ICE’s Expanding Use of Force Amid the Trump Administration’s Immigration Surge

Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been implicated in a sharp rise in forceful encounters. An ACLU investigation of more than 1,200 enforcement actions across eight states found that nearly one-third involved physical force or the threat of force, including pushes, tackles, weapon deployments, and chokeholds. In parallel, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley documented 412 verified incidents of “misuse” of crowd-control weapons during protests from June 2025 through May 2026, resulting in 203 injuries such as blindings and traumatic brain injuries.

The Guardian

The surge follows a substantial influx of federal funding that, according to experts, “invites more chances for violent encounters to occur.” ICE’s operational style has shifted from targeted raids to frequent community-wide car stops, a change noted by retired NYPD officer Jillian Snider. The two fatal shootings of ICE officers in Texas and Maine—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Durán Guerrero—prompted ICE to pause non-urgent traffic stops, though President Trump later urged continuation of such stops on Truth Social.

NPR

• Force in enforcement actions: > 400 documented pushes/tackles; comparable number of weapon uses (chemical irritants, rubber bullets, tasers).

The Guardian

• Crowd-control misuse: 36 % chemical irritants, 26 % hybrid weapons, 22 % kinetic projectiles, 11 % discretionary devices.

The Guardian

• Injured parties: 23 incidents involved vulnerable individuals (12 children, 8 pregnant/elderly, 3 disabled). Journalists accounted for 43 % of weapon-misuse cases.

The Hill

• Geographic concentration: Over 90 % of misuse incidents occurred in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Newark, and Portland.

The Hill

ICE announced it will not discuss specific tactics but affirmed that it “is always evaluating its procedures to keep its officers safe.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described Durán Guerrero’s shooting as a response to an officer fearing for public safety. President Trump publicly called for ICE traffic stops to continue. Senator Susan Collins (Maine) and other lawmakers have demanded a full investigation into the recent fatal shootings.

NPR

Naureen Shah, ACLU policy director, warned, “I’m really worried there’s going to be even more of these killings,” citing a “culture of abuse and impunity” driven by unprecedented arrest quotas. Jillian Snider highlighted the risk of untrained car stops, noting that “most agencies will not authorize [the officer] to shoot” absent an imminent threat. Marc Brown, director of the University of South Carolina’s Excellence in Policing program, said ICE officers appear “unfamiliar with … how to operate in that type of environment,” attributing gaps to abbreviated defensive-tactics training.

NPR

The ACLU acknowledges its dataset is a “snapshot” and that many operations likely go unrecorded. PHR researchers admit that “the true number of injuries is likely far greater” because invisible harms such as chemical exposure and chronic pain are difficult to verify. Both ICE and DHS declined to comment on the findings, leaving key details about supervision and training policies unaddressed.

NPR

• “You're seeing the threat of using force and actually using it become the default tool for immigration enforcement agents,” — Naureen Shah, ACLU

NPR

• “From what I've seen and what I've seen them do, it doesn't seem like they're familiar with or they really understand how to operate in that type of environment,” — Marc Brown, University of South Carolina

NPR

• “The data show that, on aggregate, crowd-control weapon misuse was not uniform in time and space but rather occurred in discrete “waves” that moved from city to city,” the report says.” — PHR report

The Hill

ICE has temporarily halted non-urgent traffic stops while it reviews procedures; the duration and scope of that pause remain unclear. Congressional committees are expected to hold hearings on ICE’s use-of-force policies, and further investigations may be launched following Senator Collins’s call for accountability.

NPR