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department of homeland security
Digital Surveillance, ICE, and the Trumped-Up Charge of Domestic Terrorism
From the web to the streets, the president of the United States is weaponizing the federal government to hunt, prosecute, and punish his enemies.
Feb 19, 2026
In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has issued hundreds of administrative subpoenas to tech companies demanding the personal information of social media accounts that track, criticize, or oppose Immigration Customs and Enforcement. This includes Google, Reddit, Meta, and Discord, which—in a move that makes far more sense now—recently announced it will require users to submit a face scan or upload an ID to access full content.
While alarming, this is only the latest step in a year-long effort by President Donald Trump’s DHS to expand its online surveillance apparatus under the guise of combating left-wing “political violence” and “domestic terrorism.” In February 2025, The Intercept revealed that ICE was soliciting pitches for an automated system that would scan social media and other sites for anti-ICE sentiment and threats. If anything "suspicious" were detected, a contractor would conduct a detailed review of the user’s background, including:
Previous social media activity which would indicate any additional threats to ICE; 2). Information which would indicate the individual(s) and/or the organization(s) making threats have a proclivity for violence; and 3). Information indicating a potential for carrying out a threat (such as postings depicting weapons, acts of violence, refences [sic] to acts of violence, to include empathy or affiliation with a group which has violent tendencies; references to violent acts; affections with violent acts; eluding [sic] to violent acts.
To estimate one’s “potential for carrying out a threat” or “proclivity for violence,” contractors would draw on “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles.” Sentiment analysis would likely be carried out by machine-learning algorithms. While details here are sparse, the important point for now is that this review would attempt to assess one’s present and future threat to ICE based on the agency’s own internal (and politically biased) criteria.
Once flagged, the system would scour a target’s internet history and attempt to reveal their real-world location and offline identity. Contractors would provide ICE with a slew of personal information including: “photograph, partial legal name, partial date of birth, possible city, possible work affiliations, possible school or university affiliation, and any identified possible family members or associates.”
All of this meant to invoke fear, silence dissent, and consolidate power for Trump and his allies. Yet, despite the dangers, we must resist.
In October 2025, Wired reported that ICE plans to drastically expand their surveillance capabilities by hiring nearly 30 private contractors to scan social media sites and convert posts, photos, and messages into new leads for enforcement raids.
In January 2026, investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed that DHS and the FBI have over a dozen “secret and obscure” watch lists they use to track “protesters (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian), ‘Antifa,’ and those who are promiscuously labelled ‘domestic terrorists.’” These watch lists include a classified social media repository code named Slipstream, as well as others “used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking.” This reporting came a few days after a video was released online of an ICE agent telling a protester that they have a “nice little database” and “now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”
These watch lists are an extension of Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7). That memo mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Per the memo, domestic terrorism is fomented by the spread of “‘anti-fascist’ rhetoric” including, “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” as well as “extremism on migration, race, and gender.”
The labeling of any view Trump disagrees with as “domestic terrorism” is dangerous and strategic. As Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, notes, under the Patriot Act, “Any federal or state crime can be used as the basis for a domestic terrorism investigation if it is ‘dangerous to human life’” and “appear[s] to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or the government. This broad basis allows DHS to use its vast policing and surveillance powers to investigate civil rights organizations, activists, and donors to progressive causes as well as online critics. Regardless of the outcome of their investigation, being suspected of domestic terrorism—regardless of how unconstitutional, frivolous, and politically motivated the charge—can have lasting impacts, including loss of employment and housing, inability to conduct financial transactions, as well as public stigma.
Importantly, the image of the “domestic terrorist” is quite different from the ordinary criminal. The “domestic terrorist” does not simply violate the law, they commit “ideologically driven crimes” aimed to destroy the nation and its people. They represent a far greater threat. This is why the State Department has been revoking the visas of hundreds of students who express “pro-Hamas” views, whether in protest, newsletters, or on social media. For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the presence of “these lunatics” is contrary to the national security and interests of the United States. The State Department has also denied visas to people “celebrating” the death of Charlie Kirk for similar reasons.
National security is also the basis for imposing denaturalization quotas for foreign-born citizens as well as the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. In each case, “national security,” “left-wing political violence,” and “domestic terrorism” are used to justify the denial of rights and the abuse of federal powers.
For US-born citizens like Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Marimar Martinez, or those subjected to ICE’s mass digital surveillance, those punitive measures are unavailable. Instead, the designation of “domestic terrorist” is meant to mark them as traitors—as people who, like “pro-Hamas” visa holders or “dangerous illegal criminal aliens more broadly,” do not belong in this country. For this administration, they are essentially citizens in name only—they do not “share our values, contribute to our economy, and assimilate in our society.” Thus, they too must be subjected to the full arsenal of policing and surveillance powers at DHS’ disposal.
