Front Burner - What exactly is ICE?

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

For months now, agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been carrying out raids, arresting people on the street, at work and at immigration courthouses. Often they are wearing plain clothes and masks.As U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown intensifies, so have the instances of arrests and detentions by ICE, sometimes without warrants or due process. Despite mass protests and pushback from opposition politicians and immigrants rights groups, the Trump administration has vowed the arrests will continue as they aim for one million deportations a year.But how, exactly, does ICE operate? How did the agency come to be and how does it compare to immigration enforcement in America’s past? To help us dive deep into ICE’s history and put it all into context, we’re joined by Adam Goodman, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and the author of The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Hi, I'm Gavin Crawford, the host of Because News, Canada's funniest news quiz. Every week we make jokes out of the headlines with help from a panel of brilliant comedians like Alice Moran. Hi there, I'm a sweet little Alberta dirtbag with very gentle takes. They call me light, sweet, and crude. Half your job is making jokes, but the other half is scoring points. What subjects do you net the most points in? Sports, but also space, because I went to space camp so much as a kid, not to brag.

That's the exact amount of knowledge you need for this show. Stay vaguely informed while in good company. With me. Listen to Because News, available wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Puezon. On Sunday night, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to expand their deportation operations in democratic cities.

He said, quote, ICE officers are herewith ordered by notice of this truth to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history. Trump specifically named America's largest cities, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. This comes after thousands of people flooded the streets in those cities and many others over the weekend to protest the president's military parade, increasingly authoritarian measures, and his immigration crackdown. There have been scenes of ICE agents often wearing masks, rounding up people across the country almost every day in recent weeks. Like this moment, where a group of them go after a man at an immigration courthouse in New York.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Get off, get off. This bad, you. Or a separate incident at a New York immigration court where the New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate, Brad Lander, a U.S. citizen, was arrested by ICE agents while trying to escort a defendant. — I'm right here in the hallway.

I asked to see the judicial warrant. — You're arresting the— — By asking to see for a judicial warrant? — You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant. — Exactly. — We've also seen raids of workplaces employing immigrants, like this farm in California where workers pick produce. We don't know how many people were detained.

One of the farm workers we talked to said ICE agents were chasing some of their co-workers around until they were detained. Earlier this month, on June 5th, ICE made the most arrests in a single day since its creation, detaining more than 2,200 people. NBC reported that hundreds of them were part of an ICE program that had already flagged them as people who are not considered threats to public safety. However, as the pressure mounts from the Trump administration to rapidly increase deportations to a million a year. ICE's reach and tools continue to grow along with reports of people being held without warrants or due process.

So today we wanted to better understand what ICE is exactly, how the agency came to be, and how their work fits into over a century's worth of immigration enforcement and mass deportation campaigns in the US. Adam Goodman is an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and the author of The Deportation Machine, America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants.

Adam, hey, thank you so much for coming on to Frontburner. Thank you, Jamie. I appreciate you having me. So we know that ICE or the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency is the government agency responsible for finding, detaining, deporting people who have violated immigration law. But we've seen ICE also described as this kind of like rogue force, almost like secret police. So just to start, what makes ICE different from other law enforcement agencies in the United States?

Well, in part, it's their reach and the fact that they're a federal agency, not tied to any particular locality that exerts incredible autonomy and authority and discretionary power throughout the United States and especially anywhere near the borders, whether those are land borders or either the East or West Coast of the United States. But their power is largely unchecked and they've been instilled with an incredible amount of authority historically. And I think that's only increased in recent years as we've seen President Trump empower agents on the ground who feel emboldened to carry out the mission to apprehend, detain and deport as many people as possible. And we've seen that with the increasing budget dedicated to enforcement

efforts. Vast numbers of those people were murderers, killers, people from gangs, people from jails, empty day jails out into the US. Most of those people are in the cities, all blue cities, all Democrat run cities, and they think they're gonna use them to vote. It's not gonna happen. And he wrote in part, quote, "'Ice officers are here with order to do all in their power

"'to achieve the very important goal "'of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history. I'm curious like where they fit into the hierarchy. Like do they trump local law enforcement 100% of the time? Like is anybody above them? Well, when it comes to questions of immigration, they do operate kind of independently and they do have the authority over local, state, law enforcement agencies who may or may not help them. One of the big changes

under the Trump administration, which really started decades ago at this point in both Democratic and Republican administrations who supported in the past, are the collaborations between agencies. And I think, rather than thinking of a hierarchy, I think one of the big changes we've seen under the current administration is that they're expanding the reach of who is enforcing immigration law and they're partnering with local police and state police. They're partnering with other federal agencies and in turn, they're partnering with other federal agencies. And in turn, um, they've been able to, um, you know, reach perhaps a much broader population of people than they otherwise would have.

