How ICE Raids Escalate—And How To Stay Safe

ICE raids are becoming more common across the U.S.

and seem to be escalating in force.

What happens during a raid? Who are they actually targeting?

And what happens if you get caught in the middle?

This is Incognito Mode.

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When we're talking about immigration enforcement

in the U.S., you're probably thinking

of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents

or Customs and Border Protection officers.

For this episode, we're gonna be primarily focusing

on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE,

which has become a catchall term for all these agents

carrying out immigration enforcement actions.

Within ICE, there are basically two types of buckets

that agents fall into.

There's Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO,

and there's Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI.

ERO agents are generally the deportation officers

that you're gonna see apprehending people on the streets,

at local businesses, or in courthouses around the U.S.

HSI officers are more like detectives.

Think of like the FBI or the Secret Service.

They're serious investigators, and they're typically

going after serious crimes,

from child exploitation cases to drugs and smuggling.

Within ERO, there's a special response team, or SRT.

These are for highly risky operations

where they're expecting violence

or some other type of high risk.

However, the reality on the ground today

is that all of these lines are getting blurred.

HSI, ERO, and other federal agents are involved

in basic immigration enforcement.

That means going into businesses, churches, schools,

and apprehending people for whatever reason they see fit.

If you witness an ICE raid today,

you're likely to see agents from all different

types of agencies, whether it's CBP, FBI,

or even your sheriff's department,

your local police department,

and others who've been deputized

to carry out immigration enforcement actions.

To start the process of figuring out where and who

to target, ICE gathers a ton of data.

They get this from a bunch of different sources,

everywhere from utility bills to IRS records,

Medicaid, license plate readers, social media.

Basically any data that can get their hands on,

they're getting it and using it to figure out

who to target and where.

A January 2026 report from 404 Media

shows that it's even easier for ICE to use this data

for carrying out enforcement operations.

Using an app called ELITE developed by Palantir,

ICE can use all different types of criteria

to figure out who to target, such as the likelihood

that somebody actually lives at an address

or whether they have a criminal record.

One of the most controversial aspects of the app

is the ability to target areas

just by concentration of immigrant populations.

ICE agents are able to look at basically a map interface

that shows them the concentration

of potentially undocumented immigrants in the U.S.,

and then use that information to target those areas.

Targeting people simply because they're an immigrant

goes against the Trump administration's claims

that they're going after the worst of the worst

or violent criminals,

and that they're trying to make America safe.

In addition to ELITE's capabilities, there's also the aspect

that the technology is essentially what's used in warfare.

Palantir, which developed the app,

has deep ties to the U.S. military.

It's very similar to tech that troops have used

to figure out who to target in war zones.

But now it's being used on American soil.

In reality, ICE is targeting people

in a couple of different ways.

There's this highly sophisticated way in which they're using

all this data and these sophisticated apps

developed by defense contractors to target specific people

at specific times in specific places.

And then there's just brute force racial profiling.

The Supreme Court essentially okayed racial profiling

in a controversial 2025 opinion

in which Justice Brett Kavanaugh

said that how somebody looks and whether they have an accent

or speak a different language can be part

of what an ICE officer uses

to justify targeting a specific person.

It's no coincidence that we're increasingly seeing videos

of people being arrested by ICE agents while they scream,

I'm a U.S. citizen, or even showing their passport.

Beyond the targeting of specific people or neighborhoods,

the Trump administration is specifically

going after sanctuary cities.

In 2025, the Department of Justice published a list

of sanctuary jurisdictions that it plans to target

under an executive order.

These sanctuary cities also just so happen to be places

that voted democratic in the 2024 election.

Sanctuary states or cities are places

that limit their cooperation

with federal immigration authorities.

This means they have laws on the books

that limit local police from helping immigration agents

carry out deportation proceedings

or spending money on immigration matters.

Can even mean giving assistance to people

regardless of their immigration status,

such as allowing them to get driver's licenses

or accessing city services.

The Trump administration is targeting

sanctuary jurisdictions, not because they have

super high crime rates among immigrant populations,

it's really just because they're not cooperating

with federal immigration officers.

So once ICE picks a place to target, what do they do next?

Well, assuming it's a targeted operation,

they're gonna conduct surveillance.

ICE agents want a visual verification

of the information that they have.

This means observing a targeted person's activities,

such as when they go to work or take their kids to school,

making sure somebody actually lives at an address

where they think they live, that they drive a car

that they think they drive, and that they look

like the person they're supposed to be targeting.

ICE agents will often use ruses

to carry out the surveillance.

This means dressing up in plain clothes,

wearing uniforms that make them look like local police

who are investigating fake crimes.

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When ICE arrives on the scene of a place they plan to raid,

they're typically going to be driving unmarked vehicles.

