THE “ICE AGE” IS SPREADING AND GETTING WORSE

 

The main enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE).  President Donald Trump has endorsed the idea of renaming ICE as the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (NICE). Concerned citizens should be wary of this attempt to soften the image of an out of control, masked police force, performing illegal detentions. In fact, the “ICE Age” is quietly spreading and getting worse.

 

Before Donald Trump again took office in January 2025, ICE had an annual budget of $10 billion. The agency operated with roughly 10,000 personnel. After Trump’s return and the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” ICE funding rose to over $85 billion and staffing levels increased to more than 22,000.

 

In 2026, over 73,000 people have been in ICE detention.  The detention population was only 39,000 at the end of 2024. Immigration lawyers report that 70% of those in custody have no criminal records.

 

Over the past six months, ICE has undergone a major shift in how it performs its work. At the beginning of the year, the policy was “in your face” and attention seeking. In Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota with much fanfare, ICE began Operation Metro Surge. It was the largest enforcement operation ever carried out in the United States. At its peak, the effort involved approximately 3,000 to 4,000 federal immigration personnel in Minnesota, including around 2,000 ICE agents.

 

Metro Surge turned into a strategic and public relations nightmare for the Trump administration. Two American citizens were shot and killed by ICE agents. Thousands of residents along with local officials united into a peaceful civil disobedience movement that warned and offered protection for targeted immigrants. Each day, news reports featured video of poorly trained ICE agents performing badly.

 

The disastrous Metro Surge was brought to a close by Border Czar Tom Homan on February 12. The fallout included the resignations of the Border Patrol’s “Commander at Large” Gregory Bovino and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. ICE has since refrained from conducting publicized large-scale raids on American cities. The new policy has been described by the replacement DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin as a “quiet way” of carrying out mass deportations.

The Iran War and the economy have replaced ICE as front-page news. However, the data consistently shows that despite the change in strategy, thousands of long-time U. S. residents continue to be arrested and thrown into detention centers. This is despite lengthy ties to American communities as taxpayers with gainful employment. Locally, this newspaper has periodically reported on ICE raids that spark fear among immigrants in the area.

A recent investigation by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law gives insight into ICE funding and its change in tactics. “As Congress is at an impasse over funding and reforms to the DHS, ICE is fully funded until 2029 thanks to the cash injection lawmakers approved for it last July. The money, which included $45 billion for new immigrant detention centers, more than tripled ICE’s annual budget and made it the largest federal law enforcement agency. ICE has since expanded its detention system at an unprecedented pace, creating a vast deportation ecosystem rife with abuses.”

The report goes on to disclose, “To justify massive detention centers, the Trump administration has shifted away from historical approaches to immigration detention by putting more immigrants behind bars and rapidly expanding detention capacity through private contracts and investments in its own infrastructure. At the same time, it is finding new ways to evade oversight, leading to greater risks to the health and safety of the people in the government’s custody.” (So far, seventeen deaths have been reported from inadequate medical care.)

According to the American Immigration Council, ICE is spending billions to purchase and retrofit industrial warehouses into “mega-centers” intended to hold 7,000 to10,000 people. The goal is to reach 100,000 detention beds to accommodate long-term removal proceedings. ICE needs more room to detain the 1.6 million immigrants who were in the country legally but suddenly had their temporary protected status revoked, such as refugees from Haiti and Venezuela.

While the “ICE age” has ceased its high-profile overrunning of metro communities, its growth in smaller urban and rural areas is unprecedented. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette (PG) reported in April that “As ICE expands its presence in the region, the number of people detained at the agency’s South Side field office also has grown.” November 2025 was the highest month with more than 170 detained.

Another PG investigation revealed that ICE has been quietly expanding its presence in the Pittsburgh area after leasing space for $600,000 in annual rent in a five-story office in the western suburbs. ICE has not disclosed the purpose of the rental. U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, whose district includes the new building, issued a statement that “ICE should be open with the American people about how they are using the public’s money — especially in our backyard.”  

As of April 2026, DHS has purchased or identified two major warehouse sites in Berks and Schuylkill counties for conversion into large-scale ICE detention centers. The Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County is already operational.

Like an impenetrable glacier, the “ICE age” is expanding and getting worse. Concerned citizens need to stay informed and demand accountability for ICE activities which continue to violate democratic principles and constitutional law.