Part 2: Inside the Surge - Who Are the 12,000 New ICE Agents?

A Four-Part Investigation into Immigration Enforcement, Authoritarian Tactics, and the Targeting of Women's Voices

This is Part 2 of a four-part series examining patterns of force against U.S. citizen women by federal immigration agents, the demographics and culture of rapidly expanded enforcement agencies, historical parallels to authoritarian suppression of women's political participation, and the synthesis of these concerning trends.

Author's Note:

I am an Army veteran who has worked with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an Air Force civilian while serving at NORAD/USNORTHCOM. I am an Independent voter and advocate for ending the two-party system. I support legal immigration and the rule of law. The rule of law includes the constitutional rights to free speech, peaceful assembly, and protest—rights that apply equally to all U.S. citizens regardless of the current policies they support or oppose. This investigation examines documented patterns of force against U.S. citizen women engaged in constitutionally protected activities, based on extensive reporting from multiple independent sources, court records, and official statements. My professional experience informs my analysis while my commitment to constitutional principles motivates this investigation.

The Unprecedented Expansion

In 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement accomplished something unprecedented in American law enforcement history: it more than doubled its workforce in just four months. ICE grew from 10,000 agents to 22,000 agents—a 120% increase that dwarfs any previous federal hiring surge. Training was slashed from six months to six weeks. The agency offered $50,000 signing bonuses. More than 220,000 people applied. And 12,000 were hired and deployed to American streets.

Part 1 of this series documented what some of these agents have done to American women. Now we examine who they are, how they were trained, and what culture they bring with them. Because understanding the force helps explain the pattern of violence.

Jonathan Ross

A Case Study: The Man Who Killed Renee Good

Before examining ICE agents as a group, consider one agent in particular: Jonathan Ross, the 43-year-old who shot Renee Nicole Good in the face on January 7, 2026.

Ross's career trajectory reads like a blueprint for the modern ICE agent. He deployed to Iraq in 2004-2005, operating machine guns on patrol trucks. He joined Border Patrol in 2007, then moved to ICE in 2015, assigned to "fugitive operations" targeting what he called "higher value targets." He became a firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, field intelligence officer, SWAT team member, and part of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

In December 2025 testimony, he described his role: "I develop the targets, create a target package, surveillance, and then develop a plan to execute the arrest warrant." This is a man trained to view human beings as "targets" requiring "execution plans."

Neighbors and family describe him as a "hardcore conservative Christian and MAGA supporter" who flew pro-Trump flags and appeared to defend the Proud Boys on social media.

Seven months before killing Renee Good, Ross was dragged 300 feet alongside a fleeing vehicle during an arrest attempt. He required 33 stitches. Vice President JD Vance later defended Ross's shooting of Good by asking: "You think maybe he's a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him?"

Ross testified that he has performed "hundreds of vehicle stops" and often encounters people who "act like they're confused" about whether he's actually law enforcement. After being dragged by one vehicle, he encountered another woman in a vehicle. Within seconds of her beginning to drive forward—away from him, according to witnesses—he shot her in the face.

Ross is not an aberration. This is who ICE hired, trained, promoted to SWAT, and deployed to Minneapolis. And when he killed an American citizen, the Vice President defended him.

The Demographics of Force

The numbers tell a story ICE doesn't want told. Across the agency overall, 62% of employees are male and 38% female—a gender split that might seem reasonably balanced for law enforcement. But those aggregate figures mask a stark reality about who actually wears the badge and carries the gun.

In Enforcement and Removal Operations—the division conducting arrests and deportations, the agents in tactical gear making vehicle stops and executing warrants, the ones appearing in nearly every case documented in Part 1—only 13% are women. Which means 87% of ICE enforcement agents are men.

This isn't typical for federal law enforcement. The FBI is approximately 77% male. The Secret Service is about 70% male. Even Border Patrol, long criticized for its gender imbalance, has made incremental progress in recruitment. But ICE's enforcement division has remained stubbornly, overwhelmingly male—the most gender-imbalanced federal law enforcement force in America.

