Tae Heung “Will” Kim, a scientific researcher who has lived in the U.S. since he was 5 and who holds a valid green card, traveled to his native South Korea recently for his kid brother’s wedding.
But when Kim attempted to reenter the country, immigration officials blocked him at San Francisco International Airport, taking him into custody. He got no explanation and no access to his attorney, Eric Lee, who said his client slept in a chair for seven days. The agency recently confirmed in a statement to The Washington Post that “This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”
An accused shoplifter would have more rights than have been afforded Kim, who is researching a vaccine for Lyme disease as he pursues a Ph.D. at Texas A&M University.
A toxic combination of secrecy, arrogance and an unsettling recklessness is pervading a newly emboldened Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it pursues President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportation at any cost.
Agents’ identities are secret; they appear in public wearing black ski masks and street clothes while conducting raids and roundups. Their cars are unmarked. Courtroom arrests have become commonplace. Once in the system, detainees’ locations can be difficult to determine, leaving family and friends frantic.
Those who dare to ask for a warrant or identification may find themselves charged with obstructing or even assaulting an officer, as happened to hospital staffers in Oxnard, Calif. The cruelty — and the fear it creates — has become an essential part of ICE operations.
In his first term, Trump laid the groundwork for greater secrecy and less public accountability with a 2020 memo that designated ICE a security/sensitive agency, on par with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Secret Service. Months earlier he had done the same for Customs and Border Protection. The change ensured that names and personal information of not just agents, but all employees, would be kept secret and not subject to public information requests.
In his second term, ICE has become resistant to congressional oversight. Democrats who question agency officials get flippant or downright curt answers. Lawmakers who attempt oversight by visiting detention centers have found themselves turned away. Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for attempting to enter such a facility in his own city.
At a Los Angeles news conference, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed and later taken to the ground and handcuffed because he approached Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with a question. She claimed not to have known him, even though he is the ranking member on the Senate’s judiciary subcommittee on immigration and border safety.
None of this is normal, nor should it be.
I spoke to Steven Thal, a respected Minnesota immigration lawyer with 42 years of experience, for perspective on how much ICE’s practices have changed.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” he told me. “I haven’t seen anything like this — to this extent — in all the time I’ve practiced.”
“I get calls every day from people — even citizens — who are afraid to travel. Calls about denaturalization,” he said. “Agents with masks or uniforms? No proper identification? That never used to happen. How would you even know you’re not being kidnapped? There is a roughness now that comes straight from the top and has infiltrated through the agency.”
Meanwhile, a backlog in hearings has gone from bad to epic. Thal has one asylum case that’s been pending for seven years, another for 10. He says the backlog now stands at 3.4 million cases, according to the Transitional Regional Access Clearinghouse, a national database for immigration. And little wonder: Between Trump administration firings, retirements and transfers, a reported 106 immigration judges have left since January; there are about 600 left in the U.S. today. The backup has contributed to massive overcrowding in detention centers. In June, a record 59,000 immigrants were being held in centers across the country. According to a CBS report, that put the system at over 140% capacity. Nearly half of those being detained had no criminal record. Fewer than 30% had criminal convictions.
With the overcrowding has come a growing number of reports of inadequate food, beds and medical care (all of which have been disputed by ICE officials). If ICE is to treat detainees humanely, there are natural limits to the number of arrests it can make until the additional bed space it’s begun contracting for comes online.
“We have had other challenging periods in immigration,” Thal said. “But this climate, with so much anti-immigrant sentiment coming from the administration, makes everything harder. I’m 71 and I’ve been doing this for 42 years. What we’re facing today is enforcement on steroids.”
Detainees are not prisoners and ICE officials have said detention is not punishment. The president’s insistence on a higher level of enforcement is one the agency must take seriously, but without forgetting the rights and humanity of those in their custody. That’s a low bar, yet the agency right now is failing to clear it.