In fact, for Trump, these "faux" citizens are a greater threat than undocumented immigrants. As then-presidential candidate Trump put it, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country. […] I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics.” But the reality is that far from sick, bad, or radical, these are ordinary law-abiding people whose only crime is defying the rising piss-stained tide of Trump’s authoritarianism.
The dangers here are real and serious: The blatant First Amendment violations; the widening of DHS’ mass surveillance capabilities; the policing of dissent, both actual and possible; the coordinated effort to undermine digital activism; the complicity of tech companies in furthering the fascist ambitions of the Trump administration; the malicious smearing of those who oppose this administration as “domestic terrorists”; as well as the reality—unnerving, though far from unprecedented—that from the web to the streets the president of the United States is weaponizing the federal government to hunt, prosecute, and punish his enemies.
All of this meant to invoke fear, silence dissent, and consolidate power for Trump and his allies. Yet, despite the dangers, we must resist. We must continue calling out ICE’s abuses, championing Palestinian sovereignty, denouncing Trump’s vile imperial and colonial ambitions, and protecting our rights and freedoms from the real domestic terrorist threat: the Trump administration.
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The Supreme Court's Pro-Trump Immigration Rulings Threaten Decades of Progress
The sitting members should consider what kind of legacy they wish to leave for future generations before siding blindly with our most autocratic president in history.
Feb 18, 2026
The justices on the Supreme Court should not favor the president who appointed them because checks and balances demand that they uphold the law without passion or prejudice. The current Supreme Court has increasingly shown a pattern of siding with the Trump administration—a result made predictable by the court’s conservative majority. Immigration cases have, with rare exception, aligned along these partisan lines.
On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court sidestepped the question of birthright citizenship and overruled lower court decisions that sought to protect it. The original plaintiffs filed suit to enjoin the enforcement of the executive order that identifies circumstances in which a person born in the United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” thereby restricting the constitutionally guaranteed bestowal of birthright citizenship. The Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted review. The plaintiffs argued that the executive order violates the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, as well as sections 1 and 201 of the Nationality Act of 1940—the constitutional guarantee that birth on US soil confers citizenship.
Before the case reached the Supreme Court, the district court entered universal injunctions barring the application of the executive order to anyone, thereby preserving birthright citizenship, and the appellate court denied the government’s request to postpone the granted relief. In its application to the Supreme Court, the government argued that federal courts lacked equitable authority to issue universal injunctions under the Judiciary Act of 1789, attacking the district court’s authority in order to preserve the president’s propensity to overstep his. The Supreme Court granted the government's application and held that Congress has not granted federal courts authority to universally enjoin the enforcement of an executive order. Reaching all the way back to pre-Revolution English law and the Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court reasoned that no such authority exists. Their reasoning reads as petulant and arbitrary, an invocation of ancient doctrine to narrow modern rights.
On September 8, 2025, the Supreme Court granted an application for stay by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The decision states that the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes immigration officers to interrogate any alien (or person believed to be an alien) as to “his right to be or to remain in the United States.” They also found that they may briefly detain individuals if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that he or she is an alien illegally present in the United States, based on the “totality of the particular circumstances.”
The Supreme Court’s deep bias in favor of Trump administration policies gestures toward a reversal, through immigration cases, of the trenchant progress in civil rights litigation that the Warren Court and subsequent courts have made.
The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law, however, takes tremendous liberties with the letter of these laws, essentially recognizing ethnicity as a basis for reasonable suspicion. Specifically, the California District Court enjoined immigration officers from making investigative stops based on, among other factors, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, and race or ethnicity. In a nutshell, the lower court forbade immigration enforcement from racially profiling Latine Angelenos. The Supreme Court overruled the lower court, reasoning that, while ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors. This argument is internally incoherent and contradictory, suggesting that racial bias is at once insufficient and persuasive evidence. Citing the myriad “significant economic and social problems” caused by “illegal” immigration, the Supreme Court sided with DHS, finding that the government would suffer irreparable injury from the injunction. The relevance of socioeconomic problems to the question of racial profiling and potential excessive force in the execution thereof is tenuous at best.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, in which Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. She argued that “we should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,“ as it would be a loss to our constitutional freedom.
On December 23, 2025, however, the Supreme Court issued an noticeably restrained opinion upholding a lower court’s temporary restraining order (TRO), which barred the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois. The court found that, under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from executing the laws, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress. The decision further stated that, before the president can federalize the guard under 10 USC §12406(3), he must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be unable with those forces to perform that function.