The 38% of female ICE employees work primarily as attorneys in the Office of Principal Legal Advisor, intelligence analysts, management staff, and administrative personnel. Some work in Homeland Security Investigations, which focuses on transnational crime rather than immigration enforcement. But the women analyzing data and arguing legal cases aren't the ones on Minneapolis streets shooting Renee Good or ramming Dayanne Figueroa's car in Chicago.

When we document male ICE agents shooting, dragging, and detaining U.S. citizen women, we're talking about a division that is 87% male—the single most gender-imbalanced federal law enforcement force in America.

The racial and ethnic composition adds complexity. According to 2025 data, 24% of ICE agents are Hispanic or Latino—significantly higher than both the general U.S. population (18%) and federal workforce (8%). Research by Dr. David Cortez of Notre Dame found that Latino agents join primarily for economic reasons: federal law enforcement offers stable employment with good pay in economically depressed border regions. One Latino ICE agent told Dr. Cortez: "I am aware that I might be on the wrong side of history, but the money was too good to quit."

Their presence doesn't prevent racial profiling or excessive force. In Part 1, multiple victims were Latina: Marimar Martinez shot seven times, Dayanne Figueroa dragged through the street. ICE has not released 2025 demographics for the 12,000 new hires—itself a telling silence. Based on historical patterns and recruitment targeting (UFC fights, NASCAR events, gun enthusiasts), estimates suggest the new force is roughly 55-65% white, 15-20% Latino, 10-15% Black.

Combining gender and race data suggests white men comprise approximately 40-45% of ICE enforcement agents—the single largest demographic group with guns and badges on American streets. Jonathan Ross fits this profile exactly.

The victims in Part 1 reveal another pattern: women of color experienced the most extreme violence—shot, car-rammed, dragged. White women faced detention and property confiscation. All experienced constitutional violations, but the level of physical violence appears correlated with race and ethnicity.

The 2025 Transformation

The 12,000 agents hired in 2025 represent something different. Training dropped from six months to six weeks—barely enough time to cover constitutional law, de-escalation tactics, or use of force protocols. Standards were lowered across the board. Some recruits couldn't run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes or do 15 push-ups. Internal emails described some as "athletically allergic." Some failed immigration law and Fourth Amendment tests.

The vetting process changed dramatically. According to CNN and PBS, there are no longer interviews. The agency conducts provisional clearances with promises of fuller background checks "down the line." Officers virtually swear in new hires. Some recruits who advanced to training had pending gun charges; one had been charged with domestic violence-related robbery and battery. Two hundred recruits were eventually dismissed, but the question remains: how many unqualified agents made it through?

The $100 million recruitment campaign targeted specific demographics. According to The Washington Post, ICE focused on UFC fights, patriotic podcasts, gun rights advocates, and tactical gear enthusiasts. The messaging featured "Homeland Defenders" imagery and medieval knights, emphasizing "patriotic Americans" defending against "murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists."

Consider who applies for such work during intense controversy over immigration enforcement. Who responds to "Homeland Defenders" messaging at UFC events? Former ICE director John Sandweg noted the "tremendous concern" that "the administration is going after individuals who harbor some animus towards immigrants."

The 220,000 people who applied are now on America's streets with guns, badges, and six weeks of training.

The Gaming Culture Connection

ICE's 2025 recruitment borrowed from the military's gaming playbook. The U.S. Army invested $12 million in "America's Army," a free online game that became extraordinarily successful: a 2008 MIT study found it had more impact on recruits than all other Army advertising combined. Thirty percent of Americans age 16-24 developed a more positive impression of the Army because of the game.

But research reveals troubling connections. The American Psychological Association's 2017 Task Force found that extended violent game use linked to increased aggression, decreased empathy, and desensitization to real-life violence. A 2012 brain scan study confirmed measurable neurological changes.

