The Department of Homeland Security has put its Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recruitment efforts into overdrive. As ICE attempts to boost its numbers to carry out Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the agency is carrying out an ad blitz. According to 404 Media, DHS is looking to run ads on streaming services like HBO Max and Hulu.
The landing page on the Join.ICE.gov website features an image of Uncle Sam with the all-capped headline “America Needs You.” Underneath, it eerily states: “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”
When it comes to hiring requirements, the immigration agency is lowering the bar. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the agency would be eliminating the age cap for new hires, allowing people older than 40 and as young as 18 to join ICE’s ranks.
DHS is not only making it easier to become an ICE agent, but more financially attractive as well. The agency’s website touts that prospective agents could be entitled to signing bonuses of up to $50,000, the possibility of up to $60,000 in student loan repayment, and 25% premium pay.
The recruitment push is working. We know that it has brought in at least one new high-profile agent: 59-year-old actor and vocal Trump supporter Dean Cain, who once played Superman on TV. He shared on social media that he plans to become an ICE officer to “save America.”
Superman, literally an undocumented alien — like an actual alien from outer space — is now an ICE agent. You can’t make this stuff up.
Jokes aside, this drive to hire more personnel seems to be ideologically driven. ICE used to require employees to have an undergraduate degree, but not anymore. Apparently, you don’t even need a uniform. So many of the arrests we’re witnessing are being carried out by masked plainclothes officers.
The only real requirements to becoming an ICE agent these days seem to be a beating heart and an alignment with Trump’s deportation crackdown.
It’s almost like the president is building an army of sycophants — and he has the money to do it. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act set aside nearly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security efforts, including $75 billion in extra funding for ICE specifically, making ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
Just to put this into perspective: ICE now receives more funds and resources than most national militaries. It’s rapidly becoming the nation’s largest domestic police force, its size and power doubling that of the FBI.
It seems like the Trump administration is building up ICE to be an alternative force that’s bigger, more politically loyal, unencumbered by standards and largely shielded from democratic accountability.
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/ice-recruitment-trump-police-force-rcna224319
The warrants issued to arrest Texas Democrats who fled the state to stymie a GOP attempt to redistrict the state lack the legal weight to do what the Republicans want them do.
That is the opinion of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) who was asked, as an attorney, about the FBI reportedly getting involved in tracking the lawmakers down.
Appearing with MSNBC host Ali Velshi on Saturday, she was asked, “Quick question for you: because you’re a lawyer, why would [FBI director] Kash Patel take [Texas Republican] John Cornyn’s phone call about getting the FBI to round up people? I don’t know what the crime is.”
“There is no crime, you already know this,” the Texas Democrat replied. “And just so people understand, even the warrants that they put out for them, they are signed by the speaker of the [Texas] House. I mean, this is not a law, a law enforcement official. This is not a judge. This is not a prosecutor. This is no one whomsoever would normally sign off on a warrant.”
“And that is because it is not a criminal warrant,” she elaborated. “This is only giving license to someone who is found within the state of Texas, to then grab them and take them back to the [legislature] chamber. If they take them anywhere other than the chamber, then they are looking at a civil rights violation because they have not broken any laws.”
“So this is just a matter of a civil situation and frankly, this is a family situation as far as i’m concerned, because basically, the family known as the legislators in the Texas House have decided that they don’t want to come to the table and have a conversation about doing right by Texas,” she added. “They have decided that they would steamroll and disrespect their colleagues as well as their constituents in this moment, so that they can appease the mad king.”
MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance said Saturday that by wearing masks when enforcing federal immigration laws across the country, ICE agents could face “lawful” violence against them by people who mistake the raids for a kidnapping.
On the latest Velshi from MSNBC, Vance joined host Ali Velshi and fellow guest, author Lucan Way, a Toronto political science professor, to discuss the mass detainment and deportations by ICE under the direction of border czar Tom Homan and President Donald Trump after a judge’s order blocking some of those practices was issued on Friday.
Vance, who is co-host of the #SistersInLaw podcast along with Jill Wine-Banks and Barbara McQuade, is a former United States attorney, and spoke first on the legal implications of statements from ICE director Homan.
Velshi then asked specifically about ICE agents wearing masks, which the administration has said is for the safety of the officers, who have already faced many acts of violence and extreme threats.
Velshi asked Vance, as a former prosecutor, about the legal basis for masking agents making arrests in the ongoing raids.
