The United States Department of Human Trafficking

ICE isn’t enforcing the law. It’s disappearing people. And the government is running it like a cartel.

There comes a point in every collapsing empire when the mask slips, the euphemisms dissolve, and the institutions meant to uphold the law start operating like the enforcers of a rogue state. That point arrived long ago for ICE, but this week it kicked into something even darker: the Department of Homeland Security has effectively rebranded itself, not in press releases, of course, but in practice as the United States Department of Human Trafficking.

What else do you call it when federal agents, wearing no identification and driving unmarked vehicles, fan out across the country to abduct people off the street without warrants, without due process, and often without cause?

This is not hyperbole. This is not some left-wing overreaction. This is documented, filmed, and witnessed. In Encinitas, California, a woman walking out of the gym tried to intervene as ICE agents bundled a man into a van. When she demanded a warrant, they told her she “wasn’t an interesting party.” When she asked to take down his phone number to call his family, they blocked her. One even tried to slap her phone away. The man vanished. His family may never know what happened.

The ICE officers were masked. They drove unmarked vehicles. They acted like cartel henchmen who went to a police surplus auction. When bystanders questioned them, they accused them of obstructing justice. Because in this America, asking questions about an abduction makes you the criminal.

In Oregon, ICE agents smashed the window of a man’s car in front of his child outside a daycare. That man, Dr. Madi Kbabazade, is a chiropractor. He is married to a U.S. citizen. He is a community pillar. None of that mattered. His baby screamed while officers dragged him out of the driver’s seat. They claimed he overstayed a visa. His wife says that’s false. But let’s entertain ICE’s version for a moment: since when does an expired visa justify a preschool smash-and-grab arrest in front of children?

In Sacramento, ICE agents tackled a U.S. citizen at Home Depot and tried to mace his wife. His brother is an active-duty Marine Corps officer. Doesn’t matter. He had brown skin, and they wanted him. When his wife screamed that he’s a citizen, the agent snapped, “Google me.” That’s the level of professionalism now required for federal law enforcement: a bruising ego and a burner phone.

These are not isolated incidents. This is the plan. ICE agents are kidnapping people in Alabama, Oregon, California, New York, and even in Manhattan’s federal immigration court plaza. People show up for their court hearings, complying with the law, and are immediately disappeared by agents lurking outside the building. The goal is fear. You can see it in the toddler who watched his father arrested at daycare. You can hear it in the voice of a woman pleading for her husband to be spared, only to be shoved back with pepper spray. You can feel it in the way ICE uses churches, schools, and courthouses as bait.

If this were happening in another country, we’d call it what it is: state-sponsored human trafficking. Disappearances. Detentions. Transport across jurisdictions. Zero transparency. Family separation. Total disregard for due process. All carried out by agents of the government with full knowledge and authorization from the Trump administration.

And let’s not forget the conditions after these abductions. Detention centers are overstuffed. One El Paso facility designed for 1,000 people is currently holding over 6,000. Showers? Rare. Clean clothes? Not likely. Congressional oversight? Blocked. ICE is also running covert detention sites in Manhattan, holding people for weeks in unsanitary conditions with no records, no legal access, no daylight. The only thing missing is a corporate sponsorship and a dystopian jingle.

It’s not just immigrants. It’s not just visa overstays. It’s not just “criminal aliens,” as Trump’s DHS so gleefully calls them. It’s your neighbor. Your patient. Your colleague. It’s a U.S. citizen whose skin tone offended a badge. It’s a doctor arrested while holding his baby’s hand. It’s a woman screaming, “That’s my husband!” while agents pepper spray her face and drag him into an unmarked vehicle.

And the response from the federal government? Silence. Or worse, deflection. They call this “interior enforcement.” They claim they’re protecting American sovereignty. But sovereignty is meaningless if you dismantle the Constitution to protect it. There is no freedom in a state where masked agents can kidnap citizens with impunity, then threaten their spouses and claim the authority to vanish the inconvenient.

So let’s stop calling this the Department of Homeland Security. That ship sailed. What we have now is the United States Department of Human Trafficking, a government-run operation that abducts, relocates, and conceals human beings with bureaucratic flair and fascist intent. They even have their own branding strategy, masks, black SUVs, buzzwords like “interference” and “obstruction”, all designed to make state violence look like national defense.

No law abiding society can survive this. No decent person should tolerate it. And no administration that allows it to happen should be trusted with power for a single day longer.

And if you think they won’t come for you, just wait until they do.