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The Real Purpose of ICE: It's not just for deportations (Anne Applebaum)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/01/autocracy-in-america-ice-and-the-national-guard/685279/. . .
ICE, and the use of the National Guard to protect ICE, has been covered as immigration story, but America’s immigration and customs agents aren’t only being used for that purpose.
The Trump administration is also using ICE and the National Guard to project power, to demonstrate that it can operate without restraint, and in defiance of the law.
. . .
You really have to worry that not only that this is happening so often—we’re seeing a routinization of the use of the military domestically—but also that we’re seeing a real creep in terms of what it’s being used for. So first it started with protests against ICE raids that were supposedly interfering with ICE’s ability to conduct those raids. Then it was general crime control in Washington, D.C., and you have to wonder what the next reason is going to be. Now, it might continue for a while to be crime control or, you know, protests. But the next reason could be claims of voter fraud, which is a phenomenon that is statistically almost nonexistent.
. . .
I mean, it’s certainly the predictable effect of deploying the military on the streets on a sort of routinized basis—to change people’s behavior so that they are afraid to exercise their rights, so that they do behave differently.
So my concern is that we’re moving towards a status quo in which the cities of this country really feel like police states. And to me, a police state is a place where the presence of—whether it’s the federal military or law enforcement—is so heavy and the chill on people’s exercise of their rights is so acute that people are really kind of living in fear, and they’re changing the way they behave. . . .
ICE, and the use of the National Guard to protect ICE, has been covered as immigration story, but America’s immigration and customs agents aren’t only being used for that purpose.
The Trump administration is also using ICE and the National Guard to project power, to demonstrate that it can operate without restraint, and in defiance of the law.
. . .
You really have to worry that not only that this is happening so often—we’re seeing a routinization of the use of the military domestically—but also that we’re seeing a real creep in terms of what it’s being used for. So first it started with protests against ICE raids that were supposedly interfering with ICE’s ability to conduct those raids. Then it was general crime control in Washington, D.C., and you have to wonder what the next reason is going to be. Now, it might continue for a while to be crime control or, you know, protests. But the next reason could be claims of voter fraud, which is a phenomenon that is statistically almost nonexistent.
. . .
I mean, it’s certainly the predictable effect of deploying the military on the streets on a sort of routinized basis—to change people’s behavior so that they are afraid to exercise their rights, so that they do behave differently.
So my concern is that we’re moving towards a status quo in which the cities of this country really feel like police states. And to me, a police state is a place where the presence of—whether it’s the federal military or law enforcement—is so heavy and the chill on people’s exercise of their rights is so acute that people are really kind of living in fear, and they’re changing the way they behave. . . .
Much more at the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/01/autocracy-in-america-ice-and-the-national-guard/685279/
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