Trump’s second term isn’t a repeat of the first. It’s an expansion of power that moves quietly while the noise of rallies and courtrooms fills the air. Beneath that noise, a new kind of federal force is taking shape — one that operates without oversight, without public transparency, and without restraint.
According to ProPublica, Trump’s DHS appointees have “dismantled civil rights guardrails, protected agents’ anonymity and encouraged them to wear masks, threatened groups that stood in their way, and overwhelmed legal challenges to their arrests and tactics.” That is how secret policing begins — not with a law, but with a decision to remove limits.
“Under President Donald Trump’s deportation mission, ICE officers are using force to detain and jail immigrants… The administration gutted guardrails and offices meant to rein in abusive actions.” The same report shows how the machinery of enforcement has been retooled to act faster and answer fewer questions.
This is not only about immigration. It is about what happens when a president turns federal agents loose in American cities and then threatens to send troops into San Francisco. Archive link.
In California, Marines fired live artillery over a public interstate. A patrol vehicle was struck by shrapnel. NBC News confirmed the event. The boundary between military training and civilian safety is being erased piece by piece.
In Los Angeles, a curfew imposed under vague claims of public safety has gutted restaurants across downtown. Some report losses as high as 80%. SFGate described business owners who say they were blindsided by the order and still waiting for relief.
The reach of enforcement is spreading through the system itself. ProPublica found that the IRS is building a network that allows ICE to access taxpayer records and home addresses “on demand.” Police departments are also being deputized under ICE’s 287(g) program, turning minor traffic stops into immigration raids.
Inside DHS, the last internal safeguard is gone. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has been shut down, freezing more than 600 active cases. ProPublica reports that the closure removed the only mechanism capable of investigating abuse from within.