The plain clothes that we see a lot of these officers in, uh, the masks that they wear that essentially cover their whole face, uh, maybe worth noting one downstream consequence of this is that in a couple of cases recently, criminals are able to sort of pose as ICE agents and sexually assault or rob people. But why are they allowed to cover their faces and wear plain clothes? And that's an excellent question. I don't have a good answer for you. I mean, in part because no one is checking their power to do so, and no one has said that they're not allowed to do so.

This is a kind of a novelty of sorts. In the past, agents have identified themselves typically. They have perhaps been dressed as plain clothes, you know, agents on the street, but they've had badges, you know, nameplates. And, you know, seeing now today masked individuals and unmarked cars in some cases, just enforcing disappearances of citizens and permanent residents in some cases,

along with undocumented immigrants, it was incredibly disturbing and I think should be concerning to everyone in the United States. Is there anywhere where ICE can't operate? Well, historically, there have been some agreements that have limited the agency's ability to go into sensitive locations,

such as schools, places of worship. All that has been discarded. So now, people could find ICE agents in houses of worship, they could find them at schools. So I think now, no place is off limits. And that's been made clear explicitly by the agency's leaders. And it also speaks to an important point

that part of the administration's goal in executing mass deportation is also to scare people and to operationalize fear in ways that makes people feel unsecure and unwelcome and in hopes that they might actually pick up and leave without ever encountering an immigration agent, which the agency has made clear that self deportation is a major part of its larger immigration enforcement efforts. You mentioned the role of funding.

Since its creation, ISIS funding has tripled. And as of the last year, I think it was around $9.6 billion. Border Patrol receives more, around $19.6 billion. Just what does that, I wonder if you could just lay out for me what that money goes to specifically? Well, it could go to putting more agents on the streets. I mean, there's certain bureaucratic and operational limitations when it comes to carrying out mass deportation campaigns. A lot of them have to do with how many agents they can have,

you know, patrolling communities and carrying out immigration raids. You know, what is the budget for detaining people, which is incredibly expensive? What is the budget for detaining people, which is incredibly expensive? What is the budget for holding hearings or actually carrying out deportations? And you know, all that I think contributes to the possibilities of mass deportations on a large scale. But historically, they've been limited. And I think today we still see the limits.

And we've seen the administration's frustration, the president's frustration with the lack of action on behalf of the agency. I think that has a lot to do with these, you know, bureaucratic logistical limitations related to the budget. But, you know, we also know that the administration is, and ICE, the agency and Border Patrol are requesting to increase their budget even more. So we don't know, you know,

what that would mean, in terms of the lived realities of people, but it certainly won't be, you know, it certainly won't be good for people to care about, you know, due process, immigrants and citizens basic legal rights and, and not wanting families to be separated, when we know that all the policy of the administrations have led to increase of family separation and human suffering. Another thing I wanted to ask you about

is how the agency is working with outside contractors. So we talked on the show about the work that they have been doing with Palantir, for example, the data analytics company. But I know they also work with logistics companies that help to build out their detention facilities. And just can you tell me a little bit more about the scope of the work these companies are doing and maybe some of the concerns that people have raised about this kind of outsourcing. This is an incredibly important point. And the federal immigration enforcement efforts have really always depended on public-private partnerships and on businesses that were seeking to make profits

off of human misery, essentially. And looking to minimize costs and maximize profits isn't a good combination when it comes to the well-being of people who happen to be caught up in the immigration enforcement system. So transportation companies also play a big part of this, in addition to the kind of technological firms that are now assisting the agency and surveilling immigrants. Transportation companies, private prison companies, they're taking advantage of the policies and the fact that the number of deportable people in the United States has increased recently since the Trump administration has taken power. And they're cashing in as are their stockholders.

And that's something that I think we know that this kind of toxic combination of profits and punishment have long fueled immigration enforcement in the United States and, you know, the fact that state policies create a market essentially and deportable people and turn deportation into a business is, I think, something that historically has long been true but doesn't need to be true and different policies could point in a different direction. ["The Killing Call," by The Killing Call, playing in background.] World of Secrets, The Killing Call, a BBC World Service investigation into the murder

of Punjabi singer and rapper Siddhu Museala. The facts, they aren't out in the open. Why is Siddhu Museala, you know? Uncovering a global criminal underworld that reaches far beyond India's borders. There are so many rumors. No one wants to talk. There might be repercussions.