“There are very serious legal restrictions around the use of, for instance, FBI agents as undercover operatives. Very strict rules regarding how it’s done, what they can do, what they can’t do,” Vance said. “But you know what I’ve never seen: a federal agent working a case due is pull a mask up so nobody knows who they are and go out and terrorize a civilian population.”
Earlier in the show, Velshi argued, “we’re witnessing a police state taking shape before our eyes,” and suggested, as did professor Way, that soon ICE will be turned to rounding up any political opponent or critic of Trump, whether it has anything to do with immigration or not.
Vance, for her part, called the practice of wearing masks “not normal” and a “danger sign,” and dismissed the idea that it might be for the safety of the ICE agents. Instead, she argued, they are less safe, because people might mistake the masked officers in these giant raids for kidnappers and become lawfully violent.
“When you’re masked like that and people don’t know who you are, someone might exercise their lawful right of self-defense to protect themselves, thinking they’re being kidnapped,” she said. “So the notion that this is for law enforcement’s protection is utterly ludicrous. And we need to do away with that.”
VELSHI: You’re a prosecutor, I want to ask you, there are legitimate reasons why some enforcement agencies, some police agencies, go undercover or, you know, do things in shadows to achieve certain things. I would assume that’s specific and, you, know, it needs to be, needs to comport with some laws.
VANCE: Exactly. There are very serious legal restrictions around the use of, for instance, FBI agents as undercover operatives. Very strict rules regarding how it’s done, what they can do, what they can’t do. But you know what I’ve never seen a federal agent working a case due is pull a mask up so nobody knows who they are and go out and terrorize a civilian population.
And I think it’s important for us at this point to be very plain-speaking when we say that this is not normal, it’s not acceptable, and it’s a danger sign. You know, we are well past the point where we can just identify danger signs and say, oh, there might be problems down the road. The problems are here, they’re in the right now.
And as we see people being pulled off the streets — you know, the danger to law enforcement, quite frankly, is that when you’re masked like that and people don’t know who you are, someone might exercise their lawful right of self-defense to protect themselves, thinking they’re being kidnapped. So the notion that this is for law enforcement’s protection is utterly ludicrous. And we need to do away with that.
A decision by Donald Trump to urge ICE agents to change where they snatch up unsuspecting immigrants was a direct rebuke to White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller.
That is the opinion of former Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin as she spoke to MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Sunday morning.
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Attributing the change of heart by the Trump administration to “donor pressure,” Rubin explained, “All of the ag interests and the hotel owners and Trump himself who rely on undocumented immigrants, don’t like this.”
“You know, who could have predicted that this would unravel the economy?” she asked sarcastically. “Who could have predicted that this would be disruptive to American society and the economy? Well, all of us have.”
“And this is really a slap in the face to Stephen Miller and those people who thought that somehow [they were] going to deport 11 million people, it is never going to happen,” she predicted.
Many strongmen also love to display giant photos of themselves wherever they can. If you ever go to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, you’ll be greeted with a portrait of Mao Zedong. Mao founded the People’s Republic of China, and he served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party for more than 30 years. His portrait is about 19½ feet tall and 15 feet wide, and it weighs about 3,000 pounds. It’s been hanging over the gate leading into the Forbidden City since 1949.
If you travel farther to the east, you’ll find something similar in North Korea. In the country’s capital of Pyongyang, there’s an area called Kim Il Sung Square, where you’ll find large portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the great leader and the dear leader, respectively, overlooking the plaza at all times as people go about their daily lives.
When Putin visited the country last year, North Koreans gave him a warm welcome by plastering his photo everywhere. They even temporarily put up a humongous portrait of Putin next to one of Kim Jong Un during a welcome ceremony.
Neither China nor North Korea invented this idea. They’ve taken their cues from Joseph Stalin, the former brutal ruler of the Soviet Union. He liked to have portraits of himself displayed in public and lofted by his supporters during parades.
That practice continues in many other countries where strongmen rule today. You see it in places like Egypt, where the face of its president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is inescapable. His mug is on billboards and banners, plastered on buildings and hanging along the roadside. That’s especially true ahead of an election, and it’s no wonder he’s been able to easily win three terms in office. (Not to mention the fact that Egypt doesn’t exactly have free and fair elections in the first place.)
In Iran, you’ll find an abundance of murals, posters and portraits of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He’s often depicted with the country’s late leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Their images are displayed everywhere — at mosques, in malls and even on the sides of some buildings.
And now, something like that is happening in the United States, too. Last week, a giant banner with Donald Trump’s official portrait was displayed on the United States Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C., alongside a similar banner featuring Abraham Lincoln.
Hail, Donald! Long live the King!