Supplying the Demands of Reactionaries Means Billions More for ICE
1. Introduction
Shortly after being sworn in early this year, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14149 titled, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” — ostensibly the first step in fulfilling his campaign promise to steer “the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.”[1] In the order, he directs federal agencies to, among other things, redouble detention measures for “illegal aliens,” to expedite deportations, establish “Homeland Security Task Forces” in every state, and to “take all appropriate action to significantly increase the number of agents and officers available to perform the duties of immigration officers.”[2]
When the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was signed into law on July 4, the administration and Congress put tax payers’ money where its fascistic mouth is and allocated $165 billion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),[3] a 60% increase in funding compared to what was allocated by the 2024 budget.[4] The DHS is the parent department of both Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the infamous Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Not long after the law’s passing, the DHS announced that it would be hiring 10,000 new ICE agents,[5] bringing their total force close to 30,000.[6]
With the cash flowing in, ICE recruitment has been heavily incentivized. In addition to lowering its age requirement to 18 and removing all age caps for agents,[7] the agency also provides numerous monetary incentives. A (up to) $50,000 sign-on bonus, $60,000 student loan repayment, and generous overtime pay bonuses are all prominently advertised on the recruitment section of the ICE website.[8] By all accounts, it seems that the president’s goal to deport 1 million people this year[9] is being aggressively pursued, with ICE as well as Customs and Border Protection ramping up their assaults on the people and leaving a trail of violence all over the country.
For context, we list some of the noteworthy instances that have been reflected in the news over the course of the year. On January 7, 78 people were arrested by Customs and Border Protection during their raid on farms in southern California,[10] and ICE detained a total of 538 people during raids in Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Miami, DC, and New York City in the same month.[11] In March, ICE deployed flash grenades in the arrest of 47 people at a birthday party in Texas,[12] and 100 people were arrested in April during the raid of a nightclub in Colorado Springs.[13] ICE worked with Tennessee Highway Patrol to carry out over 500 traffic stops in Nashville in early May, arresting 196 for supposed immigration violations,[14] and a series of Los Angeles raids by ICE in June produced 44 arrests, of, purportedly, mostly garment and construction workers,[15] constituting part of a series of operations in which a total of 1,618 people were arrested in raids between June 6 and June 22 in the L.A. area alone.[16] On July 8, both ICE and Border Patrol carried out a joint operation at an Alba Wine and Spirits warehouse in Edison, NY, resulting in the arrest of 20 people,[17] and 200 were arrested in a chaotic skirmish with protesters and workers during an immigration raid on two locations belonging to Glass House Farms, a legal cannabis farm in Southern California, on July 10.[18] More recently, 719 arrests took place in D.C. between August 11 and August 25 when Trump sent in the National Guard, with many of them related to immigration.[19], [20] These are only a few of the most notable examples of the DHS’ vigorous assault on the people, which has produced thousands of victims so far, with ICE alone claiming 66,463 total arrests within the first four months of Trump’s second term.[21] For reference, the total ICE arrests listed for the entirety of the previous fiscal year were 113,431.[22]
The vast majority of the victims come from Latin American countries, with Mexico being the primary place of origin by a wide margin.[23] Additionally, they are proletarian, with sweeps being performed at garment factories, agricultural farms, and outside of common meeting places for day-laborers. The places where the most desperate workers congregate for risky, tentative employment opportunities are being consciously targeted, with Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, directing ICE to specifically target Home Depot as well as 7-Eleven convenience stores for illegal migrants.[24] These lowly sections of labor are aggressively victimized by the highest executive office in the country, being rounded up and tucked away; ostensibly to be deported abroad but, before that, incarcerated and left to the mercy of work-service programs within private detention centers.
