I am not writing a post about Donald Trump and the continous lies and exaggerations that he tells whenever he opens his mouth. However, I have been watching the ICE raids and arrests for the past 2 years and I have thoughts.
My father was a US Marshal and I grew up believing he was a hero. We were taught to respect law enforcement and to respect firearms. My father is a US citizen and is Hispanic. When I am pulled over by law enforcement I am respectful and do exactly what they tell me to do. When I was stupid and 15 years old a boy I was in the car with decided to run a stop sign in Fort Worth and not pull over for the officer behind us. I was screaming at him to pull over immediately and he finally did. It was absolutely terrifying. We were pulled out of the car and I thought for sure we were going to jail. A miracle happened and he let us go, probably because we were just kids and the was in the early 90’s and you really could get away with a lot then. But I knew then that I would never run from the police.
I believe in law and order but I also believe that we are a country of many cultures. I am 100% behind deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes. By crimes I mean any violent, drug or theft crimes, not traffic violations. According to the TRAC as of July 11, 2026 there were 65,765 people in detention. Out of that number 70.6% or 46,436 have committed no crimes. These numbers do not include all of the people that are being held in medical facilities so the numbers are quite a bit higher than what is reported. What happened to arresting the violent criminals?
What I have a problem with is the methods used by ICE against anyone they decide is a threat. US Senator Mark Warner, speaking to CNBC in January said “Remember we are beefing up ICE with 10,000 more agents. They are not getting the traditional 5 months training. Literally, the training for ICE agents is now 47 days. Why 47 days? Because Donald Trump is the 47th President.” They also lowered the age to be an agent to 18, relaxed fitness standards and stopped teaching them basic Spanish. The completely arbitrary amount of days of training is ridiculous and much too short for such a critical job.
So now we are putting barely trained agents on the streets and we wonder why there have been so many issues? Personally, as a woman, if an unmarked car suddenly tries to box me in and block my free access I would hit the gas and try to get away from them. What if someone was trying to abduct you? How are you supposed to know they are ICE agents when the car is unmarked? And the violence that they are using on people is over the top. Ramming people’s cars, breaking their windows, pulling people out at gunpoint before they even know whether they are citizens or not. This is not American.
And the mistakes, the misidentifications, not going to the right address, pulling over people because they “look” like they might be illegal and then lying about why and how they are pulling people over. I worry so much about my parents since ICE has misidentified people over and over again. My maiden name is Guzman and there are probably hundreds of thousands of people with the last name Guzman in America. What if they are looking for someone with my dad’s name, encounter him and decide he’s the one they are looking for? Or my mother gets boxed in and violently pulled from her car? All because we have not properly trained these agents and have given them extraordinary powers.
And then there is the culture of ICE and how it has shifted under this administration. “The agency has shifted from prioritizing individuals with serious criminal records to targeting anyone without authorization. Previously restricted “safe locations” like schools, churches and hospitals are no longer off-limits,” according to The Atlantic. Steven Volk, a professor of history writes “It is challenging to fully enumerate all of the ethical, moral and political failures of a government that deliberately nurtures a culture of fear as a means to achieve its goals.” We see that culture of fear throughout this administration. We see it in changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, we see it in the aggressive language of the people in office and we see it when Trump threatens others countries with extreme language like total annihilation.
How did it get to this point? People are angry and polarized. Everything in American culture right now is extreme. We have lost the ability to speak to one another, to compromise and to work towards a goal as one country. The extremes on the left and the right leave no room for the middle. The economy, food and gas prices and inflation are hitting Americans hard. The constant stress and constant bickering is exhausting. And then we have a bunch of cowboys running around with badges treating people in this country like animals. The trust between the people and the government has been broken and I am not sure how we can fix it.
It has been reported that ICE will be going back to giving new agents the 5 months of training that they need in order to do their jobs safely and justly. I hope that happens but I have doubts. It makes me sad that there are so many people living in fear in our country that is supposed to be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. We have lost something important and that is our standing in the world. Other countries are seeing us differently now and we are no longer universally trusted and seen as something to aspire to. And like it or not, this immigration crackdown and how its been carried out has hurt our country. There is a humane way to handle this and we have botched it becoming more cruel than anything else. America should, and can be better.
ICE
