With Congress Back in Session, Three Key Questions on ICE, Militarization, and Big Government Intrusion

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Washington, DC — The Trump administration is escalating its efforts to undermine democratic norms, militarize domestic law enforcement and crack down on perceived political opponents – from blue cities to immigrant communities.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: “Americans are rejecting what the Trump Administration is doing, but Trump and the GOP don’t care. Despite legal setbacks, broad public opposition, and the mounting costs to our economy, our communities and our democracy, the Trump administration is acting with impunity, escalating its effort to militarize American communities, target immigrant families and stoke dangerous confrontations to establish an authoritarian police state. Make no mistake: it threatens to get worse before it gets better, as disturbing revelations about ICE hiring plans and its culture of impunity make clear. We’re in a perilous moment, not just for immigrant communities but for all Americans concerned with our basic conceptions of self-governance and American democracy.”

Below are three key questions for observers taking stock of the current moment and what’s to come:

1) Will ICE have any hiring standards beyond fealty to Stephen Miller and MAGA?

From cash bounties and hiring teenagers to the disturbing motivations of potential applicants, much about the unprecedented hiring ICE blitz should raise alarms. For example, a disturbing Washington Post report from an ICE career expo quotes a former IT career worker applicant who, “felt he was no longer able to advance in the private sector because the market is crowded with candidates from India” and who told the reporter, “‘I keep seeing these memes where Indians are bragging about taking our tech jobs … So I said, ‘Oh yeah? Well I’m going to work with these guys that are going to arrest you, slam your face on the pavement and send you home.’”

As Scott Shuchart, a former senior ICE official told The Guardian, “he was concerned about white supremacists and violent extremists getting hired as the DHS lowers its standards and speeds up enrollment,” noting, “The scary ones are the people who want to be Trump’s private army, the insurrectionists, the Proud Boys, the Klansmen and others who might be coming out of the woodwork.”

2) Will any Congressional Republicans say enough is enough and speak out against federal militarization of a state?

While we are under no illusions that the Republican Party of 2025 is comprised of principled ideological conservatives, it nonetheless remains a disturbing reflection of just how far the GOP has fallen into fealty to Donald Trump above all else that the continued deployment of the U.S. military on American communities; the trampling on states’ rights and autonomy; the human and economic toll of mass deportation on an issue that used to divide the GOP; and continued evidence of the unchecked power of the executive branch over the legislative branch – among many other examples – raises barely a ripple of concern about GOP Members of Congress. Will any Republicans speak out against the planned escalation to Chicago – and beyond?

3) “Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?” – Gov. Pritzker asks the right question.

In the powerful remarks yesterday from Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), he noted: “Any rational person who has spent even the most minimal amount of time studying human history has to ask themselves on one important question: Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?” Pritzker also highlighted that purposeful fear was the point: “We have reason to believe that Stephen Miller chose the month of September to come to Chicago because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day that happen here every year … ‘Let’s be clear: The terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here.’”