2. Incarcerating the “Illegal;” a Growing Industry
The undocumented status of migrants makes the accurate tallying of their numbers and circumstances difficult but the U.S. undocumented migrant population was estimated at 14 million in 2023, with an increase of 3.5 million in the course of only the previous two years,[25] though we can assume this number to be much larger than official counts. They are over-represented in construction, restaurants, agriculture, landscaping, building, cleaning, food processing and manufacturing, transportation, grocery stores, hotels, as well as the warehousing, distribution, and fulfillment of online orders.[26] In mostly these industries, undocumented immigrants widely work low-paying, strenuous positions, with 82% of them possessing no college degree and purportedly 26% of them at or below the federal poverty level according to 2019 numbers.[27] For reference, 11.1% of the general population of the U.S. was at or below the poverty level in 2023.[28]
The Trump administration’s aggressive assaults on this substantial and poor contingency of the economy reflects the wider nature of his political ascendance: the shifting of power towards the growing fascistic trend in the country. We briefly described this trend and outlined the development of fascism generally in an article from Sparkyl No. 1, “Donald’s Dismantlings and Understanding Fascism.” For our purposes here, we will zero in on the fact that, more and more, there is a section of smaller capitalists who are becoming the economic “vanguard” of fascism, supplying their services in answer to the demands of the reactionaries, ingratiating themselves within the energetic and fascistic sections of the increasingly reactionary state so that the productive forces they own and profit from can be made central in the new order, guaranteeing profit.
Regarding ICE and the aggressive actions of the DHS, this section of bourgeoisie is most readily represented by private prison corporations, an industry worth at least $4 billion dollars[29] and which houses 90% of ICE detainees[30] through Intergovernmental Service Agreements (IGSAs), where local governments are contracted by ICE to house migrants, and then in turn sub-contract these duties out to private corporations.[31] With at least 56,000 people in active ICE detention,[32] and more than 275,000 detentions claimed by the agency in its last fiscal year,[33] it is these prison corporations and their shareholders that serve as a direct and energetic base for the new violence upon immigrant communities, churning the tide of detention and deportations on so as to grow their business. Three monopolist corporations, CoreCivic, the GEO Group, and Management and Training Corporation (MTC), together, share 96% of this detention/deportation market according to a 2016 study delineating the total beds provided by private prisons in the country.[34]
Their profit is widely gained from forcing the detainees to maintain their facilities, saving immensely on labor costs. At least 50% of detainees are coerced into the “Voluntary Work Program,” a program which runs throughout all detention centers, both private and public, and is put forward by ICE itself, making prisoners wash dishes, cut hair, perform clerical work, and otherwise maintain the operations of their own prison.[35] They are only required to be compensated, according to ICE policy, $1.00 per day.[36] While this program is ostensibly “voluntary,” many detainees allege coercion, an assertion that holds firm since detainees often must purchase basic items like toothpaste and feminine hygiene products within the compound,[37] with the price of using the telephone for only a few minutes often amounting to an entire day’s pay.[38] These kinds of basic provisions are not provided and are quite pricey in the private detention facilities, making the “Voluntary Work Program” not so voluntary. This is in addition to the non-voluntary work of “personal housekeeping.” Detainees are made to clean their cells and “keep them free from clutter” without option.[39] By having the prisoners themselves, through both the “Voluntary Work Program” and the mandatory cell-cleaning, labor in the maintenance of the facility that contains them for no-pay, or, at most, a pitiful slavery-wage, the private prison corporations are able to keep their businesses profitable, running, and able to seek out new contracts to house an ever growing number of oppressed migrants; thus, this market and the bourgeoisie who profit from it constitutes itself as a prominent material base for perpetuating violence upon immigrants generally.
With the vast majority of ICE arrestees ending up in detention centers owned by only three different private corporate entities, it is safe to say that this current monopoly has ingratiated itself into the state, forming an alliance of a kind between the reactionary state apparatus and the private sector – a hallmark of any fascist system. The relatively small (for now) private detention market is probably the clearest example of this alliance between the public and private sector, but numerous large, established corporations have also stepped forward to supply ICE and its contractors with the ancillary logistics and necessary equipment needed to carry out their program. The business ties these suppliers make to the growing fascist sections of government and to ICE will help perpetuate the agency and the private prison bourgeoisie, constituting further momentum in the growth of both their power. AT&T, Dell Computers, General Dynamics, and Motorola are among some of the Fortune 500 companies that have all received millions of dollars from ICE in order to supply them with information and technology products, with both FedEx and UPS being tacked in for small-scale deliveries to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.[40]
In addition to enriching the detention center bourgeoisie and their corporate suppliers, city and town municipalities that are partnered with ICE to imprison migrants also benefit immensely from the violence towards immigrants. The mayor of Dilley, a small town of less than 4,000 people in Texas,[41] remarked in 2017 that the CoreCivic detention facility in her hometown produced $7 million in insurance and benefits to Dilley residents, and brought the town $250,000 in property taxes.[42] Similarly, the sheriffs of McHenry and Kankakee Counties in Illinois both testified in court that housing ICE detainees out of county jails brought in a combined $57 million to their respective counties over the course of 2016 through 2020.[43]
With both private and public entities having lots to gain, it is no wonder that detention and deportation is growing within the country, constituting a new and energetic market while also supplying profit to currently existing ones. While the value of this market is substantial, in the final view of the country’s production, the billions in housing detained immigrants, and the millions made in benefits by the hosting locales and in profit by other corporations who supply ancillary products are relatively paltry compared to the United States’ $29.18 trillion total GDP.[44]
The fact that one of the newest federal departments has become the vehicle for bourgeoisie who possess such relatively small capital is a shining symbol to any who are paying attention that fascism is, indeed, climbing the ladder of power. The sections of smaller capitalists, who are beleaguered by the greater power of the bigger financiers, and are the main base of the fascist movement, are gaining political ground and turning the mechanisms of the state in their favor — unsurprisingly with hyper-reactionary flair.
