An explosive new piece in Salon claims that recruits signing up to become ICE agents under President Donald Trump are motivated more by power and aggression rather than "a sense of noble duty."
Dr. Geoffrey Grammer, a retired U.S. Army colonel and psychiatrist, wrote that before Trump, "ICE agents were typically motivated by integrity, courage, resilience, and a strong sense of duty and allegiance to the Constitution."
Today, however, Grammer claims the emphasis on very public raids and heavy-handed tactics attracts recruits with "authoritarian and punitive traits" who relish the "satisfaction from the suffering they cause" to vulnerable populations.
Grammer traces the change back some 10 years to the moment Trump made his way down his namesake Tower's golden escalator.
"Trump has spent the last decade maligning immigrants in the United States, often with fabricated stories to create fear within communities and foster xenophobic hatred among his supporters," Grammer writes. "This paved the way for harsh, and sometimes sadistic, policies involving aggressive raids, warrantless detentions, family separations and imprisonment under conditions condemned by human rights groups."
What's more, Grammer claims that the huge allotment for ICE funding in Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill Act" will inevitably lead to a surge in hiring more aggressive personality types.
"With the change in the type of recruit expected, their loyalty is more likely to be rooted in Trump himself than in the principles of the Constitution," Grammer writes. "New agents may not view themselves as ethical public servants, but rather as followers driven by anger and retribution, which can result in unchecked sadism."
This mindset of this new kind of ICE agent, Grammer argues, has created "serious risks to human rights and constitutional values." It also highlights how close America is to "a new era of fascism" made possible -- and enforceable -- by "the evolution of ICE under Donald Trump."