While, abroad, the Donald Trump administration displays the most aggressive face of US imperialism-with the invasion of Venezuela, attacks on Lebanon and Iran, among other violent actions-internally it consolidates its own repressive apparatus: ICE, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. Under the pretext of combating "illegal immigration," masked and unidentified agents pursue and kidnap people based on their skin color and national origin, sending them to detention centers that function as concentration camps, where even children and newborns are held. Many end up being deported to their countries of origin, mostly in Latin America. The violence of these actions has provoked responses on the streets, with direct action to denounce the kidnappings of immigrant workers and contain the authoritarian advance in neighborhoods.
Created in 2002, in the context of the "war on terror," ICE underwent rapid expansion in the last year, from 10,000 to 22,000 agents. The recruitment of new employees involved appeals to "qualified patriotic Americans from across the country," with strong nationalist content. Some advertisements use the figure of Uncle Sam and revive symbols of the westward expansion of the US, with undertones of white supremacy. Analysts point to the targeting of the ads to recruit Trump's most radical electorate, who promised the deportation of 1 million illegal immigrants per year. The requirements for joining ICE have been reduced, and the agency has been increasingly composed of underemployed Trump supporters. In the context of the midterm elections, in which Trump seeks to maintain a Republican majority in Congress, ICE's policy aims to further radicalize this electorate.
Minneapolis Murders and Child Abduction
The peak of this brutality occurred in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. On January 7th, ICE agents cold-bloodedly murdered 37-year-old Renée Nicole Good, shooting her inside her car while she was acting as a legal observer. Outrage over this crime was amplified by statements from Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristy Noem, who justified the action, calling the victim a "disturbed leftist" and classifying her actions as "domestic terrorism." The violence was repeated weeks later, on January 24th, with the execution of nurse Alex Pretti, also 37, who was surrounded by agents and shot ten times in a five-second interval. The Trump administration again blamed the victim, claiming that Pretti wanted to "massacre agents." Both Renée and Alex were white American citizens, and were murdered for demonstrating solidarity with persecuted immigrants, demonstrating that the US government has abandoned any illusion of respecting fundamental rights.
ICE operations have been shocking due to the methods employed. Also in January, in Minneapolis, the agency kidnapped five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos after failing to use him as bait to arrest his mother, of Ecuadorian origin, who had entered the country legally. Even darker violence occurs behind closed doors in detention centers, where people are subjected to torture, rape, and even murder. This reality consolidates a state of exception, in which the State rejects any legality to act with pure violence against specific sectors of the population, moving towards a scenario of barbarity.
Bipartisan complicity of the ruling classes
All this happens with US institutions as accomplices: they allow the Trump administration to continue committing its crimes, when they do not encourage these practices. Even after the widespread disclosure of the atrocities committed by ICE, the legislature is moving forward with the approval of a $10 billion increase in the agency's budget, with support even from Democratic lawmakers. This bipartisan collusion makes it clear that the problem is not just one government or one individual, but a political and economic system that, in order to maintain its domination, deepens authoritarianism over the oppressed classes.
Thus, these episodes are not mere anomalies, but a clear expression of the State's function in capitalism: to manage the common affairs of the dominant classes and to be an instrument of organized coercion against the oppressed classes. The violence of the ICE and the increase in its funding are the materialization of a consensus among the dominant classes, who, regardless of their rhetorical disputes, converge on the need to maintain, through state terror, social discipline, racial division, and the borders that sustain capital accumulation. The authoritarian "exception" is, therefore, an ever-available possibility, activated when class domination demands a more naked and brutal repression. To fight against this violence is, therefore, to fight against the very structure of domination that produces it. In this case, it is important to remember that the ICE is not an apparatus parallel to the institutions, but rather an instrument created and financed within the full functioning of the powers.
The popular response: from community self-organization to the general strike
The response came in the streets, in a forceful way. Minneapolis residents are rising up against ICE's violent raids, organizing to monitor the agency's actions and warning neighbors when they approach, as well as sheltering and hiding immigrants to prevent them from being kidnapped. This resistance culminated on January 23rd, when a general strike was declared in Minnesota, mobilizing tens of thousands of workers in a street demonstration, even with wind chill temperatures reaching around -20°C. Several unions built the mobilization, businesses closed, and a new massive mobilization took place on the 30th. The mobilizations spread to New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C. The working class is clearly sending its message to Trump and American institutions. This is the true battlefront: popular self-organization against the state's repressive machine.
The context of the rise of authoritarianism in the US demonstrates that, whether there or anywhere else in the world, the answer will not come from the institutions of the system, but rather from the independent organization and direct mobilization of the working class. The struggle in Minneapolis is an example that shows: only massive direct action and class solidarity can confront and defeat the death project of the ruling classes.
Libertarian Socialist Organization
February 2026
https://socialismolibertario.net/ice-o-terrorismo-anti-imigrante-nos-eua/
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Link: (en) Barzil, OSL: ICE: Anti-immigrant terrorism in the US and the response on the streets (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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