3. Supply and Demand
There can be no doubt that dire poverty alone compels people to abandon their native land, and that the capitalists exploit the immigrant workers in the most shameless manner.
- Lenin, “Capitalism and Worker’s Immigration,” 1913[45]
Constituting itself as the impetus of this new detainment and deportation market is another economic factor indicative of a fascist rise within a country: the heightened competition between differing sections of workers, specifically the decreasing privilege for the dominant section due to the increase in the population of other sections. This is one of the primary motions that brings about the manifestation of fascism within the working class. In our liberal societies where all the occupants of the globe have been sliced up into nationalities and races, this antagonism between workers of different nationalities plays itself out through racial or national supremacy being promoted for the dominant section of workers over and against the non-dominant sections, who are usually represented by minority nationalities and who are set up as “destructive forces” to society in the philosophies of the fascists. “White lives matter,” “reverse racism,” and even Hitler’s assertions that the “good Aryan” Germans were being victimized by “Judaic” influence are all reflections of an antagonism between the workers being “solved” along fascistic lines, with those of the dominant nationality forming violent associations of political supremacy over those belonging outside it.
The influx of immigration within the U.S. over recent years has increased this antagonism to the point of boiling over in just such a fascist fashion, with the total immigrant population reaching an all-time peak of 15.8% of the country in January of this year.[46] The immigrants coming into the country generally constitute a vast and relatively more impoverished pool of minority labor. Because of their generally more impoverished state, the capitalists utilize their desperation to protect their bottom line, favoring immigrant labor where they can over other sections of workers because of their ability to pay them less.
“Illegal” or undocumented immigrants, who were estimated to be 27% of all immigrants in 2023,[47] are even more desperate. Their “illegal” status sets them up for even greater exploitation at the hands of the capitalists, forcing them to accept ostensibly whatever “under-the-table” wages their employer deigns to offer them and making them a favorite pick in numerous industries that rely on manual labor.
The existence of poor immigrant labor, whether legal or no, serves to repress the cost of labor generally for the bourgeoisie. Influxes of immigrant laborers forces many native-born workers to, in the very least, adapt to the declining values of their wages, becoming more impoverished. When immigration is more energetic, native-born workers face a greater potentiality of being laid off, forced out of the market entirely as the capitalists turn to the more desperate laborers en masse and save themselves some cash. This material antagonism between labor gets played out in bitter struggles between the nationalities; an economic foundation for racial violence.
Engels showcases this antagonism using demographic shifts that took place during his lifetime in the middle of the 19th century, specifically showcasing a similar trend regarding the influx of poor Irish immigrants into English production.
With such a competitor the English working-man has to struggle, with a competitor upon the lowest plane possible in a civilised country, who for this very reason requires less wages than any other. Nothing else is therefore possible than that...the wages of English working-man should be forced down further and further in every branch in which the Irish compete with him. And these branches are many. All such as demand little or no skill are open to the Irish...all simple, less exact work, wherever it is a question more of strength than skill, the Irishman is as good as the Englishman.[48]
In a letter from 1870, Marx remarks on these same shifts, saying,
Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class.[49]
Competition between the workers is a primary tool used by the capitalist class to keep them divided and under their domination, and it is not exclusive to influxes of immigrant labor. Engels remarks that the introduction of women into the workplace played a similar role in the textile industries of 19th century England:
...the manufacturers discovered that they could employ women and children, and the wages sank to the rate paid them, while hundreds of men were thrown out of employment.[50]
Its historical occurrences notwithstanding, there is evidence to suggest that the influx of immigration has already brought the competition of the workers into harsh contrast in the current economy of the United States. California, one of the most productive states and also the one in which 28.4% of all U.S. immigrants reside,[51] has a labor force participation rate that is higher for immigrants than non-immigrants,[52] and the unemployment rate is only 0.2 points higher for immigrants than native-born people country-wide according to 2024 numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.[53]
In the following passage, Marx further reveals the implications of this antagonism between immigrant and native-born workers within the labor market of the capitalists, even applying the situation of the Irish and English workers to an American context that has continued on into today.
