President Donald Trump has increasingly weaponized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue personal vendettas and punish political opponents, according to a new report — and the tactic is taking a serious toll on morale among the deployed agents.
The New York Times reports that Trump has deployed ICE agents with quasi-military bearing across the country to accomplish objectives far beyond immigration enforcement, using the agency as a cudgel against Democratic-run cities and constituencies that oppose him.
Last year, Trump sent ICE officers into large Democratic strongholds as part of highly visible immigration enforcement operations. He rushed teams to Minneapolis to pursue Somali immigrants accused of fraud in viral videos. Now, he's pushing agents to airports to assist the Transportation Security Administration — a move critics say is designed to intimidate Democrats during the ongoing shutdown fight.
The airport deployment sends a chilling message that ICE will arrest unauthorized immigrants in plain view during spring break travel season, forcing Americans to potentially show citizenship papers or witness handcuffing at security checkpoints, the Times reported.
"President Trump cannot help himself and is using ICE as a political battering ram," said Deborah Fleischaker, a former senior ICE official in the Biden administration. "ICE has an important public safety mission. It would be nice if the administration actually allowed them to do it — humanely, fairly and in compliance with the law and U.S. Constitution."
Former ICE leaders say Trump is destroying an agency already struggling with its public reputation and threatening its operational independence.
Darius Reeves, a former head of the ICE office in Baltimore, pointed out that Trump could have used U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents — who already staff airports — to assist TSA. Instead, he said, ICE is being deployed as a "political tool" to punish Democrats.
"It's an absolute disaster," Reeves warned. "We will become the most hated federal law enforcement agency — we will surpass the I.R.S."
Reeves described the agency as having "low morale" as Trump continues to deploy it for politically charged operations, straying further from its actual law enforcement mission.