Stephen Miller’s January 2026 announcement to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials – telling them that they’ve “immunity to perform your duties” and that no “illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist” can prevent them – would possibly appear to be an excessive observation out of doors the political mainstream.
And when ICE brokers use facial reputation device to watch immigrants and protesters, that would possibly appear to be an unacceptable invasion of other people’s privateness.
Whilst excessive, those instances aren’t too surprising. Each Miller’s statements and ICE’s tracking prolong from the framework of immigration enforcement that grew from the 9-11, 2001, terrorist assaults.
Immigration enforcement used to be reorganized and reframed after 9/11, specifically in the course of the introduction of ICE and the Division of Native land Safety.
As a student of immigration within the U.S., I in finding that the expansion of maximum immigration enforcement, each on the border and around the nation, effects from this modification 25 years in the past.
From criminal activity to terrorism
In November 2002, the Native land Safety Act created DHS. The founding of ICE adopted a couple of months later. Because the company notes, it used to be a part of “the single-largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense.” Immigration enforcement used to be folded into a countrywide safety precedence whose number one function used to be to shield “homeland security.”
The perception of immigrants as doable criminals used to be fashionable smartly earlier than the introduction DHS.
In 1996, for instance, President Invoice Clinton signed the Unlawful Immigration Reform and Immigration Accountability Act. That legislation expanded the collection of offenses that would lead to computerized deportation, together with of prison citizens. The act additionally restricted judicial evaluate of deportation instances, whilst the very name of the legislation framed other people within the U.S. with out prison standing as lawbreaking criminals.
However after 9/11, the relationship between immigration and legislation enforcement intensified and took on a brand new measurement: counterterrorism. Immigration used to be now not handled as a civil factor through which immigrants had been deported if discovered thru a civil courtroom to have violated the legislation.
As an alternative, immigrants had been evaluated as conceivable threats to the rustic.
Demonstrators protest the Nationwide Safety Access-Go out Registration Device program in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12, 2016.
Samuel Corum/Anadolu Company by the use of Getty Photographs
Immigration trials, reminiscent of for overstaying visas, more and more happened in closed hearings, with the federal government’s secret proof now not shared with the accused. The ones arrested for crossing the border illegally had been imprisoned and confronted [criminal prosecutions]. Expedited deportations happened on the border and around the nation, even for immigrants who have been within the U.S. for years.
Additional federal authorities practices attached immigrants to terrorism. The Nationwide Safety Access-Go out Registration Device or NSEERS, offered in 2002, required immigrant males from 25 international locations – virtually totally within the Heart East, South Asia and North Africa – to sign in with the government after already dwelling within the nation. It used to be framed as an effort to shield fatherland safety, and masses of people that had overstayed their visas for lower than a month had been detained.
United International locations human rights professionals later criticized NSEERS for racial and spiritual profiling. Of the roughly 80,000 other people registered, now not a unmarried terrorism prosecution resulted. About 14,000 had been positioned in deportation lawsuits for visa irregularities, none for terrorism-related task.
DHS suspended NSEERS in 2011, and it used to be terminated in 2016.
Courses realized from 9/11
If the aim of NSEERS used to be to spot terrorists, it failed.
But it surely succeeded in treating immigrants as doable terrorists. That connection has intensified since.
Federal authorities funding in facial reputation era grew considerably after 9/11 with bipartisan make stronger. The function used to be to spot conceivable terrorists in American airports and towns.
Federal brokers deploy tear gasoline in Minneapolis, Minn., on Jan. 14, 2026.
Madison Thorn/Anadolu by the use of Getty Photographs
Nowadays, facial reputation has turn into a not unusual tactic utilized by ICE officials to spot now not simply immigrants for doable detention but in addition citizen observers.
Moreover, privately owned detention facilities grew according to the mass arrests of immigrants. Remedy of immigrants at those facilities, in step with human rights advocates, has incorporated “abuse, solitary confinement, and medical neglect.” For years, ICE detention facilities were criticized for an identical prerequisites.
Systems like NSEERS produced worry and ended in what policymakers have known as self-deportation, the place immigrants voluntarily go away the U.S. Nowadays, self-deportation has turn into a government-endorsed program.
Analysis additionally displays that heightened immigration enforcement after 9/11 led many immigrants, even the ones with prison standing, to withdraw from public existence, warding off colleges, hospitals and paintings. ICE as of late produces the similar types of worry.
Going past technical reforms
The immigration enforcement reaction to 9/11 set the degree on which Miller’s language and the number of on a regular basis American citizens’ knowledge turn into viable.
Below this mind-set, if the fatherland is beneath risk, then those that problem immigration enforcement are “domestic terrorists.” Investigations into ICE officials are muted, for the officials are protective the fatherland towards existential threat. Serious ways to detain immigrants and condemn protesters turn into now not handiest permissible but in addition beneficial, in step with advocates.
In all probability technical reforms, reminiscent of requiring ICE brokers to make use of frame cameras or requiring ICE brokers to have judicial warrants earlier than coming into properties, would possibly prohibit some abuses.
However those measures don’t cope with the underlying premise since 9/11 that immigration has turn into basically seen as a countrywide safety risk.