And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A. ...
This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.[54]
As a genocidal settler-colonial “Melting Pot” that has always depended on the low station of immigrant labor, the country is still fiercely steeped in the same antagonism Marx ascribes to it back in 1870. The same reactionary response to outside labor forces and worker competition is still being played out as sections of “white” workers and their naturalized taggers-on being inspired by reaction and rising against their labor competition in the form of racialized violence and oppression towards minority nationalities. In a significant way today, their crusading has revolved sharply around Mexican and other Latin American working people, a direct correlation with their recent rise in the labor force.
It is not just the “poor whites” who are seeing a more desperate underclass of worker increasingly saturate the labor markets they compete in. With some nations supplying immigrants of a higher average education than native-born people in the U.S.,[55] domestically-born workers of all strata have to hustle their labor amongst an influx of competitive new-comers. Informed as they are by, as Marx says, “all the means at the disposal of the ruling class,” even many better-off workers will adopt the nationalism of “white America,” whether they are of that racial caste or no, and stoop to reaction in the face of this antagonism. They will cling tightly to national and racist sentiment, and especially the growing hyper-nationalism of the fascist movement, which promises to solve this antagonism, as well as remove all other elements of society that offend the reactionaries’ sensibilities.
It is the demands of the reactionary workers caught up within this antagonism that the capitalists in the deportation businesses, as well as the populist politicians and bureaucrats involved in ICE and the DHS, are supplying. The new capitalist markets that develop out of the increase in deportations will serve as material motivators for the continual prominence of deportations generally, but the reason these industries are developing now is because of a mass movement of reactionaries which is taking form within the whole of society; a movement not just of a section of capitalists, but including portions of the much larger class of workers as well, who sign up with the fascists and commit all kinds of violence upon their own class in order to militantly protect their competitiveness in the oppressive labor market of the capitalists.
4. A Reactionary Institution Developing Along Reactionary Lines
ICE was created from the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, which itself was established the year before when the “Homeland Security Act” passed Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York were a heavy motivation behind the legislation, which professed the mission to “prevent terrorist attacks within the United States” and to “reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism.”[56] As is typical of bourgeois law, it is no surprise that the substantial increase to the security and law-enforcement apparatus of the capitalist state under the blanket term of “anti-terrorism” has fallen sharply against the most vulnerable workers and the poor, shown most sharply in the department’s recent use of ICE against immigrants.
More worryingly, there is the probability that the relatively young ICE agency is becoming a broader tool for the reactionaries, a “standing army” for fascism broadly, or, in the least offensive case, serving as an organizational tool for forming such an institution in the very near future. This is supported by how ICE recruits, with recruitment propaganda aimed specifically at the far-right and fascist contingency of the country. On August 11, the DHS posted a picture of an “Uncle Sam” figure at a crossroads,[57] with a line from the avowed white-supremacist, William Gayley Simpson, “Which way, American man?”,[58] included in the caption above a link which leads to the ICE recruitment page. Unsurprisingly, the Trump clique, through the vehicle of the White House’s X account, has repeatedly tied their own political power to the agency, pushing ICE recruitment often in a disgusting and chauvinistic way meant to be sardonically humorous, like when using AI to recreate a real picture of a Dominican woman crying while being arrested by ICE agents in the style of the popular Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli, or showing ICE agents as alligators in support of the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center in Florida,[59] which has become a recent battleground for both reaction and liberal resistance.