World of Secrets, the killing call. Listen on the BBC app or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to get into a bit more of the history. Now a lot of people might not actually realize that ICE has only been around since 2003. And it was created when almost two dozen different agencies were consolidated under the newly created Department of Homeland Security. This was under, of course, George W. Bush in the wake of 9-11, when he justified the massive government reorganization by saying,

I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of September the 11th. Yet we now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us. And this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently. Before then, ICE was the Immigration and Naturalization Service. And what changed when ICE was created? Well, let's pause right there for a second, just to think about the rhetorical shift that you laid out, from the Immigration and Naturalization Service

to the Department of Homeland Security. I think that in itself says a lot. The ways in which immigration has become intertwined with questions of national security when it comes to the agency's justification, its budget proposals, that has everything to do with it, as well as public support and kind of the fear mongering that the Trump administration has used

is usually related to immigrants as criminals or immigrants as potential threats of the fear-mongering that the Trump administration has used is usually related to immigrants as criminals or immigrants as potential threats to the country in different ways. One woman or one child violated by an illegal alien is one too many. Biden flooded this country with millions and millions of illegal aliens, many of them rapists, murderers, gang members, terrorists, human smugglers, child traffickers, and every kind of criminal and thug that you can imagine on planet Earth.

And they were prisoners, and they were people that you don't want in many cases in our country, right? And we know in reality, most people who come to the United States, whether it's with or without authorization, do so to work, to find a job, or to reunite with family because they're fleeing natural disaster or political violence. But kind of the singular nature that the agency itself

and the current administration has viewed immigration as a question of national security and as a question of limiting crime know, limiting crime and criminals. I think, you know, has led us down this path during the last, you know, 20 plus years to the point now where we see record levels of funding for immigration enforcement. And we've seen a real shift from the service side

of the immigration bureaucracy to the enforcement side of the immigration bureaucracy. It's not to say that people weren't apprehended and deported before. I should note that the United States has deported more than 60 million people during the last century and a half. Most of those deportations occurred prior to the creation

of ICE, prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. So enforcement has always been a part of the United States immigration history and immigration policy. But I think that we've seen it ramped up to previously unknown levels, largely because there seems to be an unlimited amount of funding put toward enforcement since 9-11 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And just in that 20-year period, this has been a bipartisan priority, right?

And I say that in part because deportations went up a lot during the Bush administration. They went up even more during Barack Obama, right? More people were deported from the U.S. during Obama's first term than Trump's first term. Even as we are a nation of immigrants, we're also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws. And I believe that they must be held accountable, especially those who may be dangerous. That's why over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80%. And that's why we're going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to

our security. What changed about how ICE operated under Obama? And do you see any big differences between then and now? Well, 100 percent. The history of deportation from the United States is bipartisan. It's one in which Democratic and Republican administrations have pushed enforcement first policies and doubled down on them time and again. You know, some of the harshest immigration policies that have led to the most repressive

laws and draconian outcomes have been signed by Bill Clinton or implemented and carried out by Barack Obama. And that said, I think there are important differences. One of the things about the Obama administration is that they did carry out mass levels of apprehensions and deportations, but they also responded to political pressure and organizing and activists who made clear that they're on the wrong track. So we see over the course of the Obama administration, actually,ations decrease, there seem to be kind of a before and after. It's not to kind of excuse the agent

or the administration's enforcement policies and the many families that were separated as a result of them. But I do think that we see a kind of a distinct difference in terms of who was targeted, as well as the spin that was put on immigration during the Obama years. So we see Trump using immigration as the number one policy issue that he's using for his own political gain to gain power and now to maintain power.

If things aren't going well in other policy realms, they're going to come back to immigration time and again, because they know that that's been successful for them. So, I think that I don't want to leave people with the idea that everyone has always been kind of the same on this issue, regardless of the administration. But we do know that historically, Democrats and Republicans have supported enforcement force policies. And I think we even saw that in this past election with Kamala Harris's immigration platform resembling, I think, something you describe as more restrictive than George W.

Bush's immigration policy a couple of decades earlier. Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from reentering for five years. We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators. I want to dig into history a little bit more with you. Two examples in particular. In 1954, President Eisenhower carried out Operation Wetback, which some describe as the largest mass deportation in American history. What happened then, and what are some of the parallels

that you see today? It's true that in 1954, the Eisenhower administration launched a mass roundup, an expulsion campaign of Mexicans in the country, oftentimes regardless of whether they had authorization or not. And that led to hundreds of thousands of deportations. And also, I think, in effect was a PR campaign for the Immigration Enforcement Agency in celebrating their so-called accomplishments in power in hopes of getting more congressional appropriations. And it became a campaign that was based on fear. It was a campaign that was largely made strategic use of the media to propagate fear and self-deportation efforts across the nation. And, you know, it was, it was in the

