Trump's Personal Army
The $170 billion weapon against dissent
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I jolted awake at 5 a.m. with a chilling realization.
ICE is Trump’s personal army, and it just got a $170 billion boost.
The Big Ugly Bill apportions more than $170 billion to ICE and border security.
This makes ICE more well-funded than any other U.S. law enforcement agency and richer than the entire military budget of all but 15 countries.
What will this money buy?
Vehicles. Drones. Weapons. Surveillance software. Detention facilities. Tactical gear. More agents. More raids. More power.
What concerns me most is that ICE is classified as law enforcement—not military.
For all its problems, the military has some limits.
It needs Congressional approval for some actions. Soldiers are subject to the U.S. Military Code of Justice. Many of them enlist out of a sense of duty and honor.
Not so with ICE.
Its mandate is vague and constantly shifting. It started with immigrants. But it can easily expand to include “rioters,” “dissenters,” “disloyal citizens.”
ICE is a paramilitary force with ultimate allegiance to the president. They take an oath to the Constitution. But under this regime, they don’t answer to it. Nor to the people.
It responds directly to executive authority.
For instance, the Posse Comitatus Act largely preventing the president from deploying the U.S. military as a domestic police force would not apply to ICE.
ICE is the president’s personal goon squad.
A private police force with the power to conduct raids, surveillance, arrests, and disappearances—all without military oversight or effective congressional restraint.
With $170 billion behind it, ICE can now be deployed not just against immigrants but against anyone who threatens the regime’s ideological, economic, or political grip.
Anyone could be a target for harassment, imprisonment, or disappearing.
ICE is the president’s personal army to carry out his authoritarian will.
Picture it.
Raids on residences in the middle of the night. Surveillance that monitors everyone everywhere for breaches of loyalty. Guns trained on and discharged toward protestors and resisters of all sorts.
With the appropriation of obscene levels of funding, the scenario escalates quickly.
Step 1: ICE conducts another public abduction.
Step 2: People fed up at the trauma of seeing their neighbors ripped off the street for no reason get loud and agitated.
Step 3: An immature, untrained, and trigger-eager ICE agent opens fire.
Step 4: An uprising ensues.
Step 5: The president imposes martial law.
Suddenly, the 2026 midterm elections—our so-called plan to rein in this regime—are suspended.
For “safety” reasons. For “national security.”
That’s what $170 billion of your tax dollars allocated to ICE actually buys.
I’m not predicting the future, I’m just reading the historical patterns.
When an authoritarian leader gets control of a militarized force that he can deploy with impunity, the situation does not get better. It gets rapidly worse.
What You Can Do
Secure a civil rights lawyer
If you are a vocal advocate or frontlines activist, be sure to have legal representation. Have their contact information at-the-ready.
Pack a go-bag
Include: copies of ID and passports, cash reserves, phone charger and battery pack, medications, basic toiletries, flash drive with key documents, change of clothes, water and non-perishable foods, etc.
Secure your digital presence
Enable two-factor identification, use encrypted messaging (e.g. Signal), use a VPN online, turn off facial recognition on your phone, turn off location sharing on apps
Identify your security pod
A small group of people—one legal, one logistical, one public communications—who can act immediately if you are detained or disappear.
I know this is heavy.
But if you’re committed to truth, justice, and democracy you can’t afford to be unprepared.
Authoritarianism escalates while people are still debating whether it’s really happening.
We are beyond debate. It’s time to act.
Pass this on to someone who’s standing for justice.
And make sure they’re standing safely.
I have been having this tightness in my chest as the realization of what you are telling us has come into my awareness. You are speaking truth, but it is so heavy. I am older, but my heart aches for the generations to come. This is all the result of years of denying the importance of being active in keeping our democracy alive. We have each other, and we are all in God's hands, but this will be a very hard road.
This IS HAPPENING now! Our country is a police state! Even the Speaker of the House turned his gavel over to the president! The Supreme Court is giving power to the president and giving up their power. Lord help US! Lord is leaving us to our own devices, as He did in Germany, as He did in Babylon... Wash, rinse, repeat. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion,"