Due to the political unity between the government and the conscious fascists, fascist political actors are more and more becoming part and parcel with the ICE agency. Some high positions in the agency are being held even now by self-identifying fascists, as the Texas Observer found in an expose of the 17,000 follower-strong fascist X account, “GlomarResponder.” The expose showed that the account is run by an ICE Assistant Chief Counselor — in normal language, one of ICE’s employed lawyers.[60] The many “grassroots” white supremacist organizations within the country are also being engaged, responding to the propaganda and the reactionary turn in government. When hearing of the $50,000 ICE sign-on bonuses, a member of a Proud Boys chapter in Toledo, Ohio wrote on Signal, “Toledo boys living high on the hog now!”[61] The former leader of the Proud Boys nationally, who Trump pardoned along with the rest of the January 6 insurrectionists, has helped to found “ICERAID,” a website that pays people in its own crypto currency in exchange for reporting undocumented immigrants.[62]
We should understand and prepare ourselves for the eventuality of ICE becoming a militant arm of the fascist program broadly, for if it is not capable of carrying through with this task now even while it is increasingly made up of persons who wish for this very outcome, ICE is serving to unify the fascists under a single organizational umbrella, allowing for subsequent organizational successes in new formations.
As it stands now, it looks as though the current ICE agency is well on its way to fulfilling this purpose, expanding its jurisdiction and fascist ideology into more and more sections of the people. Per an August 1 “Policy Alert” put out by the DHS, families applying for green cards can now officially be targeted for removal from their application alone, since, according to the alert, “a family-based immigrant visa petition accords no immigration status or relief from removal.”[63] Penalizing immigrants who are, objectively, following the legal procedures their position calls for reveals the broader fascistic motivations behind the Department as a whole. It has even practically expanded its purview beyond illegal immigrants entirely, with many reports of agents targeting a (for now) relatively small number of U.S. citizens for detention and deportation, despite the illegality of these actions. Among those victimized that the news media has reported on are a 10-year-old cancer patient who was deported to Mexico along with her undocumented parents,[64] a 19-year-old who was held for 10 days in Tucson,[65] a man who was simply filming an ongoing ICE raid who was held for 24 hours,[66] and a prominent student protester for Palestine who was held in ICE detention for three months.[67] Outside of the recent news cycle, statistics put out by the U.S. Government Accountability Office state that 674 potential U.S. citizens were arrested by ICE between 2015 and 2020, with 70 deported.[68]
Worryingly, the definition of citizenship itself is being actively changed, leading to the strong potential that such targeting of citizens for detention and deportation may one day soon be legal; citizenship transformed into a “privilege” bestowed by a fascist government. As soon as starting their second term, the Trump administration executively, and without Congress, issued Executive Order 14160 titled, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” making “illegal” any child born in the U.S. to persons of illegalstatus.[69] So far, the order has faced some impediments in the courts of the liberals,[70] but with the liberals being unable to solve the contradictions that are fueling the country’s descent into fascism, it is unlikely they will be able to offer much resistance. The fascistic defining of who is “illegal,” coupled with the increasing power of the executive branch and its growing fascist-leaning army of executors in the DHS, are bound to produce horrible and life-threatening consequences for the masses of the country generally if left unchecked, as they do already for immigrants.
5. Conclusion
Without a radical orientation away from capitalism, which is, necessarily, a step toward socialism and the communist society, there can be no real opposition against the growing power of a state agency that is rapidly becoming the strong arm of the country’s fascist movement. The liberals are trained in the chauvinism of the “American” nationality, and though they are crying out now for immigration reform, they uphold immigration enforcement generally, not to mention the economic forces that have allowed Trump and the country’s far-right turn to see the light of day. They can offer very little in terms of resistance. We must rely on the masses, and especially the international working class, who will grow in consciousness and capability until they are mature enough to end the rule of capital that divides and oppresses the people, turning them against each other. The fact is that the people, as they are now, are woefully unprepared for the circumstances they currently face. We Communists must get serious. If we are Communists, we understand the material relations of society, and have been given true and relevant scientific theory which allows us to carve the new socialist society out of the dying capitalist one. The stakes are too high for us to ignore, and rapid work must be performed towards attaining the masses’ maturity, work that is best performed by Marxists in the here and now who commit themselves to ideological struggle and the delineation of all revisionism and opportunism so as to clear the ideological ground for the proletariat’s rapid gains to come.
The present immigrants targeted by the country’s turn towards fascism will find themselves more and more brought together, shamefully so in the detention centers, but, in a positive and general way that transcends even into other strata of the country, united as an oppressed section of people, and, particularly, of labor as they are made to work within the confines of their prisons. This will bring about class-consciousness, and it should be fostered by a Marxism that is vigorous and free from revisionist error; an occurrence that can only come from numerous comrades committed to the maintaining of a true political line, and talented in ideological work.
