ICE and the Smartphone Panopticon

I wonder how many current ICE/CBP employees are members of groups defined as extremist[0] by the Southern Poverty Law Center?

I don't know the answer, but I hope (although I'm not sanguine about it) the answer is zero.

That said, if DHS is prioritizing hiring such folks for ICE/CBP (as a paramilitary force bent on domination of the US controlled only by Trump and his minions), we're going to have serious problems getting the current administration to vacate on 20 January 2029, especially since these folks have a budget larger than most military forces around the world.

Is that alarmist? I don't know. Then again, so many unprecedented, authoritarian and outright illegal things have been done by the current administration.

As such, it wouldn't surprise me to see right-wing militia thugs on the ICE/CBP payroll. I hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm not.

[0] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/?meta_ex...

Edit: Maybe I'm paranoid, but so many of this administration's actions seem to come right out of the fascist/authoritarian playbook (cf. https://archive.ph/xbm1E although there are many other expositions of this as well).

Good luck having an election. All suspicious looking people approaching a polling station will get their identities very thoroughly checked, in a prison in some undisclosed location, until the election is fairly counted to be won by MAGA.

Or any other number of ways to disrupt an election. Maybe not open Congress at all?

edit: They wouldn't arrest citizens you say?

https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...

>edit: They wouldn't arrest citizens you say?

Who said that? Not me. In fact, they've been doing so for a while. And beating them, even shooting[0] them -- because they can -- with impunity.

[0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/04/ice-shooting-chica...

That was meant for anyone reading who might think to themselves "but they take only non-citizens, right?"