Trump's Secret Police

Who are these masked agents? I have some ideas.

Currently, we have zero confirmation that ICE agents are anything but repurposed officers from other agencies. We know from public reporting that one third of the work the FBI is doing is in support of immigration policies. Reuters says “In a series of meetings, FBI agents were told by their field offices they would need to start devoting about one third of their time to helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.”

We also know that Trump dismantled the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and reassigned them to the Department of Homeland Security. Congressman Bennie Thompson said as much in a letter to Kristi Noem: “In a January 21, 2025, Department of Justice (DOJ) memo, FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) were directed “to coordinate with DHS, as well as state and local members, to assist in the execution of President Trump’s immigration-related initiatives.”

Additionally, a memo from the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffeman enlists the US Marshals, the DEA, and ATF to assist with immigration policies. “Huffeman's memo, obtained by ABC News, said the order grants the agencies the "same authority already granted to the FBI." It said that agents can enforce immigration law.” You can read that report here.

On top of that, Trump has threatened to withhold transportation and disaster funding from states who refuse to enlist their local law enforcement to assist ICE in Trump’s often unlawful mass deportation efforts. Courthouse news reports “More than a dozen states slapped the Trump administration with two new lawsuits on Tuesday, accusing it of withholding funding for both emergency relief and transportation in retaliation for the states’ immigration policies.”

If all these officers are actual federal agents, why aren’t there uniforms? Some are even wearing shorts and jeans. Why are they refusing to comply with long-standing policy requiring them to give their badge numbers when asked? Why are they wearing masks to hide their identities? You’d think that trained federal agents would be a little more professional. Which begs the question - are they trained federal agents?

We saw this during Trump’s first term when he took steps to “rein in” George Floyd protesters in “anarchic jurisdictions” using federal agents in unmarked vehicles. In July, 2020, the Guardian reported “Activists in Portland, Oregon, are expressing severe alarm about recent incidents involving federal law enforcement officers using unmarked cars to detain peaceful protesters.

“Federal officers deployed teargas and fired less-lethal rounds into a crowd of protesters on Thursday, hours after the head of the Department of Homeland Security visited the city and called the demonstrators “violent anarchists”.

“Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that federal law enforcement officers had been “using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters” since at least 14 July.”

By September, 2020, Bill Barr had officially designated New York, Portland, and Seattle “anarchic jurisdictions” in an effort to withdraw federal funding - and perhaps to grant itself emergency powers to snatch people off the streets in unmarked vans.

After seeing the recent videos and photographs of immigration enforcement and crowd control by federal officers, I have to wonder if these cops are FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, local law enforcement, ICE, or even deputized civilians.

Again, I have no confirmation that any of the federal officers carrying out these immigration actions are anything but actual federal officials, but can you honestly put it past this administration that they’re recruiting extremists and civilian militia members to carry out their bullshit?

That’s one thing I enjoy about being a member of the independent media: I’m allowed to speculate about things like this. Lots of folks get upset by people like me musing about unconfirmed reports -but to be fair - it was unconfirmed that the Trump campaign had contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign, but lots of us speculated about what was later proven to be true. So I’m going to speculate about this as well, knowing what we already know to be true about this regime.

Besides, there’s nothing stopping DHS from actually hiring untrained militia members to officially join the ranks of ICE. And dancing around the technical lines of who is and isn’t a federal agent seems like a waste of time. After all, this is the administration that ordered US Marshals to deputize Musk’s private security, granting them certain rights and protections of federal law enforcement agents. This is also the same man who was willing to use private mercenaries like Blackwater in the Middle East Marshall Plan - which included Tom Barrack, Mike Flynn, and Jared Kushner. The plan was to work with Russia to build reactor sites in Saudi Arabia guarded by private security in an effort to “recolonize” the Middle East. Sounds far-fetched, but you can read about that here.

Couple that history of using private militias with what happened on January 6th, the pardons for Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, a recent meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Enrique Tarrio, and I think you can see where I’m going with this. Never mind the fact anyone can buy an ICE jacket on Etsy for $20, and right wingers have a long history of forming their own vigilante militias. Not to mention, we all know it’s Stephen Miller pulling the strings, and Trump often doesn’t even know what he’s signing when something is put in front of him.

Finally, Pam Bondi issued a memo granting pro-bono legal help to cops - presumably from all the big law firms that bent the knee to Trump by offering tens of millions of dollars in legal services to the administration. Add it all up, and I don’t think it’s far-fetched to speculate that the Trump administration is deputizing untrained, maniacal extremists to play dress-up and assist with mass deportation.

So if you ask me who these ICE agents are, we can confirm many of them come from other agencies, but I don’t think it’s conspiratorial to speculate that many of them are deputized civilians.

Just my two cents.

~AG