ACLU Report: Use of Force Has Become ICE’s Default Tool Under Trump
The American Civil Liberties Union released a landmark report on Thursday documenting widespread civil rights violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, finding that use of force has become a “default tool” for immigration enforcement officers. The report, titled “Agents of Chaos and Cruelty”, examined more than 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents across eight states from January 2025 through December 2025 and found that over 400 of those incidents involved misconduct by immigration agents.
Scope of the Findings
The report documented 418 instances of agents pushing, shoving, tackling, or pinning people to the ground, and 361 instances where agents deployed chemical irritants, rubber bullets, or tasers. Researchers also identified 81 instances where agents used tactics that can limit breathing and become deadly, such as chokeholds and pressing a knee into a person’s neck. According to NPR, the report’s release comes amid intense public scrutiny following two fatal ICE shootings in Texas and Maine within a single week, as well as a third death in Florida where a man fleeing ICE was struck by a semitruck.
“You’re seeing the threat of using force and actually using it become the default tool for immigration enforcement agents,” said Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs for immigration at the ACLU and the report’s lead author. “Far beyond Minneapolis, the Trump administration has deployed a national deportation policing force that has committed civil rights violations at a scale and severity without parallel in modern American history — turning schools, bus stops and grocery stores into sites of violence and abuse.”
Impact on Children, Citizens, and Bystanders
The report found that 214 children were detained, targeted, or experienced law enforcement misconduct, including 32 U.S. citizen children. It documented 437 incidents involving likely racial profiling by agents and identified 155 U.S. citizens who were detained, targeted, or experienced law enforcement misconduct. Agents conducted enforcement at or near sensitive locations in 49 documented incidents, prompting 40 school lockdowns. Additionally, 782 protesters, journalists, elected officials, clergy, and community observers were detained, targeted, or subjected to misconduct.
Traffic Stop Tactics Under Scrutiny
A particularly concerning pattern emerged around traffic stops. Researchers documented agents ramming other cars 14 times, boxing in vehicles 53 times, smashing car windows 47 times, pulling 76 drivers and passengers out of cars, and hitting people with cars 6 times. Law enforcement experts interviewed by NPR expressed alarm at the pattern of aggressive tactics. Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and former police officer, noted that the data should have been gathered by the Department of Homeland Security itself. “Living in a democracy means that the government is doing a good job when and only when we the people say it’s doing a good job,” he said. “And that requires a certain degree of transparency about the nature of governmental operations.”
Recent Fatal Shootings
Since Trump took office in January 2025, 11 people have been fatally shot by federal immigration officials. Five of those were killed by ICE while driving a vehicle. The most recent incidents include the July 7 killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father of three, in Houston, Texas, and the July 13 killing of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian father of a 3-year-old daughter, in Biddeford, Maine. Neither man was the target of an ICE operation. A third person died in Florida on July 14 after being hit by a semitruck while fleeing ICE officers during a traffic stop, according to the Associated Press.
In both the Texas and Maine shootings, agents were not wearing body cameras. Despite promises made after the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January 2026, only about half of field officers have been equipped with body cameras. Colombian President Gustavo Petro called Durán Guerrero’s killing an “assassination,” saying in a statement reported by The Guardian: “They killed him because they thought he was inferior and without rights.”
Policy Shift and Uncertainty
In response to the shootings, ICE has paused most non-urgent traffic stops, according to Sen. Angus King. However, President Trump posted on Truth Social calling for traffic stops to continue, describing them as “one of ICE’s most important and effective crime-fighting tools,” creating uncertainty about whether the pause will hold. As NPR reported, the shift in ICE’s approach — from targeted enforcement operations to widespread traffic stops — has been driven by Trump’s ambitious goal of arresting millions of undocumented immigrants, putting agents under tremendous pressure to fulfill unprecedented arrest quotas.
Systemic Concerns
Marc Brown, director of the University of South Carolina’s Excellence in Policing and Public Safety Program and a former Federal Law Enforcement Training Center instructor, told NPR that ICE officers received only an “abbreviated version” of defensive tactics training. “You cannot ask your officers to do a different mission and not adjust both your policies and training,” he said. “You’re going to have some significant gaps.” The ACLU report also highlights the role of the 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, and the broader $240 billion immigration enforcement apparatus that the ACLU says has created a “culture of abuse and impunity.”
What’s Next
The ACLU plans to publish a series of reports ahead of the 2026 midterm elections aimed at urging lawmakers to support immigration reform. The organization is calling for a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants, replacing ICE with a new immigration management agency, ending the 287(g) program, and enacting legislation to allow victims to sue federal law enforcement officers for abuse. Meanwhile, DHS has promised to deploy body cameras to all agents within 60 days — a pledge that will be closely watched given previous unfulfilled commitments. As protesters in Houston made clear, the demand for accountability is not fading: “Release the footage, free the witnesses, independent investigation, not ICE investigating ICE.”