The Supreme Court’s deep bias in favor of Trump administration policies gestures toward a reversal, through immigration cases, of the trenchant progress in civil rights litigation that the Warren Court and subsequent courts have made. The sitting members should consider what kind of legacy they wish to leave for future generations before siding blindly with our most autocratic president in history. Political expediency may be convenient in the short term, but history will judge harshly those who twisted our most sacred liberties to the advantage of an advantageous few, rather than standing with the people our Constitution was written to protect.
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Federal Immigration Agents Won't Take Their Masks Off After Mardi Gras
ICE and the Border Patrol are concealing their faces to try and protect themselves—from accountability.
Feb 17, 2026
Mardi Gras arrives, and masked federal agents continue their lawless violence under the false flag of "law enforcement." Meanwhile a federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's latest anti-Haitian effort because, among other things, its racist foundation violates the law.
All of that is why phrases from Haitian singer Manno Charlemagne (1948-2017) have been coming to mind.
In one song, Charlemagne praises those who "unmask the wrongdoers" (demaske malpwopwete). In another, he scoffs at the bands of thinly disguised paramilitary cowards (yon bann fov mal maske). He might have been riffing on the Declaration of Independence's complaint about a king who sends "Swarms of Officers to harass our People," quoted last month by the federal judge who ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Texas.
Manno, as everyone called him, was Haiti's best-known singer-songwriter and a leading activist in his own country's fight for democracy. I was fortunate to have met him when I worked at Miami's Haitian Refugee Center in the 1990s, and we later translated some of his songs from Haitian Kreyòl to English.
Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards.
Manno's 1989 "Lamayòt" was written for Carnival, which in Haiti as elsewhere brings new political songs. As Edwidge Danticat explains, "A lamayòt is a mysterious box whose contents are known only to its owner, and which others can see only after they have paid some kind of price. In politics, lamayòt can refer to, among other things, trickery, a sleight of hand, and broken promises."
In "Lamayòt," Manno mocks the military oppressors who promote themselves and make up their own rules, thinking that guns and the power to intimidate make them right. But their masks and smirking, sings Manno, are the only flag they carry, and people see right through their pathetic Mardi Gras disguise: "Lan fè grimas se drapo nou pote... Pou mwen nou pa menm madigra k mal maske."
Despite a push from activists, and with Democrats following their lead, agents are sure to keep their masks on. Yes, it's to protect themselves—from accountability. ICE and the Border Patrol have always aspired to lawlessness, and under President Donald Trump they have moved further than ever in that direction.
In California this month, a judge ruled against a state prohibition on federal agents hiding behind masks, but only because the law doesn't also apply to state law enforcement. In response, State Sen. Scott Wiener has said he will push for a law that covers all officers. Wiener's statement could be from a Carnival song: "We will unmask these thugs and hold them accountable." The Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal (ERO) in San Francisco had told the court that the law should be struck down because"DHS does not intend to comply" with it.
Agents claiming to enforce the law—even when they actually do so—are violating federal law by refusing to identify themselves: "At the time of the arrest, the designated immigration officer shall, as soon as it is practical and safe to do so, identify himself." The city of Santa Ana has actually passed a resolution suggesting that the federal government follow federal law.
The Trump administration also claims that federal agents can give themselves permission to break down your door and check your papers or abduct you, though that's not how "permission" or warrants work. The Associated Press reports that the latest in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "ruses" includes the use of false license plates in violation of Minnesota law, and the impersonation of local police, construction workers, and utility workers.
Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards. That's why their bosses keep saying how brave they are while whining about their victimhood. In the first Trump administration, DHS Secretary John Kelly complained that his agents "are often ridiculed and insulted... and frequently convicted in the court of public opinion on unfounded allegations." In November, a deputy chief of Border Patrol told a California court that agents wear masks and "remove their badges, nameplates, or unique identifiers" because "incidents across the nation have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty" for them.
A Burmese-American named Ba Zan Lin spent 18 years "living under dictatorship and tyranny" in his native country. Last year he told a Buffalo (New York) audience, writes Geoff Kelly in the Investigative Post, "that the measures taken by ICE agents to conceal their identities—unmarked vehicles, face masks, no badges or name-tags—indicates their authority is vulnerable to challenges by ordinary citizens."
"'As long as they're still wearing masks, they're still afraid of us,'" Lin said.
"What you do to scare me only excites me," sang Manno Charlemagne. "Masked man, I'm not afraid of you. You're only a person."
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