01/26/2026
Quick overview of ICE because it’s a snow day, I’m trapped inside and it bears repeating.
ICE was formed as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, a response to the terror attacks on September 11th 2001. The legislation created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with ICE as one of its subsidiary agencies.
ICE sees its mission as encompassing both public safety and national security. However, its powers are different to those of the average local police department in the US.
Its agents can stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the US illegally. However legal permission to enter a home or other private space requires a signed judicial warrant.
Agents can detain US citizens in limited circumstances, such as if a person interferes with an arrest, assaults an officer, or ICE suspect the person of being in the US illegally.
Despite this, according to news organisation ProPublica, there were more than 170 incidents during the first nine months of Trump's presidency in which federal agents held US citizens against their will.
These cases included Americans they had suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
ICE's use of actions involving force are governed by a combination of the US Constitution, US law and the Department of Homeland Security's own guidelines.
Under the US constitution, law enforcement "can only use deadly force if the person poses a serious danger to them or other people, or the person has committed a violent crime", said Chris Slobogin, director of the criminal justice programme at Vanderbilt University Law School.
But the US Supreme Court has historically granted broad leniency to officers making in-the-moment decisions without the benefit of hindsight.
