannabe paramilitary", final offer.
> bring their own ill-fitting gear and jump out of U-hauls
ICE ran a 5AM motorcade through my mountain town, compete with helicopter escort. We’re in a red state, though, and border a red farm state, so I understand they were actually told to knock it off.
> "Wannabe paramilitary", final offer
The only part of a definition [1] that ICE might fail is in whether they’re professionally designated to act as a secret police. If by wannabe you’re saying ICE intends to be and act like a paramilitary, you’ve effectively conceded the point.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary
I'm unfamiliar with the business of finding illegal immigrants. Isn't the idea of detaining them that you're worried they might flee if they know they're going to be deported? If so isn't it counterproductive for ICE to make noise (announcing themselves basically) if doing a 5am raid for farm workers? You'd think showing up at the field in a separate bus and spreading out would work best.
The cruelty is the point. They want to hurt people.
Lol what? "They want/intend to be a paramilitary organization therefore calling them wannabe paramilitaries isn't correct."
Genuine curiosity, what did the motorcade look like? Gov plates or personal vehicles? Was the helicopter ICE or local police keeping an eye on things?
> "They want/intend to be a paramilitary organization therefore calling them wannabe paramilitaries isn't correct."
(I never said what you’re falsely quoting.)
An armed civilian organisation that wants to be—and behaves like—the military has satisfied the most important (and usually difficult to prove) requirement of paramilitarism. The only remaining question, if we’ve established intent, is capability. They obviously have the manpower, budget and equipment to constitute a martial force.
TL; DR If ICE is a “wannabe paramilitary,” they’re a paramilitary. If you’re giving that up you’re giving away the game.
> Gov plates or personal vehicles?
Civilian. (The relevant bit for whether a group is a paramilitary.)
I’d note that whether ICE is a paramilitary is a red herring. Paramilitaries are fine. Militias as paramilitaries.
The problem is ICE is acting as a secret state police.
> local police keeping an eye on things?
Not state or local.
> Falsely quoting
What's the acceptable notation for paraphrasing? I typically use > for quotes.
Agreed, most of this is an unnecessary argument over terminology when I was simply calling them Temu Stasi.
We'll see about the secret police thing, for now they seem to be just about getting their deportation bounties.
> What's the acceptable notation for paraphrasing?
No clue :P. But I think quotation marks should be saved for actual quotations, particularly in a threaded context. (Air quotes absolutely muddy the waters.)