How ICE's Explosive Growth Threatens Every American

These days, it seems like not an hour goes by

without another brutal arrest by immigration

and customs enforcement.

You've probably seen the aggressive tactics

in videos online.

While many people find these videos really disturbing,

others question why this matters to them at all.

If they're not here in the US illegally,

do they really have to care?

Isn't this just law enforcement in action?

Today we're gonna be breaking down how ICE's expansion

of power will impact everybody in the US.

This is Incognito Mode.

[tense music]

Social media monitoring is one of the big ways

that the US government surveils a lot of people.

In fact, if you're posting online,

they're probably surveilling you right now.

The State Department has expanded its use

of social media surveillance to monitor anybody

who wants to enter the US.

But even if you're not a traveler here,

you're probably being surveilled.

The independent reports that ICE is expanding its use

of social media surveillance

to search for anti-ICE sentiment.

So if you're going to a protest

or posting about ICE online in ways

that they might not like, you're probably getting scooped up

into a surveillance machine you might not even know exists.

It's been reported that one social media surveillance tool

used by government agencies including ICE is Social Net,

which can reportedly monitor up to 200 websites,

social media platforms, another online spaces.

Some of these platforms include Facebook, Instagram, X,

Blue Sky, TikTok, Reddit, PayPal, OnlyFans, Cash App,

WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, chess.com for some reason.

Pretty much anywhere you are online,

SocialNet is probably watching.

It's been reported that ICE's Homeland Security

Investigations Division has directly contracted

with Shadow Dragon, which makes SocialNet.

The problem with social media surveillance

is that by its very nature,

it's a massive dragnet operation.

They're collecting data on basically everyone,

especially anyone who's posting online all the time.

This massive amount of data

that's being collected doesn't just go away.

All this data is likely being stored

and can potentially be used at any point in the future

to target you for anything.

So right now, these tools are being used

to target one kind of speech,

but in the future, an administration could choose

to use it to target something entirely different.

A big problem with social media surveillance

is that can chill speech.

You might not post about things online if you know

that ICE agents or other law enforcement

are flagging your speech

just because you set a certain keyword

or expressed a certain sentiment,

that's gonna dissuade people from exercising

their First Amendment rights, going to protests

or speaking out against things they disagree with.

[tense music]

One of the first ways you might think

of ICE impacting you is surveillance.

Facial recognition is one of the ways we know

that ICE is targeting pretty much anybody

they come across who they find suspicious.

Immigration officials have long used facial recognition

at the border, but now agents

can use it right on their phones.

Using an app called Mobile Fortify,

they can just point their camera at you

and run your face through a bunch of different databases

that does identity verification on the fly.

So why is this a problem?

Well, first of all, Mobile Fortify,

like other facial recognition systems,

has a margin of error.

That means it can bring up false positives,

so the app might identify you as being somebody

who you're not, and maybe that person

is a hardened criminal who's in the US illegally

and you might get detained.

The other issue is what we call surveillance creep.

This means that powerful surveillance tools

are being used in more and more ways

and is becoming normalized.

It might be ICE agents using it today,

but you can imagine the situation

where a police officer is standing on a corner

and just pointing his phone at everybody

trying to catch a criminal.

Now, you might think this kind of surveillance

isn't a big deal, and you might think, hey,

if cops are catching more criminals, that's great.

The problem is that once a surveillance power is introduced,

it's very rare that it gets taken away.

While you might agree with the law enforcement actions

of one administration, another administration

might have totally different priorities

and totally different targets.

As we see in all types of situations,

technology moves faster than laws.

As of now, there's no federal law

regulating the use of facial recognition by ICE

or any other law enforcement agency.

[gentle music]

ICE's use of data brokers is another form

of digital surveillance.

ICE isn't just buying data one-off.

They also have contracts with data brokers like LexisNexis,

which gives thousands of agents access

to all types of data about anyone they're targeting.

This means they know who you are, who you know,

who your family members are, what your criminal history is,

whether you own a boat or a car.

All this information is readily available to ICE

for anyone who they wanna target.

ICE is making use

of something called the data Broker loophole,

which allows the agency to just buy data

that they might otherwise have to obtain

through a subpoena or a warrant.

ICE has reportedly used the data broker loophole

to get around Colorado's Sanctuary Cities laws,

which prevent local police

from sharing information with the agency.

ICE was able to just buy data on targets

rather than getting it through a process

that involves judicial review.

