Designate ICE as a Terrorist Group

I believe there is a serious and legitimate case for designating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a terrorist organisation, based not on rhetoric or emotion, but on behaviour and impact.

Terrorism is commonly understood as the use of force, intimidation, or fear against civilians in order to achieve political objectives. By that standard, the question should not be who is acting, but what they are doing. State authority should not place an organisation beyond moral or legal scrutiny if its methods align with those definitions.

ICE is a civilian enforcement agency, yet it routinely uses armed, militarised tactics against non-violent people. Raids on homes and workplaces, sudden detentions, family separations, and prolonged incarceration without meaningful due process are not accidental excesses — they are central tools of enforcement. These actions are not aimed at stopping imminent violence. They are aimed at deterrence. Fear is not a side effect of ICE policy; fear is the policy.

The impact of ICE’s actions extends far beyond the individuals they detain. Entire communities are terrorised. People avoid schools, hospitals, courts, and police out of fear that any interaction with the state could lead to detention or deportation. Parents are taken without warning. Children are separated from caregivers. Communities are left in a constant state of uncertainty, never knowing when the next raid will occur. This is collective intimidation, not targeted law enforcement.

Human rights organisations have repeatedly documented deaths in ICE custody, denial of adequate medical care, prolonged detention without trial, and the use of solitary confinement. These are not isolated incidents. They are systemic, recurring, and tolerated. When an institution repeatedly inflicts serious harm on civilians and faces no meaningful accountability, it ceases to function as a legitimate law-enforcement body and begins to resemble a coercive force operating above the law.

ICE has also engaged in collective punishment, a practice prohibited under international human rights norms. Family separation was explicitly justified as a deterrent, despite the known psychological harm it causes. Workplace raids punish entire households and communities for alleged civil violations by a few individuals. Punishment designed to make an example of people, rather than to deliver justice, is a defining feature of terror tactics.

Crucially, ICE operates with near-total impunity. Officers are rarely held criminally responsible for abuses. Oversight mechanisms are weak. Courts regularly defer to claims of sovereignty or “national security.” This lack of accountability allows coercive violence to continue unchecked, reinforcing fear rather than upholding the rule of law.

Non-state groups have been designated as terrorist organisations for engaging in detention without trial, intimidation of civilians, and political coercion through fear. When the same behaviours are carried out by a state agency, they are excused by authority rather than examined on their merits. If terrorism is defined by method rather than membership, this double standard cannot be justified.

This is not an argument that borders should not exist, or that immigration law should not be enforced. It is an argument that enforcement through terror, intimidation, and collective punishment is illegitimate — regardless of who carries it out. A state does not gain moral exemption simply by wearing a uniform.

Designating ICE as a terrorist organisation would acknowledge that terrorism is defined by actions, not by flags or institutions. It would affirm that no organisation is above scrutiny, and that violence and fear directed at civilian populations in pursuit of political goals must be condemned consistently.

If we claim to oppose terrorism, we must be willing to recognise it even when it is carried out by the powerful.