U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the context of "Militarization of police"

An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questioned further or charged. An arrest is a procedure in a criminal justice system, sometimes it is also done after a court warrant for the arrest.

Police and various other officers have powers of arrest. In some places, a citizen's arrest is permitted; for example in England and Wales, any person can arrest "anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing, have committed or be guilty of committing an indictable offence", although certain conditions must be met before taking such action. Similar powers exist in France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland if a person is caught in an act of crime and not willing or able to produce valid ID.

Operation Cross Check is an ongoing law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records. Since its launch in 2011, the operation has resulted in thousands of arrests and deportations across the United States.

The United States government detains immigrants under the control of Customs and Border Protection (CBP; principally the Border Patrol) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

According to the Global Detention Project, the United States possesses the largest immigration detention system in the world. As of 2020, ICE detains immigrants in over 200 detention facilities, in state and local jails, in juvenile detention centers, and in shelters. Immigrants may be detained for unlawful entry to the United States, when their claims for asylum are received (and prior to release into the United States by parole), during the process of immigration proceedings, undergoing removal from the country, or if they are subject to mandatory detention.

On June 6, 2025, protests began in Los Angeles after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided several city locations to arrest individuals allegedly involved in illegal immigration to the United States. Some protests turned into riots after protestors clashed with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and ICE, but most remained peaceful and occurred within a small stretch of downtown Los Angeles.

On June 7, protestors and federal law enforcement agents clashed in Paramount and Compton during raids. President Donald Trump responded by federalizing the California National Guard, calling for 2,000 guard members to deploy to the city under Joint Task Force 51. Protests were organized and attended by multiple groups and unaffiliated protestors. On June 9, the president authorized the deployment of an additional 2,000 National Guard members, and the Pentagon activated 700 Marines to deploy to the city, who arrived the next day. Critics, including California governor Gavin Newsom (who has sued Trump over the federalization), described the military response as premature, inflammatory, for political gain, and authoritarian. Reuters reported that the protests were the strongest domestic backlash to Trump since he took office in January, and became a focal point in a national debate over immigration, protest, the use of federal force in domestic affairs, the boundaries of presidential power, and freedom of speech and assembly.

The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was a United States federal government agency under the United States Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and under the United States Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.

Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, the agency ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred to three new entities – United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – within the newly created United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as part of a major government reorganization following the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Abolish ICE is a left-wing political movement that seeks the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The movement gained mainstream traction in June 2018 following controversy of the Trump administration family separation policy. The movement proposes that ICE's responsibilities be subsumed by other existing immigration agencies, as was the case before its creation. Discussions are particularly focused on the enforcement wing of ICE.

A sanctuary campus is any college or university, typically in North America and Western Europe, that adopts policies to protect members of the campus community who are undocumented immigrants. The term is modeled after "sanctuary city", a status that has been adopted by over 30 municipalities. Although there is no official legal definition of sanctuary city, the term generally refers to towns, cities, or counties that welcome undocumented immigrants and decline to cooperate completely with federal detention requests related to undocumented immigrants, often with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Proposed policies on sanctuary campuses include:

• Not allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers onto campus without a warrant.
• The refusal of campus police to enforce immigration law.
• Not sharing student immigration status with ICE.
• Not gathering information on immigration or citizenship status.
• Providing tuition support, including in-state tuition rates at public universities to students with DACA status.
• Providing distance-learning options for deported students to complete their degrees.
• Providing confidential legal support to students with immigration law questions and issues.
• Expanding policies to include medical and other facilities associated with the campus.
• Reducing the deployment of campus police to protests that seek to include undocumented students and workers to avoid intimidation of undocumented activists.
• Ending practices which undermine worker and student worker labor unions.

The American Association of University Professors endorsed the sanctuary campus movement on November 22, 2016, and urged colleges and universities to adopt sanctuary policies.