The critical problem: video games eliminate consequences. As one Special Forces soldier told the Brookings Institution: "You lose an avatar; just reboot the game. In real life, you lose your guy; you've lost your guy."

Author Anthony Swofford, embedded with soldiers in Iraq, documented the gap between gaming and reality: "When they actually shot people, especially innocent people, and were confronted with this, I saw guys break down. The violence in games hadn't prepared them for this."

Those soldiers had months of military training. ICE agents get six weeks, recruited through gaming-style "Homeland Defenders" imagery depicting medieval knights battling invaders. Former officials noted the advertisements' "video game style" quality—immersive fantasy rather than constitutional law enforcement.

When ICE recruits from gaming culture and frames enforcement as heroic combat, agents approach encounters with first-person shooter mentality. Research shows ISIS and far-right extremists use similar gaming-based recruitment, recognizing that violent game culture creates pathways to extreme ideologies.

When Jonathan Ross performed his "hundreds of vehicle stops" encountering "confused" people, was he developing communication skills? Or rehearsing threat-identification and rapid-response patterns? When he shot Renee Good as her vehicle moved away, was he responding as a constitutional officer or an operator trained to eliminate threats?

Six weeks can't undo gaming culture conditioning, especially when recruitment messaging reinforces it. Those six weeks simply give someone a gun, a badge, and federal authority to act on instincts that treat moving vehicles as immediate lethal threats.

The Sexual Violence Inside

While Part 1 documented ICE agents' violence against U.S. citizen women on American streets, an equally disturbing pattern exists inside ICE facilities—one that reveals the culture these agents bring to their street operations.

Between 2015 and 2021, 308 sexual assault and sexual abuse complaints were filed by immigrants detained in ICE facilities nationwide, according to data obtained by Futuro Investigates through public records requests. The number represents only reported cases—the actual scale of abuse is almost certainly larger, given the barriers to reporting faced by detained immigrants who fear retaliation and deportation.

More than half of all abuse allegations were directed against staff—not other detainees, but ICE employees, detention officers, and contractors who held positions of authority over people in their care. At least five complaints explicitly alleged that ICE employees threatened victims with deportation if they reported abuse. The pattern reveals a systematic problem: the people charged with protecting detained immigrants are instead preying on them.

The cases are harrowing in their detail and consistency. At Louisiana's South Louisiana ICE Detention Center in Basile, four people filed complaints in September 2025 detailing years of abuse. The Assistant Warden had stalked one woman for months, making increasingly aggressive sexual comments before escalating to physical assault. From February to May 2024, according to the federal civil rights complaint filed by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the ACLU of Louisiana, he regularly forced her to perform oral sex. The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, is a mother in her thirties who suffers from epilepsy—a condition that made her particularly vulnerable when staff also denied her seizure medication.

When people resisted or reported abuse at Basile, they faced immediate retaliation. Solitary confinement became the standard response to complaints. The message was clear: speak up about abuse and face isolation, denial of medical care, and the threat of indefinite detention. The complaints also documented coerced labor, with detained people forced to work under threat of punishment while recovering from abuse.

At California's Golden State Annex ICE facility, operated by private contractor GEO Group, a federal civil rights complaint filed by the Asian Law Caucus detailed a culture where sexual abuse had become routine. Staff members coerced detained people into sexual acts, conducted sexually intrusive patdowns as retaliation, and created an environment where reporting abuse led to further victimization rather than protection.

One detail from the Golden State complaint captures the systematic nature of the abuse: a high-ranking GEO Group staff member demanding sexual favors from detained people, asking explicitly "do you want to suck my dick?" in exchange for approving placement requests. This wasn't a lapse in judgment by one individual. This was someone in a position of authority using that power to extract sexual compliance from people who had no avenue for resistance or escape.

