ICE And The Absence Of Accountability

Earlier this month, at the notorious state-run immigration detention facility in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by state officials, there was another incident. The facility has an overwhelmingly negative reputation, with reports of inhumane conditions. DHS has denied those reports, calling them “hoaxes.” But in early April, attorneys told a federal judge that after prisoners protested over being denied cell phones access, guards pepper-sprayed detainees and beat them. One man detained in the facility, Raiko Lopez Morffi, was thrown to the ground and “severely beaten,” his lawyers said. They submitted pictures of the black eye he suffered to the court for consideration.

It’s hard to buy DHS’s claim that conditions in the facility are on the constitutional up-and-up, given that it’s called Alligator Alcatraz in the first place. President Trump made “jokes” about prisoners having to run for their lives from the alligators who surround them, ahead of a visit last July. The whole concept is meant to dehumanize and mistreat people, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when that’s precisely what happens.

With this administration, especially with ICE, the horribles come so fast and furious that it becomes important to take a step back and look at the entire landscape, not just the most recent event. Tonight is a good night for doing that. Earlier this evening, Trump’s new DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin, announced that acting ICE director Todd Lyons will resign at the end of May. Lyons said he wants to spend more time with his family. “We wish him luck on his next opportunity in the private sector,” Mullin said. Just two months ago, Lyons insisted in a House oversight hearing that he would not resign. But he’s been hospitalized twice for stress-related symptoms during his one year on the job. ICE has shot and killed at least two American citizens on his watch.

Lyons’ departure is one more step toward whitewashing ICE’s illegal conduct during this administration. Greg Bovino, who strode the streets of Minneapolis in his trench coat surrounded by heavily armed men who looked more like thugs than federal agents, is gone. He, too, retired from the agency. ICE is (supposedly) out of Minneapolis, and out of Maine. Protests and mayhem are no longer front-page news. But that doesn’t mean ICE has somehow been magically reformed.

ICE has grown dramatically under Trump. Ten years ago, the agency had an annual budget that was less than $6 billion, making it one of the smaller agencies at DHS. In just one year under Trump, it has become the federal law enforcement agency with the biggest budget at $85 billion. That includes not just DHS law enforcement agencies, but all of them, including the ones within the Justice Department, including the FBI, whose budget request for 2026 was just over $10 billion. The Brennan Center’s Lauren-Brooke Eisen put those numbers in context: ICE is now funded at a level “larger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.” What precisely is Trump building there?

Today, there were reports that 85-year-old Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, a French citizen who moved here to marry a man she first met during World War II, had been detained by ICE. After he died, ICE detained her for overstaying her visa, instead of having her fill out the correct paperwork, which would have entitled her to stay in the country. Her children, back in France, are concerned about her health. And there is a sordid tale in The New York Times about an ex-law enforcement agent’s stepson, now working security in a federal court in Alabama, who may have been involved in her detention, which came in the middle of an inheritance fight. That’s the kind of thing our $85 billion is getting us.

But ICE is busy whitewashing the worst of what is taking place. For instance, it no longer provides a detailed report to the public when an immigrant dies in its custody. That’s especially alarming when you consider that ICE has just had the 16th death of a detained immigrant in 2026, barely four months into the year. During 2024, the last year before Trump returned to office, 11 people died in immigration detention during the entire year. Last year, there were 33 deaths, which is the highest number in over 20 years.

Up until late 2025, a three-page report detailing each death in custody was made public. But NBC wrote earlier this week that “those reports have been cut to four-paragraph summaries.” The three-page reports “included detailed timelines, with timestamps of medical observations, regular medications, emergency medications administered and the times and causes of death.” The new version is “a brief synopsis of the circumstances that led up to the death.” That’s what happened when Geraldo Lunas Campos died at Fort Bliss. ICE said he’d tried to take his own life. Agents tried to intervene, but he responded violently and didn’t survive. That story could have passed muster, but after an independent examination, the county coroner ruled Campos’ death a homicide, determining he died from “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

That’s just one of many examples, and that’s part of the problem now. Almost every day, there is still a new story about ICE. But events are no longer unfolding in front of us on American streets. They’re happening behind bars where summary reports can gloss over the truth. They happen where news cameras aren’t, as American attention is focused on war in the Middle East and rising costs at home.

