Ramos was then taken to a facility in Basile. Experts, including retired military officers specializing in immigration law, point out that previous administrations routinely allowed such individuals to complete the legalization process without detention. According to them, the current harsh treatment of family members of active-duty soldiers who themselves are preparing for foreign deployment is not only unprecedented, but can have an extremely negative effect on morale.
They should have beaten him with a shovel and a broom
The Louisiana case was a reminder of how coldly ICE agents can act. Some may have already forgotten about . It was already clear during them that ICE agents do not avoid direct physical conflicts and they are not hindered by lying to the public. At the beginning of the year, the government sent thousands of agents to Minnesota in response to the reluctance of the police there to fully cooperate with immigration authorities. This massive pressure eventually led to hundreds of arrests and several skirmishes, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of Reneé Good and Alex Pretti.
These two tragic deaths received worldwide media coverage. However, a little less known is the case of January 14, when the surveillance of two Venezuelan immigrants delivering food, 25-year-old Julio C. Sosa-Celis and 26-year-old Alfredo A. Aljorna, culminated in a shooting.
Federal authorities initially presented the incident as an unprovoked and brutal attack on their worker. The official version was that the two men beat him with a shovel and a broom for about three minutes after a car chase, which forced him to use a gun in self-defense and shoot Sosa-Celis in the leg.
Based on that testimony and press releases from the Department of Homeland Security, the men, who had previously lost Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which has been revoked across the board for Venezuelan citizens, were charged with the attempted murder of a federal officer and faced up to eight years in prison.
Camera footage showed something else
However, according to the latest findings of the diary, this description of events does not fit. On the basis of the Information Act, the newspaper obtained a recording from the city’s security camera. The video clearly showed that the entire confrontation lasted barely twelve seconds. Sosa-Celis threw the snow shovel before the actual physical conflict, and the footage does not show any prolonged attack.
In addition to the perjured testimony of the agents, analysts were also shocked by the fact that it took almost three weeks for federal prosecutors to even look at the tape, which was available to police hours after the shooting. Subsequently, the charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorn were quietly dropped and the agents were taken off duty. This incident, which came at the same time as the shooting of two American citizens, already caused a wave of unrest. However, after the publication of the evidence, he recently further undermined the already weakened trust in this institution.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup in the shadow of ICE
While ICE’s tactics are supposed to be mostly about the United States, they’re also becoming an international concern as summer approaches. The USA, together with Canada and Mexico, are preparing to host the World Cup in football. The Trump administration has already indicated that ICE agents will assist with security at the event.
The idea, in which security will be part of an organization associated with masked night raids, shootings and widespread deportations, immediately caused alarm not only in the world, but also in the remaining two organizing countries.
Canadian officials reacted quite forcefully. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow pushed a resolution through the city council rejecting the presence of ICE agents on Canadian soil during games. Although the agency has five established branches in Canada, its personnel there do not have standard police powers, do not carry weapons and are dedicated exclusively to transnational crime (for example, arms smuggling or rescuing victims of human trafficking).
However, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International warn that the mere visual presence of ICE in stadiums can have an intimidating effect on thousands of international fans and members of immigrant communities.
Democratic Save the World Cup Act
On the domestic front, Democratic representatives are pushing to sharply limit ICE’s reach during the tournament. A group of congressmen led by Nellie Pou of New Jersey, where the final game will be played at MetLife Stadium, among other things, introduced a package of three laws.
A key proposal called the “Save the World Cup Act” (translated as the Law on Saving the World Cup) to prohibit the use of federal funds for civilian immigration raids within one mile of stadiums and official fan zones for the duration of the championship. Other proposals aim at limiting their scope in public transport.
But ICE Interim Director Todd Lyons refused to give any assurances at a congressional hearing about suspending normal operations. At a time when American domestic politics are closely tied to geopolitical tensions (e.g. ongoing travel bans for fans from Senegal or Iran), the presence of ICE threatens to turn the anticipated sports holiday into a tense and polarized event.
Emergency deployment at airports
The reputation of the office and its agents was not helped either by their recent deployment at airports as a result of the government’s partial inactivity (the so-called government shutdown). The crisis, which has been ongoing since mid-February 2026 due to a congressional impasse, has left thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees without pay.
At the end of last week, more than 3,400 of his employees refused to go to work. At the airports in New Orleans and Atlanta, more than 40 percent of the security personnel were missing, which led to huge delays, overcrowded terminals and the collapse of the flow of transportation.
The administration found a quick but rather controversial solution in the ranks of ICE. Hundreds of agents were deployed to fourteen key US airports, including hubs such as JFK in New York and George Bush Intercontinental in Houston.
While the Office of Homeland Security defended this move as a necessary “force multiplier” – according to it, ICE agents were only meant to control the crowd and relieve TSA workers, the president himself definitely did not calm the situation with his statements.
At a meeting with journalists, the president admitted that he personally sees airports as “very fertile ground” for the arrest of persons entering the country without legal status. This has drawn sharp criticism from organizations for the protection of human rights and civil liberties.
For example, NAACP leaders argue that immigration agents are primarily trained to search for suspicious persons, and there is a huge risk of racially profiling passengers based solely on their appearance or accent in the chaos of crowded airports.
The current form of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations in 2026 is characterized by an uncompromising exercise of power. From the point of view of the administration, it is about fulfilling pre-election promises and protecting security. But reality shows the real consequences of this approach – from imprisoned families of members of the armed forces, to false claims covering up police brutality, to damaging diplomatic relations.
Further development will thus depend not only on legislative restrictions and court decisions, but especially on society’s tolerance towards the increasingly significant influence of this agency and its agents into everyday life.
