A Secret Police Force of Thugs Was Always the Plan

Inside the shadow army ICE has quietly built—and why Trump 2.0 just unleashed them on our streets.

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Who Are These Masked Thugs?

There’s widespread speculation that the thugs invading the streets of America are January sixers, or bounty hunters, possibly Proud Boys or other white supremacy group members. Those all track. Except I wasn’t able to find evidence pointing directly to any of those groups. What I did find, however, blew my mind. Which is why I’ve spent several days digging into these masked gunmen.

So let’s start with the most important fact: we don’t know exactly who they are. And that’s probably the point. No documentation, no name tags, no agency IDs. Just a swarm of masked men in tactical gear, hauling people off the streets, disappearing into unmarked vans like it’s a damn sequel to Pinochet’s Chile. The government isn’t telling us who they are. But here’s what we do know—and it’s enough to sound every alarm bell we’ve got.

This isn’t one agency. It’s a stitched-together Frankenstein of federal enforcement muscle: ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), border tactical units, the Federal Protective Service, and—potentially—deputized local cops and corrections officers under a shadowy program called 287(g). Think of it less like a clean military unit and more like a privatized task force assembled in the shadows of post-9/11 fear and Trump-era authoritarian fantasies. So secretive it doesn’t even come with an official name.

A Brief History of How This Frankenstein Task Force Was Born:

• Post-9/11 (2001–2002) DHS is born.

  • The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is created, merging 22 agencies.

  • ICE and CBP are formed under DHS, with immigration enforcement becoming a national security policy.

  • The Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders vastly expand federal power, including surveillance and extrajudicial detention.

👉Foundation laid for domestic militarization under the banner of “homeland security.”

• Obama (2009-2016) Attempt to rein it in.

  • Restrictions to jail settings.

  • Cuts to the most abusive partnerships.

• Trump 1.0 (2017–2021) Militarization goes public.

  • ICE and CBP budgets balloon. Trump lifts Obama-era restrictions on 287(g) task forces.

  • DHS launches Operation Palladium, a nationwide sweep using unmarked vans and masked agents, a retaliation strategy against cities that refused to cooperate with ICE (aka sanctuary cities). The operation aimed to ramp up street-level arrests of undocumented immigrants—especially in places where local law enforcement didn’t routinely turn people over to ICE.

  • Portland 2020: Trump sends masked, unidentified federal agents (FPS, CBP, ICE) to suppress protesters.

  • Public outrage, lawsuits, and new bills follow—but no one is held accountable.

👉The real birth of “secret police” tactics in the open. A prototype that is tested—and normalized.

• Biden era (2021–2024) Rollback + quiet retention.

  • Biden ends task-force 287(g) agreements and limits ICE street arrests.

  • Public-facing policy softens, but the infrastructure remains. ICE’s budget hits $8.4B in 2023—barely a cut.

  • Contractor usage continues quietly. HSI and FPS maintain tactical capabilities.

👉The scaffolding stays. The guns and balaclavas just go back in the closet.

• Trump 2.0 (2025–Now)

  The masked force reactivates—fast.

  • Within weeks of taking office, Trump signs EOs to restore and expand 287(g) task force models.

  • ICE resumes unmarked van sweeps in cities like LA, Phoenix, and Atlanta.

  • New multi-agency enforcement units emerge. Some agents seen in tactical gear refuse to ID themselves.

  • Civil rights groups and lawmakers allege they’re using “federalized mercenaries” or deputized locals.

  • No clear agency takes credit—classic plausible deniability.

👉What was tested in Portland is now nationalized. Trump calls it “restoring order.” We call it a federally-funded cosplay kidnapping.

This is the moment they’ve been waiting for. The infrastructure was built quietly over years—agency by agency, MOU by MOU. All it took was the green light from the top. With a single order, they reactivated a massive enforcement web with overlapping jurisdictions and zero transparency. These aren’t just ICE agents anymore. They’re anyone the administration deems “helpful”: federal contractors, HSI operatives, Border Patrol tactical teams, maybe even National Guard units. And if they are deputizing corrections officers again? There’s no public record of who or where.

Numbers sourced from official DHS staffing data, ICE reports, and federal budget documents.

The current reports of simultaneous raids in major cities, often at dawn or during protests, require hundreds to low-thousands of field-ready agents per wave—well within this capacity. Especially when they rotate agents across regions, re-activate 287(g) cops and partner with contractors for logistics, surveillance, or transport. This force was built to create a presence that escalates city by city.

Why the secrecy? Why the masks?

Because anonymity is a feature, not a bug. If you can’t name the agency, you can’t file a complaint. If you don’t know who grabbed you, you can’t sue. If no badge number exists, no oversight applies. It’s plausible deniability in tactical gear. The goal is intimidation without accountability—just enough fear to suppress dissent and make resistance feel futile.

But it’s not. People are pushing back. California lawmakers just introduced the No Secret Police Act, which would ban law enforcement from covering their faces during operations and require agencies to clearly identify themselves. Civil rights groups are demanding full transparency, FOIAing everything that moves, and preparing lawsuits against ICE and DHS for constitutional violations. Some city councils are even considering withdrawing from 287(g) agreements entirely.

We may not have the names of these masked thugs yet—but we sure as hell can name the system that birthed them. And if we want to stop this before it becomes the new normal, we better fight like hell to shut it down.

I created a separate CTA post with suggestions for both bringing these thugs into the spotlight and staying safe while protecting our neighbors. Check it out here.

Keep up the resistance,

Rosie

🔥 What do you think of these thugs? Drop your thoughts in the comments. 👇

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