Last October, I wrote about ICE and asked whether we were the Nazis now. That was before Minneapolis. What had stopped me cold was a middle-of-the-night raid on a Chicago apartment building. DHS officers rappelled from a Blackhawk helicopter in front of videographers DHS had brought to the raid. People were pulled out of bed and into the cold in their pajamas or in varying states of undress, kids and parents, many of them, immigrants and American citizens, zip-tied like cattle, not human beings.

It was impossible to avoid the comparison.

At the time, the Trump administration claimed the apartment was home to members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. But they offered no proof. I wrote:

Recently, ProPublica reported on the real story behind the raid. They saw documents that reflected the real purpose of the raid, targeting alleged squatters, and with the landlord’s blessing. Black Hawk helicopters. Zipties. Squatters. More lies about taking violent criminals off of our streets. Speaking of lies, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed publicly that every man in Alligator Alcatraz had a final order of removal. But that wasn’t true; less than a third of them did. Only one-in-four had any kind of criminal conviction, but many of those were traffic offenses, as opposed to DUI’s or hit-and-runs. Fewer than 22% of those who entered the facility since July had a criminal conviction that was more serious than a traffic offense. They were all thrown into Alligator Alcatraz, including the one-third with no criminal history at all.

ICE continues to run amok, and there has been little, if any, accountability for it.

State authorities are beginning to try. In Minnesota, ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., has been charged based on video evidence and eyewitness testimony that he pointed a gun at two people in a car as he attempted to pass them in an unmarked vehicle on the shoulder of a highway. State prosecution of federal agents is fraught. The agent can seek permission to “remove” the case from state court to federal court, and that permission is typically granted. Given the unprecedented situation with ICE in Minneapolis, whether the usual rules apply here will be up to the federal judge assigned to the case when it’s removed. Federal agents have broad immunity, which applies when they are doing their jobs as they have been trained to do them. Morgan will say that’s what he was doing. He told state investigators that he “feared for his safety and the safety of others” after a vehicle swerved in front of him and “cut him off.” But the motorists were able to provide video and other evidence. They told investigators they had no idea Morgan was a federal law enforcement agent; they just saw “a crazy person driving down the road aiming guns at people,” and they called 911. The agent and his partner did not report the incident to their supervisors.

Prosecutors in Minneapolis are also investigating other cases, although they haven’t brought charges yet. We’ve discussed several of them, including the case of Julio C. Sosa-Celis, who agents lied about, claiming he attacked them, until video evidence emerged showing an unprovoked shooting. Then there’s the older American citizen, ChongLy Scott Thao, who was ordered out of his home in freezing cold weather in only his underwear and a pair of crocs. Agents finally realized they’d arrested the wrong man and returned him home without so much as an apology. Both are fortunate—they are still alive.

If state prosecutors bring these or other additional cases, they’ll still face the same procedural hurdles as in the Morgan case. Whether the risk of prosecution will act as some restraint on ICE agents remains to be seen.

In Maine, ICE brazenly called their operation “catch of the day.” The banal inhumanity of it all is overwhelming when we step back to look at the big picture. The deaths, the injuries, the conditions in detention, the brazen disregard for people’s rights, including American citizens. Even with other stories on the front burner, we can’t afford to forget. Because it’s still happening. And ICE has the budget to keep doing it.

If you’ve been meaning to subscribe, this is your moment. The pace of the news isn’t slowing down, and the window to understand what’s happening before it hardens into narrative keeps getting shorter. Civil Discourse gives you the law, the documents, the context, and the analysis, so you can make up your own mind. Your support for Civil Discourse is support for real time civics education. Thank you for being here with me.

We’re in this together,

Joyce