The video has gone viral over the past two weeks. In one case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents enter Leito de Sol, a bilingual preschool in Chicago, to arrest a teacher. She comes out with her arms pinned down and the scene takes place in front of her children, coworkers, employees, and parents. The day before, in Los Angeles, officers arrested a Latino man in a Home Depot parking lot as he returned to his car. Her 2-year-old daughter was left in the car. One of the investigators, armed and wearing a bulletproof vest, took her away. She watched everything wide-eyed from her seat. She was then rescued by her grandmother.
- video: Immigration agents arrest man undergoing surgery in Los Angeles and take away young daughter
- broken dreams: Read our series on Brazilian immigrants living in the US under Trump
Democratic Rep. Matt Martin, whose Chicago district includes Leito de Sol, criticized the fact that no warrant was presented for admission to the school. And the immigrant had a work visa. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported that she was on the run from an ICE raid where she was wanted on charges of “child trafficking.” She was accused of aiding her children, ages 16 and 17, who are currently in public custody in the city, to cross the border illegally.
Last Friday, CNN collected public data showing that 3,000 people have been detained on the same charges since January, which is unprecedented in the country. In the Los Angeles case, authorities claim the video does not show a previous altercation in which the arrested citizen was armed and threatened staff.
Despite the differences in the stories, the two episodes reinforced questions about the methods used in immigration screening during President Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House. ICE has been accused, including in the courts, of extraordinarily brutal acts and zero accountability for its mistakes in order to fulfill its campaign promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, the majority of whom are Latino.
- context: Trump administration releases manipulated videos of anti-immigrant protests and operations, newspaper reports
With an annual budget of US$10 billion (R$53 billion) and an emergency US$7.5 billion (R$39.75 billion) in 2026, ICE has launched a recruitment offensive by lowering age, training and education requirements. New employees will receive a bonus of USD 50,000 (approximately R$ 266,500).
At the same time, civil rights organizations and professional lawyers who privately reported his persecution and job cuts to GLOBO have compared him to the secret police of a totalitarian government. Last week, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference released a public document containing a rare public criticism of Washington, saying it was praying for “an end to inhuman rhetoric and violence.” Just over 40% of Latin Americans are Catholic.
— Agents most of the time operate under masks, so you can’t tell they’re actually from ICE. This makes accountability difficult and has established a dangerous approach of militia and vigilante action using tactics previously limited to the Border Patrol, Cesar García Hernández, a professor at Ohio State University, told GLOBO.
ProPublica, an independent journalism organization, heard from attorney Michelle Branet, a civil rights expert and DHS ombudsman in President Joe Biden’s administration, that ICE’s “new, not-so-sophisticated authoritarian manual allows it to become the current government’s secret police and look out for other citizens in the future.”
- “A day without a king”: Thousands of people demonstrate against President Trump in the US
The White House disputed the accusations, noting that the “demonization” of the agents, who are not being identified “for security reasons,” has intensified since they were deployed to fight urban crime in several cities across the country, and also in unprecedented ways in Democratic-led Los Angeles and Chicago, which have large Latino populations.
Even in the country’s largest metropolis, which just elected an immigrant mayor, reports of ICE abuse are increasing. In August, photographer Mark Peterson published a definitive essay in The New Yorker about the new normal at the lower Manhattan courthouse, a few blocks from City Hall, where Democrat Zoran Mamdani will take office starting in January.
Hundreds of masked and armed officers patrol the hallways of the state attorney’s office waiting for immigrants to detain them after their hearings. This is the case of the Colombian described by the New York Times, whose photo is reproduced below. Lawyers and journalists attend the arrests, which are “often carried out with little regard for due process,” according to The New Yorker. Relatives, including children, scream and cry. The poster asks, “Where are they?” and features portraits of people taken to federal prisons before being deported, but not necessarily to their countries of origin.
- Trump’s setbacks: U.S. court upholds suspension of National Guard deployment to Chicago
Peterson’s images are black and white with an emphasis on flash and shadows, intentionally reminiscent of 1930s and 1940s film noir and police journalism. “If someone does everything right and gets arrested, it’s a crime scene,” says the photographer. “Okay” means going to court.
Immigration lawyers working in areas of the United States where many Brazilians live told GLOBO that they are having a hard time sticking with what they learned in college: encouraging their clients to go to court even when they knew they could “fall into a trap.” An increasing number of people are failing to attend hearings, increasing the possibility of deportation. But they would rather go into hiding “until the worst is over” than face the dangers of ICE and public humiliation.
Garcia Hernandez of Ohio State University remembers the moment he read the Supreme Court’s decision on ICE’s approach on his cell phone in Los Angeles in September. In fact, under the conservative majority, federal agents could interrogate people based solely on their race, ethnicity, language use, and accent.
The emergency ruling by a federal judge in California overturning the ban imposed is not final. Four lawsuits seeking to limit warrantless arrests and traffic stops are pending in court. In an interview with CBS Network’s 60 Minutes, President Trump was asked whether ICE agents had gone “overboard” by “immobilizing mothers, using tear gas in residential areas, and breaking car windows.” “On the contrary, the only reason they haven’t gone further is because of the progressive judges appointed by Biden and Barack Obama,” the president said.
García Hernández therefore believes that the judicial system, the right to protest, and the sovereign voice at the voting booth are the antidote to authoritarian progress. The last was to punish Trump in local elections at the beginning of the month. This includes areas with large Latino populations that were central to the Republican coalition that won last year and will be crucial in next year’s crucial elections for Congress. Surveys show growing dissatisfaction with the government among all demographics, a surge of repentant voters amid the terrorist climate, emptying pockets, rising costs of living, and continuing economic recession in the regions where they live.
- Understand: President Trump targets cities with black mayors as he tests National Guard intervention
But the scholar also emphasizes the Supreme Court’s broad deference to the current government. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, justified ICE’s actions as “common sense” in a statement regarding the Los Angeles ruling. He wrote that the majority of people who violated immigration laws spoke Spanish, worked and lived in specific locations, and had obvious ethnic characteristics.
— When this decision was made, I was at university drinking coffee and talking in Spanish with another academic. He was wearing a guayabera that he bought in Mexico. What can I do to protect myself from future ICE attacks? Am I a teacher, in a space occupied by white elites, and speak fluent English? I don’t want to change myself or dress or stop speaking multiple languages to avoid arbitrariness. The professor says that what makes America strong is that it is not a homogeneous culture.
About The Author