[gentle music]

ICE has a program known as 287G,

which allows it to deputize

local and state police to help in deportation actions.

Under 287G, ICE has agreements

with some 800 departments across 40 states,

with dozens more pending.

This is all part of the agency's efforts

to rapidly increase enforcement actions.

We're not asking them to be immigration officers.

We're asking them to help us,

cops working with the cops to keep New York safe.

Named Operation Tidal Wave,

ICE's, expansion of 287G means a massive amount

of resources across the country are being devoted

just towards the issues of immigration and deportation.

Even if you think immigration is the most pressing issue,

getting local law enforcement involved

can have consequences beyond what you might expect.

First of all, local police need to have a relationship

with their community so that people

can trust them when they call to report a crime.

If your family has mixed immigration status

or even if you just look a certain way,

you may be more unlikely to call the police

and report a crime, and that makes everybody less safe.

Another issue is that local police have limited budgets.

This inevitably means that resources

are gonna be diverted from other things

like investigating thefts or murders

or child abductions.

With resources from the federal government

to your local police being diverted

towards immigration issues,

all types of other things

are going to go ignored or underfunded.

[upbeat music]

As ICE's power is expanding,

it's sweeping up even more people

into its crosshairs, not just immigrants.

For example, in July, 2025,

Wired reported on a bulletin

from the Department of Homeland Security,

which oversees ICE.

The memo characterized regular activities

like riding a skateboard or a bicycle

as running reconnaissance

for protestors and indicative of potential violence.

We've also seen ICE agents arrest US citizens

who were nearby

while they were conducting raids and arrests.

According to Wired reporting, protestors are subject

to all types of social media surveillance

with law enforcement building dossiers on them

that can include their names, their affiliations

and the things they say online.

This is a perfect example

of how these tools can be turned against anyone

an administration deems problematic.

[upbeat music]

Founded in 2003, in the wake of 9/11, under the task

of increasing national security, ICE has since become

one of the most dominant law enforcement agencies

in the United States and has poised

to reach its apex under the second Trump administration,

which has promised mass deportations on a historic scale.

We're gonna have to have a deportation level

that we haven't seen in this country

for a long time since Dwight Eisenhower actually.

Even though news of ICE arrests

and detentions are happening all the time,

it's about to get even bigger.

Congress recently allocated some $170 billion

towards immigration enforcement,

making it more heavily funded

than any other law enforcement agency

in the United States, including the FBI and the DEA.

While the Trump administration has framed ICE's actions

as removing criminals from our communities,

65% of people targeted by ICE have no criminal convictions

and 93% have no violent convictions.

What this looks like on the ground

is masked unidentified ICE agents

storming into restaurants and other businesses

and snatching people off the street,

even if they've never been involved in any crime at all.

Agents are even arresting people at courthouses

when they show up for their immigration court appointments.

Even green card holders have been targeted,

so it's not just undocumented criminal immigrants

who are being targeted, it's pretty much anybody

who has a vulnerable immigration status.

On paper, ICE's detention rate has soared to 140%

of the capacity of detention centers.

This has led to massive overcrowding,

unsanitary conditions, lack of medical care

and other issues within detention centers,

and it's only poised to get worse.

We are looking to set a goal of a minimum

of 3000 arrests for ICE every day,

and President Trump is gonna keep pushing

to get that number up higher.

In June, ICE agents arrested an average

of 1200 people a day.

That's nearly twice as many

as during the first 100

days of the second Trump administration.

[upbeat music]

There's very little anyone can do

to push back against ICE's enforcement actions,

but some people are trying.

Apps like ICE Block allow people to identify ICE agents,

where they are, what they look like

and even what their vehicles are,

but even that can come with consequences.

The Trump administration has threatened the developer

of ICE Block with prosecution,

and people have criticized the app

for endangering ICE agents.

The Trump administration has also equated

revealing ICE agents identities as illegal doxing.

We should just note that making an app like ICE Block

or publishing an ICE Agent's personal information

is according to legal experts

protected by the First Amendment.

[person shouting]

The disappearance of hundreds of thousands

or even millions of people is going to change American life,

regardless of your views on immigration.

This can happen in small ways from people you know

suddenly vanishing and big ways

to having fewer people in the American economy

and thus making it shrink.

No matter who you are, and no matter what you think

about immigration or ICE's tactics

or the second Trump administration,

mass deportations are going to have an impact on your life.

This has been Incognito Mode, until next time.

[upbeat music]