Trump’s ICE Fulfils The USA's Definition of Terrorism
Terrorism has a clear definition in US law, under Trump, ICE matches that definition
By André Costa | October 13 2025
If the United States government applied its own definition of terrorism consistently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, would already be on their own terrorist list. By every metric the USA itself has written into law, ICE commits acts of terrorism on American soil. It uses violence, fear, and political coercion against civilians to achieve ideological goals. It seeks to intimidate entire communities into silence. The only difference between ICE and the groups it claims to fight is the badge it hides behind, they even share the same masks in many cases.
For two decades, ICE has built an empire of fear, unknowingly readying themselves to become the secret police that Donald Trump has turned them into. Their agents operate like as occupying force, descending on neighborhoods from the air, kicking in doors, and dragging parents from their children, with or without clothing. In cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, they arrive without warning, refusing to identify themselves or even confirm who they are taking.
The terror is intentional, they record footage of their raids for social media, with their intention being clear that they want the word to spread through immigrant communities until it becomes gospel that nowhere is safe. That is psychological warfare. It is this psychological warfare that causes groups like ours to feel the need to fight back.
The U.S. Code defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” The FBI adds that it includes any “use of force or violence to intimidate or coerce a government or civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Under those definitions, ICE may as well be the entity being described. It acts as a clandestine paramilitary force, answering not to local governments but to the political winds of Washington. The raids are designed to intimidate, not protect. When a population changes its behavior out of fear of state violence, that is terrorism.
In Chicago and other cities, this campaign of terror has taken on the precision of a military occupation. Collateral arrests allow ICE to detain anyone in the vicinity of a target, even encouraging agents to arrest based on appearance. Courthouses, hospitals, and schools, places that were once off-limits under basic human decency, have become hunting grounds for these terrorists. Abusing 911 calls, illegal under US law, has also become a popular tactic of Trump’s ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was once seen as a feature of US law enforcement, now they actively tussle with US police forces.
The essence of terror is necessary under dictatorship, it rewires the mind to accept fear as a default. It forces you to think twice before stepping outside, before calling for help, before showing your face. It breaks solidarity and replaces it with suspicion, while it isolates the vulnerable and leaves them at the mercy of the aggressor.
A regime with a string of religious fundamentalists at their core are using a state-funded militia to terrorise its citizens. That sentence is not about Syria under Assad, nor Afghanistan under the Taliban, despite perfectly describing both. It is a sentence that describes the USA in 2025.
When the government redefines human beings as invaders, the machinery of terror can operate freely. ICE agents became the soldiers of a domestic holy war, cloaked in law but driven by ideology. They speak the language of security while carrying out the politics of fear. The United States has spent decades claiming moral superiority by defining terrorism as violence for political ends. Yet when its own agents inflict that same violence for political gain, much of the nation continues to look away. It invents euphemisms like “detention” and “enforcement,” but strip away the paperwork, and the reality is clear. ICE operates as a terror network sanctioned by the state. Its raids are ambushes. Its detentions are disappearances. Its mission is instilling fear.
ICE is a symptom of a nation that mistakes cruelty for order and fear for peace. And as long as it stands, the most dangerous export from America will not be weapons or wars. It will be the belief that terror, when wrapped in a flag, is somehow justice, much like the beliefs shared by ISIS.