History turned on the capitalists long ago, and the contradictions of their society will only multiply and increase in antagonism. The masses and especially Communists should stand with poor immigrants, as they should stand with the entire class of the oppressed proletariat. Committing ourselves to their cause, we commit ourselves to the elimination of the capitalist mode of production generally, as we understand that it is the profit motive of a minority of capitalists that has caused the violence of borders, naturalization, and immigration enforcement, not to mention the recent atrocious actions of the DHS. These vicious affronts to the well-being of the people cannot be eliminated without a dramatic restructuring of the relations around society’s productive forces.
Endnotes
[1] Inskeep, Steve. Thomas, Christopher. “Trump promised the ‘largest deportation’ in US history. Here’s how he might start.” Oregon Public Broadcasting. https://www.opb.org/article/2024/11/15/trump-mass-deportation-immigration-border/.
[2] The White House. “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” 20 Jan 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/.
[3] U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Secretary Noem Commends President Trump and One Big Beautiful Bill Signing into Law: Historic Win for the American People and the Rule of Law.” 4 Jul 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/04/secretary-noem-commends-president-trump-and-one-big-beautiful-bill-signing-law.
[4] U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Budget-in-Brief Fiscal year 2024, Message from the Secretary.” https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/DHS%20FY%202024%20BUDGET%20IN%20BRIEF%20%28BIB%29_Remediated.pdf.
[5] Damp, Dennis. “ICE Is Hiring 10,000 New Agents, Many with Signing Bonuses.” Clearance Jobs. 7 Aug 2025. https://news.clearancejobs.com/2025/08/07/ice-is-hiring-10000-new-agents-many-with-signing-bonuses/
[6] U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Budget Overview Fiscal Year 2024.” https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/U.S%20IMMIGRATION%20AND%20CUSTOMS%20ENFORCEMENT_Remediated.pdf.
[7] Villagran, Lauren. “Over 40 and eager to join ICE? Here's who can now join the force.” USA Today. 7 Aug 2025. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/06/ice-deportation-agent-age-apply/85539314007/.
[8] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “America Needs You.” Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://www.ice.gov/join.
[9] Sacchetti, Maria. Bogage, Jacob. “‘One million.’ The private goal driving Trump’s push for mass deportations.” The Washington Post. 12 Apr 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/12/one-million-deportations-goal/.
[10] Olmos, Sergio. Fry, Wendy. “Border Patrol said it targeted known criminals in Kern County. But it had no record on 77 of 78 arrestees.” Cal Matters. 27 Jun 2025. https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/04/border-patrol-records-kern-county/.
[11] Eyewitness News ABC 7. “ICE agents arrest hundreds of migrants in sanctuary cities, including New York City.” 24 Jan 2025. https://abc7ny.com/post/nyc-immigration-ice-agents-arrest-300-migrants-sanctuary-cities-including-couple-new-york-city/15829571/.
[12] Ferguson, Malcolm. “ICE Invaded Child’s Birthday Party Claiming It Was a Gang Meeting.” The New Republic. 4 Jun 2025. https://newrepublic.com/post/196138/ice-child-birthday-party-gang-meeting-tren-de-aragua.
[13] Boyette, Chris. “Over 100 immigrants arrested in raid on underground Colorado nightclub where active-duty military members worked, feds say.” CNN. 28 Apr 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/27/us/colorado-springs-ice-raid-club.
[14] Hale, Steven. “Less than Half of Nearly 200 Arrested in Nashville ICE Operation had Criminal History.” Nashville Banner. 14 May 2025. https://nashvillebanner.com/2025/05/14/ice-operation-in-nashville-sparks-outrage/.
[15] Dallow, Lily. “Police use flash-bangs, tear gas to quell ICE raid protests in L.A..” KTLA 5. 6 Jun 2025. https://ktla.com/news/local-news/flash-bangs-tear-gas-and-arrests-as-ice-raids-protests-continue-in-los-angeles/.
[16] Castillo, Andrea. “More than 1,600 immigrants detained in Southern California this month, DHS says.” Los Angeles Times. 25 Jun 2025. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-06-25/more-than-1-600-immigrants-detained-in-southern-california-this-month-dhs-say.
[17] Prussin, Mark. “20 arrested in immigration raid in Edison, New Jersey, DHS says.” CBS New York. 11 Jul 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/ice-raid-edison-new-jersey-alba-wine-and-spirits/.