The number of people involved in a raid

depends on the complexity and scope of an operation,

but typically you're gonna have a team leader,

you're gonna have cover officers who are looking out

for people running away or other threats.

You'll see a certain number of deportation officers,

depending on the size of the raid.

You'll see designated drivers who are in charge

of transporting anybody who's arrested.

Sometimes you'll see local police officers.

Sometimes they'll have translators with them.

And for operations that ICE deems high risk,

you'll see special response teams, or SRTs.

When ICE pulls up for a raid,

they're typically gonna act fast.

Agents will jump out of their vehicles

and scan the area for any threat.

They're gonna look at the waistbands or hands of people

to see if there are any weapons present.

They'll look for windows or doors

that people can escape from,

or vehicles that they might use to flee.

In a targeted operation, agents will often call out the name

of the person they're seeking to apprehend.

Often agents won't identify themselves,

though sometimes they'll say ICE, HSI,

or whatever agency they're with, or they'll have the name

of the agency they work for on their vest.

Since March 2025, it's become commonplace

for immigration officials to wear masks

while they're on raids.

The Trump administration justifies this by saying

if these agents are identified, they could be targeted

by harassment or even violence.

People are out there taking photos

of the names, their faces, and posting them online

with death threats to their family and themselves.

So I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks,

but I'm not gonna let my officers and agents go out there

and put their lives on the line and their family on the line

because people don't like what immigration enforcement is.

However, former ice officials have criticized the practice

of wearing masks, saying it raises tensions

with the community and otherwise makes everyone less safe.

ICE agents are not required by law to reveal their name

or any other personal information.

That includes to the person they're trying to detain

or anybody else who's around.

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ICE's authority changes depending on whether

they're in a private space or in a public space.

When ICE is operating in public,

they can basically ask anyone questions as they see fit.

If they have reasonable suspicion to believe

somebody is in the country illegally,

they can detain that person for further questioning,

and that can lead to arrest.

ICE's authority changes drastically

when they're trying to target somebody

who's on private property.

To enter somebody's home or a business,

ICE needs to have a judicial warrant

signed by a judge, or an arrest warrant.

Oftentime, ICE agents will just have

an administrative warrant, which doesn't give them

legal access to a property.

But they'll use these administrative warrants

to try to trick people into letting them inside.

[Reporter] It reveals a memo released internally

by Immigration and Customs Enforcement

suggesting that federal agents can rely

on administrative warrants to make arrests

instead of judicial warrants,

meaning a judge does not have to sign off

for agents to enter a suspect's home.

ICE can also enter a home if somebody just lets them in.

But this can be really confusing for people,

especially in a high-stress situation.

An ICE officer might yell to the person at the door,

Let me in, and that person might think

that they legally have to do that.

But by just opening the door,

ice agents can later claim in court

that they were invited into the home,

even if that's not what the person intended.

Once an immigration agent is led into a home,

they're allowed to carry out their operation

and arrest whoever they're there to target.

ICE operations targeting businesses

can be even more complicated.

Because businesses are typically open to the public,

ICE agents can gain access to the space

even if they don't have a warrant,

and things can get really complicated really fast

depending on how employees or business owners

perceive their rights in that situation.

Because of ICE targeting businesses,

some stores have begun locking their doors

and only letting people in

after they've confirmed that they're not ICE.

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When ICE is carrying out an operation,

if somebody complies with their orders,

it may just keep things verbal and never get physical.

But if somebody runs away or otherwise resists,

ICE agents might use violence to apprehend a person.

Technically speaking, ICE policy mandates

that agents are supposed to use one of five levels

of force, depending on the situation.

The first level is just an officer's presence.

They're supposed to be dressed professionally, be courteous,

polite, and their attire should be appropriate

to the work being performed.

Level two is verbal commands.

These commands are supposed to be clear,

straightforward, and not overly aggressive.

Level three is what's known as soft techniques.

This includes physical contact using an open hand

but no weapons, escort positions, come along holds,

the use of pressure points, and weirdly,

the use of chemical agents, like tear gas,

which feels like a pretty big escalation.

At level four, ICE agents can use physical force

that have a greater possibility of causing people injury.

This can include the use of their hands, legs, feet,

head, or even their whole body.

This can include takedowns

and even the use of tasers and dogs.

The fifth and final level is the use of deadly force.

This can include the use of strangulation techniques,

the use of weapons like batons against somebody's neck

or throat or head, or even the use of firearms.

If you've seen videos of ICE carrying out operations,

it sure doesn't seem like they're carrying out

some five-level escalation protocol.

Many times they seem to be at level three or four instantly.

If you've seen the videos of Jonathan Ross

shooting Renee Good in Minneapolis,

he appears to go to level five almost instantly.

Any claims that Ross was fearing for his life

can be used to justify the level five use of force.

