Starting off 2026, our nation saw many incidents and deaths caused by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Many innocent people have been harmed, and some people have died in ICE custody or been killed by ICE officials.
President Trump and his administration have put in many efforts to build up immigration enforcement and deportation programs in his second term. He promised improved border protection and talked about getting rid of “illegal aliens” from the US. Trump has directed a lot of effort to US Border Protection and claims that he is preventing drug traffickers from entering the US. Under Trump’s presidency, ICE arrests have risen significantly and many people are being detained.
Though Trump claims that ICE is helping the US, ICE officers have done many inhumane things, especially as of the beginning of 2026. A famous instance of this is the shooting of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were US citizens in Minneapolis. Both of these people were protesting against ICE in the streets when they were fatally shot by ICE officers. Pretti was an ICU nurse and was trying to help a woman who was pushed over by an ICE agent when he was pepper sprayed in the face by the ICE agent; both men pulled out guns and the ICE officer shot Pretti at least ten times. Good was a mother of 3 who was killed just after she dropped her kids off at school, when she attended an ICE protest and used her SUV to block traffic. ICE vehicles surrounded her car and one official shot her through the open window and the windshield multiple times when she tried to back away. In addition to this, 23 people have died in ICE custody so far in 2026, putting this year on track for having the most fatalities in ICE detention since 2004.
In addition to killing people, ICE has also done some other very inhumane things, which we have seen a lot of in 2026. One example of this is when ICE detained 5 year old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was walking home from school in a blue bunny hat and a Spider Man backpack when he was taken by ICE officers. He was detained with his parents even though his family was legally in the US under asylum, or the protection granted to refugees from another country, so there was really no reason for them to be detained. Also, another incident occurred when a couple with six kids unknowingly drove through an area where an ICE agent had just shot someone in the leg, and they got their entire car tear-gassed by ICE, almost killing 6 month old D’Iris. The whole family had to be treated in a nearby hospital for the chemicals that they had been exposed to. The conditions in ICE detention centers are also not suitable for people to live in, with detainees being fed once a day at 3am, having to live 50 to 70 people per room and all share one toilet, and often being denied medical care when they need it.
Before Trump’s second term, ICE arrests were targeted and not chaotic, and a lot of research was done before ICE tried to arrest a person. Now, ICE does mass sweeps of areas instead of targeting certain people who they know have done bad things. Trump has revamped ICE and now ICE officers are under a lot of pressure to arrest more people because they just want to increase the quantity of arrests, which is leading the officers to use much more aggressive tactics.
The Department of Homeland Security, or the DHS, states that it aims to create “the most secure border ever,” remove “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” and make “America safe for generations to come.” Is Trump’s Increased efforts towards ICE increasing the amount of criminals that are arrested every day? According to an article published by the University of Colorado Boulder, 37% of ICE arrests under Trump are actual criminals, compared to 52% under Biden, 70% in Trump’s first year in office, and 79% in Obama’s second term. The American Immigration Council says that the changes that Trump has made have led to a 2,450% increase of people who have not committed crime being held in ICE detention. This data shows that under Trump’s second administration, the amount of people arrested by ICE that are actually criminals have actually decreased significantly with the more aggressive tactics.
Cites –
https://help.unhcr.org/usa/applying-for-asylum/what-is-asylum/
https://profile.theguardian.com/welcome/newsletters?componentEventParams=componentType%253Dsigningate%2526componentId%253DAuxiaSignInGate%2526abTestName%253DAuxiaSignInGate%2526abTestVariant%253Dauxia-signin-gate%2526browserId%253DidFromPV_T2se8mwi88Ss8b1fAzkV6Q%2526viewId%253Dmmmqzwjqtr6i4jzhxkzi&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fprofile.theguardian.com%2Fwelcome%2Fg
oogle&refViewId=mmmr0hpb6gnzl732esa4&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ftheguardian.com
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/02/09/father-of-liam-conejo-ramos-says-he-continues-to-suffer-after-ice-detention-release
https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses
http://mynorthnews.org/stories/2026/1/26/teargassed-infant-is-hospitalized-amidst-lyndale-unrest
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/ice-cbp-legal-analysis/
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/10/14/former-ice-director-q-a-00603916
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2026/02/18/ice-arrests-reach-record-highs-percent-criminal-record-plummets
https://stateline.org/2026/02/09/health-care-workers-want-ice-out-of-hospitals-and-blue-states-are-responding/
