ICE: An Institution Built on Genocide & Funded by Hate

Historical Foundations in Eugenics and a Modern Culmination of Christian Zionism

Written by Sikowis Nobiss

ICE's ideologies and practices trace directly to genocidal ideologies and white supremacist policies that have shaped American immigration enforcement for over a century. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, America's first comprehensive immigration restriction law, was explicitly based on eugenic principles designed to maintain "racial purity" and limit immigration from non-white countries. (theconversation.com) This legislation was part of a long line of christian-colonial-capitalist policy and action that established the racial quotas and exclusionary framework that ICE now enforces through modern means.

The Trump administration has openly embraced these historical connections, with officials comparing ICE operations to biblical "Amalek" references used by Israeli officials to justify the Gaza genocide (truthout.org). DHS recruitment videos feature Proverbs 28:1: "THE WICKED FLEE WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH; BUT THE RIGHTEOUS ARE BOLD AS A LION"—framing immigrants as "wicked" people who must be hunted like prey, which also aligns with a Christian nationalist agenda. (truthout.org) The Trump administration has fostered the christian nationalist /zionist alliance through key relationships with Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo--all christian zionists who support Israel through their white nationalist, far-right agendas.

The Trump administration has increasingly and explicitly connected ICE's mission to white nationalist objectives:

• Prioritizing white South African refugees while shutting down refugee admissions for people of color (theguardian.com)

• Reviving the "Alien Enemies Act" to target non-citizens as wartime enemies (theguardian.com)

• Abducting Native American Peoples and prolonging release who have current tribal ID

• Using "invasion" rhetoric that echoes Nazi propaganda about Jewish populations

• Collaborating with Ku Klux Klan-inspired "America First" immigration restriction movements

  
  

Scholars note that Nazi analogies to ICE are increasingly common, with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz calling it a "modern-day Gestapo". (theconversation.com) These comparisons reflect public fears about the increase of authoritarian escalation and racialized state violence and where that will eventually lead.  

Funding Technology Partnerships for Genocidal Surveillance & Data Mining

ICE has been collaborating with technology companies developing genocidal, AI-driven surveillance systems and data-mining tools for over 15 years. These partnerships create a "deadly exchange" where ICE is constantly working to perfect its racial profiling and population control techniques through collaboration with other governments (such as Israel) who are also engaged in ethnic cleansing

• $170.1 billion in new spending authorized under the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"

• $45 billion specifically allocated for building new detention centers, a 308% increase over previous budgets (AmericanImmigrationCouncil.org)

• Funding makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, surpassing some foreign militaries (politifact.com)

• Notably, there "is a new $30 million contract between ICE and Palantir's Project Maven to build a platform integrating data from myriad sources to provide “near real-time visibility” of migrants in the country. (campaignzero.org)

• Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons developer and a lead contractor for Israel’s apartheid wall, was awarded $235 million in DHS contracts for surveillance technology to provide similar systems on the Mexico-US border (electronicintifada.net)

• Google and Amazon's Project Nimbus ($1.2 billion contract) providing AI cloud computing to Israel's military (truthout.org)

  
  

This funding creates what the Brennan Center calls a "deportation-industrial complex" where CoreCivic and GeoGroup, the two largest for-profit companies managing private prisons and immigration detention centers in the US, profit from human detention. (brennancenter.org) CoreCivic's CEO, Damon Hininger celebrated the signing of the Laken Riley Act and said that this was “one of the most exciting periods in his career" as it could result in the government needing, "100,000 beds for more aggressive enforcement in general, and 50,000 to 100,000 additional beds in connection with the Laken Riley Act." (theintercept.com)

As Javier Lopez wrote in LiberationNews.org, "Palantir has been weaponized by ICE since 2011, with its digital dragnet deployed under Obama, expanded under Trump, institutionalized under Biden, and turbocharged under Trump again — exposing how both capitalist parties collaborate in building the infrastructure of immigrant oppression." However, the sentiment goes back to the late 1400's, when the first colonial-settler-invaders stepped foot on these shores with a greedy, expansionist agenda focused on stealing land and resources and controlling Indigenous populations through the guise of their christian god via the doctrine of discovery (aka, manifest destiny) that justifies the annihilation, indoctrination, removal,and enslavement of people and all living things in order to "civilize" and "christianize" the world.

Genocidal Death Toll and Human Rights Abuses

Last year, 2025, was ICE's deadliest year in two decades, with 32 people dying in custody (that we know of)—matching the previous record set in 2004. (theguardian.com) Detention conditions have been described as hellish, with many different scenarios, such as holding 200 people in a room meant for 85 or 60-80 being held in a room meant for 50. Abductees have also been forced to sleep on the floor or next to toilets, and denied showers, toothbrushes and other toiletries. Abductees are frequently denied medical treatment for infections, chronic diseases, and medical emergencies. (Axios.com) Government oversight committees and human rights organizations have deemed ICE facilities as places where international human rights standards are consistently violated in many different ways such as:

• Documented cases of torture through prolonged solitary confinement

• Sexual abuse by detention staff

• Systemic medical neglect resulting in preventable deaths

• Suicides under conditions of extreme psychological distress

• Transport-related deaths and fatal encounters during enforcement operations.

Resistance and Alternative Visions

ICE represents the fusion of historic white supremacist ideologies with modern surveillance capitalism and militarized enforcement. Its funding comes from congressional appropriations historically driven by hate for Indigenous Peoples and a desire to exterminate them or keep them out of the country. ICE enforces the ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups through the many tactics discussed above. However, while fulfilling the genocidal fantasy of a white, christian America purged of unwanted populations, this authoritarian control threatens all Americans' civil rights. Its existence depends on coerced consent through racist propaganda, colonial violence inflicted by law enforcement and military forces, and corporate profit from human suffering. Despite ICE's attempts to coerce and terrorize, resistance continues:

• "No Tech for Apartheid" campaigns target corporate collaborators

• Worker-led movements refuse to build deportation infrastructure

• Legal challenges continue to document human rights violations

• Community defense networks protect immigrants from raids, particularly in cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, New Orleans, etc.

• Tribal Nations are providing protections for their citizens and refusing to comply with ICE"s blackmail tactics

• Citizens all over the country are carryout protests, rallies and know your rights events

As historian and activist Eran Efrati notes about ICE's training exchanges with Israeli forces: "Delegates meet with the Shin Bet and chief officers in Israeli military prisons to discuss investigation tactics... to learn about how Israel uses their collaboration in suppressing Palestinian dissent" (truthout.org). This exchange of genocidal techniques reveals ICE's true purpose: not immigration enforcement, but population control and ethnic management in service of white, christian supremacist visions.