Inside the Dystopia: When USCIS Becomes ICE, and ICE Hides Behind Masks
A demoralized USCIS and masked ICE agents define Trump 2.0’s war on immigrants.
WASHINGTON — USCIS was supposed to be the agency you turned to for green cards, work permits, and citizenship. A help desk, not a police force. But under Trump 2.0, the “help” is disappearing.
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Morale has cratered. Thousands of officers have left. The union was busted. Telework ended. The people left behind are jammed into conference rooms with laptops, told to grind through cases and dig for reasons to deny. Automation that once sped things up? Switched off in the name of “enhanced vetting.”
The result: delays, denials, and confusion. An agency meant to give immigrants a fair shot is being drafted into ICE’s deportation machine.
Meanwhile, ICE itself is going faceless. Literally. Agents in raids and arrests are now masked. ICE insists it’s for safety, but critics see something darker: a symbol of unaccountable force. And activists aren’t taking it lying down.
Enter AI. As POLITICO reported, a Netherlands-based activist has been using artificial intelligence to “unmask” ICE agents by reconstructing their faces from raid footage and matching them to social media profiles. It’s called accountability, but now Congress is now split: Republicans pushing bills to criminalize doxxing, Democrats introducing bills to force ICE to identify themselves.
Both fights tell the same story: a system that makes it harder for immigrants to come “the right way” while making the enforcers less accountable to the public.
The office meant to approve your paperwork is acting like ICE. The ICE officer at your door hides behind a mask. And now activists are fighting surveillance with surveillance — using AI to peel back the masks the government insists must stay on.
It all adds up to this: an immigration system that’s less fair, less transparent, and more hostile to the people caught inside it.
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They never wanted people to be able to come "the right way."
Thank you for your reporting - it is so easy for stories like this to go under-reported with all the circus going on out there