[18] Vives, Rubin. Marantos, Jeanette. Garrison, Jessica. Gomes, Melissa. Harter, Clara. Toohey, Grace. “200 arrested in chaotic immigration raid at cannabis farm, one worker critically hurt in fall.” Los Angeles Times. 11 Jul 2025. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-10/federal-immigration-sweep-ventura-county-farms.
[19] Lerner, Kira. “When immigration shows up at daycare: crackdown in DC terrifies families and workers.” The Guardian. 25 Aug 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/25/washington-dc-daycare-workers-parents-immigration-raids.
[20] The White House. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restores Law and Order in the District of Columbia.” 11 Aug 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-restores-law-and-order-in-the-district-of-columbia/.
[21] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “100 days of record-breaking immigration enforcement in the US interior.” 29 Apr 2025. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/100-days-record-breaking-immigration-enforcement-us-interior.
[22] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Statistics; Arrests; FY 2024.” Jan 2025. Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://www.ice.gov/statistics.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Findell, Elizabeth. Simon, Ruth. Hackman, Michelle. Parti, Tarini. “The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown.” The Wall Street Journal. 9 Jun 2025. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-10/ice-sweep-targets-what-we-know.
[25] Passel, Jeffrey S. Krogstad, Jens Manuel. “U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023.” Pew Research Center. 21 Aug 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/.
[26] Kerwin, Donald. Nicholson, Mike. Alulema, Daniela. Warren, Robert. “US Foreign-Born Essential Workers by Status and State, and the Global Pandemic.” Center for Migration Studies. 1 May 2020. https://cmsny.org/publications/us-essential-workers/#:~:text=Undocumented%20immigrants%20work%20%E2%80%93%20by%20essential%20industry%20%E2%80%93,warehousing,%20distribution,%20and%20fulfillment%20of%20online%20orders%20(103,000).
[27] Migration Policy Institute. “Profile of the Unauthorized Population: United States.” 2019. Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US.
[28] Shrider, Emily A. “Poverty in the United States: 2023.” United States Census Bureau. 10 Sep 2024. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-283.html.
[29] Haberman, Clyde. “For Private Prisons, Detaining Immigrants Is Big Business.” The New York Times. 1 Oct 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/prisons-immigration-detention.html.
[30] Cho, Eunice Hyunhye. “Unchecked Growth: Private Prison Corporations and Immigration Detention, Three Years Into the Biden Administration.” American Civil Liberties Union. 7 Aug 2023. https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/unchecked-growth-private-prison-corporations-and-immigration-detention-three-years-into-the-biden-administration.
[31] Sin, Amanda. “Our Brothers’ Keepers: Reforming Intergovernmental Service Agreements in Immigration Detention.” Public Contract Law Journal. Volume 52, Number 4. The American Bar Association. Summer 2023. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4592852. P.g 718
[32] Garsd, Jasmine. “Immigrants with no criminal convictions represent sharpest growth in ICE detention population.” National Public Radio. 3 Jul 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/nx-s1-5456246/immigrants-no-criminal-convictions-growth-ice-detention-population.
[33] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Statistics; Detentions; FY 2024.” Jan 2025. Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://www.ice.gov/statistics.
[34] Mumford, Megan. Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore. Nunn, Ryan. “The Economics of Private Prisons; Private Prisons Economic Analysis: Technical Appendix; Market Share Calculations.” The Hamilton Project. Oct 2016. https://www.hamiltonproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/economics_of_private_prisons.pdf; https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/private_prisons_technical_appendix.pdf.
[35] Booth, Jonathon. “Ending Forced Labor in ICE Detention Centers: A New Approach.” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. Vol. 34. Spring 2020. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/immigration-law-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2020/08/ENDING-FORCED-LABOR-IN-ICE-DETENTION-CENTERS-A-NEW-APPROACH.pdf. Pg. 590.
[36] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “2011 Operations Manual ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS 2011).” December 2016. https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention-standards/2011/pbnds2011r2016.pdf. Pg. 407.
[37] Booth. Pg. 591.
[38] Fry, Wendy. “ICE Detention: Where a day’s work might buy you a 14-minute phone call.” Cal Matters. 26 Jun 2024. https://calmatters.org/newsletter/ice-detention-where-a-days-work-might-buy-you-one-14-minute-phone-call/.
[39] ICE. PBNDS 2011. Pg. 406.
[40] MacClellan, Lila. “These are the Fortune 500 companies that have active contracts with ICE.” Fortune. 26 Jun 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/06/26/fortune-500-companies-active-contracts-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice/.