one hand, I guess, a precursor of what was to come later. And the Trump administration made explicitly clear that that's what they're comparing themselves to. And also, a crucial difference is that deportation today means something different than it did in the middle of the 20th century. The consequences of being deported are harsher and more punitive than they ever have been. It's more difficult to re-enter the United States today without authorization. In the middle of the 20th century, that was something that people could do for the most part. Today, that's not necessarily the case. The other one I wanted to ask you about

was the Palmer Raids in 1919, orchestrated in part by J. Edgar Hoover, who would go on to form the FBI, because that was a case of mass arrest and detention of immigrants on Ellis Island, people of Asiatic races, as they described them then. But it also went after political radicals, right, particularly communists. And how does that example maybe illustrate the way immigration enforcement is used

to go after not only undocumented immigrants, but also those who do have documentation or even citizens participating in political dissent. Yeah, this is another branch, I guess, of the enforcement efforts, both then and now. In part, in the 1910s, 1920s, this was a time of mass immigration from Southern Eastern Europe. And many of the people who may have arrived

espouse different political views, socialists, communists, et cetera. And United States officials, J. Edgar Hoover, Mitchell Palmer, and others, targeted them as real national security threats, which we've seen kind of invoked in recent days as well by Secretary Rubio, as well as President Trump in their efforts to target people who espouse political views they disagree with or you find distasteful.

People like Mahmoud Khalil and others who have advocated on behalf of Palestinians and Palestinian rights. And I think under broad protection of the First Amendment have done so lawfully without, you know, without any problem or should have been without any problem. But you know, this political targeting, I think is as useful to think of and it's not just the mass roundups that the current administration is carrying out, but it's also kind of one-off examples or relatively few examples of people targeted for their political beliefs that they can then use and publicize strategically to really scare other people into you know backing down or into not acting out and essentially

you know achieve more than they would have been able to otherwise so it fits into a pattern both historically and also in the contemporary moment that speaks to the scope of their immigration enforcement efforts and the fact that it's affecting many people, primarily working class folks, especially Mexicans and Latinos in many places, but also others who you wouldn't think necessarily were targets of ICE and customs border patrol. And just speaking of those working class folks, the New York Times reported that an internal memo was sent by an ICE official to local Homeland Security departments to halt raids

on workplaces specifically connected to the agriculture industry, restaurants, and operating hotels unless they're connected to criminal investigations. to the agriculture industry, restaurants, and operating hotels. Unless they're connected to criminal investigations. Trump posted on True Social that quote, our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them. With these jobs being almost impossible to replace,

we must protect our farmers, but get the criminals out of the USA. Changes are coming! And just what do you make of that reversal? What does that tell you? Well, I think this is a very interesting and important moment. It's perhaps a tipping point of sorts. We don't know what's going to happen moving forward, but I think many people wondered at what point would the administration change course, because there's a tension between wanting to deport any and

every person in the country without authorization, and also recognizing that that might not be politically feasible, as we've seen millions of people take to the streets in the United States, whether that has any effect or might not be feasible because some strong supporters of Trump who are themselves affected by these changes in agriculture and hospitality tell him that they in fact need their workforce that has long been essential to their industry's success. I think it's perhaps as many as one out of every two agricultural laborers in the United States is undocumented.

That truth social post that I mentioned in the intro of the episode where Trump called for ICE to expand operations in cities with essentially democratic leadership. I just want to read you something that Gavin Newsom, governor of California, said in response to that. This is someone who has a famously adversarial relationship with the president, but here's what he has to say. His plan is clear. Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law, and consolidate power. It's illegal and we will not let it stand.

Is this what you think is happening here? I do think Trump is largely targeting anyone he sees as a so-called enemy. You know, and for him, that might mean undocumented immigrants who are affecting the nation economically in his view. But it also might mean anyone who's acting in solidarity or considering acting in solidarity with immigrants. And so the attacks on immigrant communities through mass immigration raids is part of what he's up to. And so the attacks on immigrant communities, through mass immigration raids, is part of what he's up to,

but also the decision to send in the National Guard and the Marines. And that seems to pretty clearly be targeting citizens, protesters, and others. And the legality, I think, has been questioned, and in fact, in some cases, shown to be illegal of some of the actions they've taken. But I do think that the message is clear

and that for Trump, immigration is an issue that he has used for his own political gain. And as much as it can remain in the headlines and in the news, that has been beneficial to him. Whether or not that continues to be the case, we'll see. But we know that it's a lot easier for him to scapegoat immigrants for some of the real problems that people in the United States are facing than to actually address those problems.

So I don't anticipate him doing anything different in the months and years ahead. Adam, this is great. Thank you so much. Thanks for the conversation, for the thoughtful questions. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.