1 Year In, Trump Already Has His Own Fascist Paramilitary Squad

Exactly a year ago today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. He took over a nation with strong imperialistic tendencies and a democratic polity but with widespread illiberal features throughout its history and, in less than a year, succeeded in establishing a 21st-century US variant of fascism while espousing a lawless world order.

The successful transition of the United States from an imperial republic to what could be best described as imperial proto-fascism was achieved due to the ease with which the Trump administration weakened the country’s institutions meant to restrain power and the massive support that it received, and continues to receive, from the nation’s oligarchy. There are thus eerie similarities between Trump’s United States and the rise of Italian fascism and German Nazism, and none more so than those between Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Mussolini’s Squadristi and Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA), respectively.

Fascism, the most reactionary regime of oligopolistic and decaying capitalism, has always relied on violent paramilitary groups to intimidate political opponents and spread fear across society. In Italy, in 1919, Benito Mussolini formed a paramilitary squad of war veterans called Blackshirts (or squadristi) whose primary goal was to terrorize fascism’s political opponents, mainly the socialists and the communists. By the early 1920s, the squadristi had wiped out the Italian left and destroyed Italian democracy. In Germany, in 1921, Adolf Hitler established the SA, known as the Brownshirts due to their brown uniforms. They were street thugs who used violent intimidation against opponents of National Socialism and assaulted non-Aryan citizens, particularly Jewish citizens. Blackshirts and Brownshirts acted with impunity as the regular uniformed police in both Italy and Germany turned a blind eye to their thuggish tactics.

Violent paramilitary groups were seen by fascists as essential tools in the struggle to uproot the previous sociopolitical and cultural order and pave the way for the success of fascism’s ultimate goals and objectives, which are to promote extreme nationalism and do away with democratic liberties and implement policies without legal or political restraints while dehumanizing those labeled as “the enemy.” Under fascism, propaganda and violence work in unity in order to secure conformity and subdue the opposition.

Fascism is not knocking at US’s door. It is already inside.

Enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE was created in 2003 pursuant to the Homeland Security Act of 2002, following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The US Congress has granted ICE “a unique combination of civil and criminal authorities,” which make it a very powerful federal law enforcement agency. The primary mission of ICE is to enforce immigration laws. It has the power to search, arrest, and deport undocumented immigrants. It can also detain and try to deport green card holders by claiming that they represent a threat to US national security.

On December 19, DHS announced that it had deported more than 620,000 noncitizens while 1.9 million undocumented immigrants have “self-deported” since Trump took office. If these figures are true and haven’t been exaggerated for propaganda purposes, we’re looking at the largest forced relocation of immigrants in a single year in the history of the United States. Immigration detention has also expanded dramatically in Trump's second term.

ICE immigration raids have been accused of excessive-use-of-force tactics and violating US citizens’ constitutional rights. Unshockingly enough given that the Trump administration relies on terror to push its inhuman agenda, DHS has used a variety of loathsome names for ICE immigration raids, ranging from “Operation Midway Blitz” (“Blitz” is a German word for lightning and was used to describe the bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany on British cities, ports, and industrial sites in 1940) to “Operation Dirtbag.”

ICE has always been a notorious agency, even from the time it was designed to fight terrorism, and “the subject of numerous allegation of abuses and violations,” as has been pointed out by Brazilian professor and expert in international migration Gustavo Dias. ICE became especially aggressive during the Obama administration, when US liberals like to forget that it was responsible for over 3 million deportations. However, under Trump 2.0, ICE has been transformed into a fascist paramilitary squad, into a “virtual state police,” as Jamelle Bouie put it.

There are terrifying reasons for ICE’s transformation from an aggressive, rogue agency into Trump’s personal paramilitary squad. Trump’s domestic policy agenda revolves around the reshaping of US political culture, from liberal to illiberal through rollbacks in civil and human rights, putting an end to rising population diversity and creating (or fantasizing) in turn a white paradise, and advancing the interests of corporate oligarchs and digital feudal lords. Hence the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); hence the violent immigration crackdown and banning citizens of “shithole countries” from vising the US; hence the erasing of non-white history; and hence the war against organized labor.

The successful implementation of all of the above policies demand loyalty to Trump’s actions from servants in the administrative state, conformity from major institutional actors, and a subdued civil society. No regime, however oppressive, can implement its policies without having a large network of allies, influential entities willing to conform, and citizen control and popular acquiescence. Trump has succeeded in securing loyalty by offering key federal positions to allies and supporters and replacing public servants with political loyalists. He has forced elite institutions to bend to his will with threats and intimidation tactics while tech billionaires and other members of the oligarchy kissed his ring because they feared retribution.

However, keeping the public subdued is trickier for any regime than cowing elite institutions and members of the economic elite into subservience. This is where ICE comes into play. ICE tactics are designed to instill fear in people and create chaos in communities as part of an overarching strategy aimed to silence opposition to Trump’s overall domestic agenda and let citizens know that this is the dawn of a new era for the United States. Dissent will not be tolerated under Trump 2.0, and undesirable elements, the “radical left,” and all those deemed unpatriotic will be weeded out.

US citizens are an intended target as much as the immigrant communities across the nation by Trump’s lawlessness. ICE agents wearing masks and decked out in military-style gear reflects the militarization of law enforcement, which is a trademark of fascist regimes and brutal dictatorships. And the message intended by the unleashing of a paramilitary force, Trump’s own goon squad, throughout the nation’s communities is to let people know that you are either with us or against us. This was indeed the intended message behind the murder of Renee Nicole Good. ICE agents stopping US citizens, at random, and going from door to door demanding proof of citizenship, as has been happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul and other places, are scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany and speak volumes to the sociopolitical order envisioned by the Trump administration.

ICE is already acting in a similar way to how the Blackshirts (Italy) and the Brownshirts (Germany) functioned under Mussolini and Hitler, respectively. Fascism is not knocking at US’s door. It is already inside. And Minneapolis has emerged as the “new epicenter of resistance to Trump,” as France’s leading newspaper Le Monde aptly put it. The only question now is whether citizens throughout the land will resist to the end, until fascism is fully defeated, or surrender to fear and intimidation and, in turn, find themselves being deprived not only of their basic rights but also stripped of their dignity, which is what fascism ultimately does to human beings.