When an officer uses fearing for their life

as a justification for killing someone,

it's very difficult to push back against that.

In fact, over the past 10 years,

ICE agents have killed more than two dozen people,

and it doesn't appear as though

any of them have faced criminal charges.

So, has it always been like this?

When people talk about this question,

they often bring up the media's so-called liberal bias,

saying that press outlets are only focusing

on the Trump administration because they're Republican,

and that other administrations have done

exactly the same thing.

Not only that, but the Trump administration's

immigration enforcement tactics are perfectly legitimate

and completely within the bounds of the law.

Others like to bring up the fact

that President Barack Obama deported about 3 million people

during his time in office.

They also claimed that there was little

to no opposition when he did that.

First of all, there were protests

around Obama's immigration enforcement actions.

Oppositions were so impactful

that the administration eventually enacted DACA,

which gave certain protections to people

who entered the country illegally as children.

This means there weren't large-scale operations

that were just targeting entire communities

like we're seeing today.

The Trump administration also rolled back policies

that limited ICE's ability to carry out enforcement actions

around hospitals, places of worship, and schools.

This has resulted in harrowing scenes

of people being apprehended

while dropping off their kids or going to church.

It's these types of actions that are causing terror

in communities across the United States.

Beyond hospitals, churches, and schools,

ICE agents are also arresting people

while they're going to their immigration court appointments,

something that has not historically happened.

They're also going after refugees

or people who were relocated into the United States

by the U.S. government who are now being targeted

by immigration authorities.

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Then there's the scale of ICE itself.

Since ICE received its funding boost,

the agency has hired thousands of new recruits,

and it's reduced its training program

from five months down to just eight weeks.

That means there are thousands of more agents

on the streets with less training.

On top of this, an AI screening tool

flagged certain recruits as being officers

when they actually weren't,

just because they had the word officer in their resume.

This okayed them to go out in the field

without getting the proper training.

Beyond ICE's use as an immigration enforcement authority,

the Trump administration has increasingly

painted the agency as a military force.

In 2025, Trump posted an Apocalypse Now meme

depicting ICE going to war in Chicago.

The militarization of ICE goes beyond mere rhetoric.

We see this in increasingly violent tactics

and the use of stun grenades as a means of crowd control.

So, what should you do if you're caught

in the middle of an ICE raid?

Well, it really depends on your personal risk threshold.

If you're here in the U.S. undocumented,

your risk is at the absolute highest.

You're gonna need to take careful steps

to make sure yourself and your family are safe.

That means having plans in place for taking care

of your kids, your pets, and other family members

who might need assistance,

and possibly having legal representation in place.

For anyone else, it really depends

on your personal situation.

If you're comfortable going outside during an ICE raid,

first thing to remember is that the point

of observing ICE agents is to deescalate the situation.

You're there to prevent violence, not to ramp up tensions.

It is one hundred percent within your constitutional rights

to record ICE agents as they're doing their duties.

You just have to make sure that you don't interfere

in any way or they can charge you with obstruction.

But it's hard to overstate just how important it is

to record what federal agents are doing

so that you can hold them accountable if they break the law.

If you're a minority or another group that might be targeted

by ICE operations, just remember that some ICE agents

might use your ethnicity as a justification for detaining

or even arresting you, even if you're a U.S. citizen.

Now, to be clear, ICE does not have jurisdiction

over U.S. citizens.

They're there purely to carry out

immigration enforcement actions.

But if you're present during an ICE raid

and you give them any reason to target you,

that could mean recording them,

that could mean following them in your car,

give them any excuse to go after you,

and what we've seen recently is that they probably will.

It's extremely important to remember

that ICE can legally detain anyone

who's impeding their operation or otherwise carrying out

a felony offense.

If you're confronted by an ICE agent,

remember that they're often trained

to give commands three times.

It's after the third command that they're trained

to escalate use of force.

In terms of digital privacy, one thing to remember

is that if you're out in public,

you're not going to be anonymous.

If ICE wants to identify you, they almost certainly will.

That said, there are some steps you can take.

If you have your phone with you,

make sure you turn off biometrics

such as fingerprint or face ID.

If you turn off biometrics, this can prevent authorities

from getting into your device.

If you think you might end up

in the thick of an ICE operation,

make sure you delete any sensitive information

off your device before you go in case they do get into it.

ICE officers might demand that you unlock your device,

but you're not legally required to do so.

Remember that you can be identified in many different ways.

Your license plate might reveal personal information

like where you live.

And ICE agents have been using facial recognition

to run people through databases

to check their immigration status

and find out other personal information about them.

If you want to get involved but you don't comfortable

going outside, there's a lot you can do even from home.

You can take part in charity drives to give food

and clothing and other necessities

for people who aren't able to go out in public

as freely as they would when ICE isn't around.

This has been Incognito Mode. Stay safe out there.

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