[41] United States Census Bureau. “Dilley city, Texas.” Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://data.census.gov/profile/Dilley_city,_Texas?g=160XX00US4820428.
[42] Sin. Pg. 721.
[43] United States District Court for the Norther District of Illinois Western Division. “McHenry County and Kankakee County, bodies politic and corporate, VS. Kwame Raoul in his official capacity as Attorney General.” 30 Sep 2021. https://immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/files/content-type/commentary-item/documents/2021-11/ExA_Decl-Sheriffs-Prim-%26-Downey.pdf.
[44] World Bank Group. “GDP (current US$) - United States.” 2024. Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US.
[45] Lenin, V. I.. “Capitalism and Worker’s Immigration.” Za Pravdu, No. 22. 29 Oct 1913. Lenin Collected Works. Progress Publishers. 1977. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/oct/29.htm.
[46]Kramer, Stephanie & Passel, Jeffrey S. “What the data says about immigrants in the U.S.” Pew Research Center. 21 Aug 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. 1845. Institute of Marxism-Leninism. 1969. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch06.htm.
[49] Marx, Karl. “Marx to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt
In New York.” 9 April 1870. Selected correspondence. Progress Publishers. 1975. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm
[50] Engels.
[51] Kramer.
[52] USA Facts. “What percent of jobs in California
are held by immigrants?” 21 Apr 2025. Accessed on 4 Sep 2025. https://usafacts.org/answers/what-percent-of-jobs-in-the-us-are-held-by-immigrants/state/california/.
[53] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Characteristics of Foreign-born Workers Summary.” 20 May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.nr0.htm.
[54] Marx.
[55] Kramer.
[56] 107th Congress of the United States. “Homeland Security Act of 2002”. 25 Nov 2002. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/03_0116_hr_5005_enr.pdf. Pg. 8.
[57] U.S. Department of Homeland Security (@DHSgov). “Which way, American man?” X. 11 Aug 2025. https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1955011982488228231.
[58] Simpson, William Gayley. Which Way Western Man? William and Harriet Simpson Estate. 1978. https://ia800609.us.archive.org/20/items/9NeinsEbooks/Which-Way-%20Western-Man-%20William-Gayley-Simpson.pdf
[59] Joffe-Block, Jude. Bond, Shannon. “What's behind the Trump administration's immigration memes?” National Public Radio. 18 Aug 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/18/nx-s1-5482921/memes-white-house-dhs-social-media-trump.
[60] Monacelli, Steven. “ICE Prosecutor in Dallas Runs White Supremacist X Account.” Texas Observer. 19 Feb 2025. https://www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecutor-dallas-white-supremacist-x-account/.
[61] Breland, Ali. “Where Have the Proud Boys Gone?”. The Atlantic. 5 Aug 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/08/proud-boys-militia-groups-trump-ice/683766/.
[62] Ibid.
[63] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “PA-2025-12; Subject: Family-Based Immigrants.” 1 Aug 2025. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20250801-FamilyBasedImmigrants.pdf.
[64] Betts, Anna. “Family of girl recovering from brain surgery describes ‘serious abuses’ while detained in US.” The Guardian. 18 Mar 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/deported-family-girl-brain-cancer.
[65] Danner, Chas. “All the U.S. Citizens Who’ve Been Caught Up in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown.” Intelligencer. 3 May 2025. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/tracking-us-citizens-children-detained-deported-ice-trump-updates.html.
[66] Carrillo, Michael S, Esq. “Job Garcia, PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, Arrested As ICE Descended Upon Home Depot In Hollywood.” Carrillo Law Firm. 2 Jul 2025. https://www.carrillofirm.com/job-garcia-u-s-citizen-arrested-during-hollywood-ice-raid/.
[67] McCausland, Phil. “Who is Mahmoud Khalil, Palestinian student activist facing US deportation?”. BBC. 20 Jun 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj5nlxz44yo.
[68] U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Immigration Enforcement: Actions Needed to Better Track Cases Involving U.S. Citizenship Investigations; GAO-21-487.” 20 Jul 2021. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487.
[69] The White House. “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” 20 Jan 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/.
[70] Gerstein, Josh. Ali Kanu, Hassan. “Judge blocks Trump’s order revoking birthright citizenship.” Politico. 10 Jul 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/10/birthright-citizenship-class-action-lawsuit-00447144.