When a hunger striker known in court documents as Mr. F reported multiple incidents of sexual harassment, he discovered the depth of the complicity. The officer who had been harassing him got angry with another staff member who confirmed Mr. F's account, saying "you're supposed to look out for me." The comment revealed everything: a culture where staff protected each other rather than the people in their care, where reporting abuse meant confronting not one perpetrator but an entire system designed to shield abusers from accountability.

Florida's Baker County Detention Center has a documented history stretching back years. In November 2024, a whistleblower who had worked as a medical practitioner at Baker came forward with evidence of systematic neglect and abuse. The whistleblower's disclosure, provided to the Government Accountability Project, documented staff denying basic medical care, falsifying records to cover their tracks, and subjecting detained individuals to racial and sexual harassment.

The disclosure corroborated a civil rights complaint filed by the ACLU of Florida and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights detailing the abuse of a young woman named Ana. A survivor of trafficking and domestic violence, Ana arrived at Baker in May 2023 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, and clinical anxiety. She spoke no English. When she asked for feminine hygiene products, officers yelled at her and took her to solitary confinement for not complying with English commands she couldn't understand.

During a mental health crisis, male guards forcibly strapped Ana to a restraint chair, stripped her, and mocked her as she sat naked and restrained. The ACLU complaint notes that this occurred at a facility where, in 2022, multiple cases had already been documented of officers photographing female immigrants in their undergarments and watching women shower and change clothes. Earlier in 2024, the Department of Homeland Security had confirmed egregious conditions issues at Baker, including abuse by facility staff. Nothing changed.

At the El Paso ICE Detention Center in Texas, guards operated with the confidence of people who knew they wouldn't face consequences. According to a 2021 complaint filed by Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, guards systematically assaulted at least three women in what the complaint characterized as a "pattern and practice" of abuse. The guards had mapped out the facility's blind spots—areas not covered by security cameras—and conducted their assaults there. When victims tried to report, guards told them explicitly that no one would believe them because footage didn't exist.

One Salvadoran woman detained at El Paso reported that a guard offered to provide clean uniforms and soap if she would "fool around" with him. He told her he would pay her "a lot of money" to meet him for sex in a camera-blind spot. Two other officers also repeatedly targeted her. Even after she was released from detention, one officer continued sending messages to her through other women, demonstrating that the abuse didn't end with release—it followed victims beyond the facility walls.

Linda Corchado, director of legal services for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, described the impact on victims: "She was that disturbed by what was happening. It's awful to think how disposable these women are." The comment captures a essential truth: detained women are treated as disposable precisely because their vulnerability makes abuse possible. Many will be deported, making it even less likely their abusers will face consequences.

The scale extends beyond individual facilities. Between 2010 and 2017, migrant women filed more than 1,224 complaints of sexual assault by ICE officials with the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Justice's National Prison Rape Elimination Commission found that immigrant women in detention are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse—a finding that should have triggered systematic reform but instead appears to have been ignored.

In 2024, the Department of Justice brought a case against government contractor Southwest Key Programs citing over 100 cases of documented sexual assault across its 29 facilities. The victims included children as young as five years old. The case revealed that the abuse wasn't confined to adult detention—even unaccompanied children in government custody faced systematic sexual violence from the people supposed to protect them.

And then, on March 21, 2025, the Trump administration made a decision that would eliminate the primary avenue for reporting and investigating this abuse. DHS announced it was effectively closing three crucial oversight offices: the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), and the USCIS Ombudsman. The DHS spokesperson's explanation was telling: "These offices have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS' mission."

The framing revealed the administration's priorities. Offices tasked with investigating sexual assault complaints, ensuring compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, preventing systemic abuse, and protecting detained people's human rights were characterized not as essential oversight but as obstruction. The "bureaucratic hurdles" being eliminated were the mechanisms that allowed victims to report abuse and seek accountability.

Without these offices, migrants and their lawyers have essentially no avenue to report sexual assault or violence by federal immigration officials. The Women's Refugee Commission noted in an April 2025 analysis that CRCL and OIDO were responsible for preventing and responding to abuse committed by immigration officials and their contractors. They received complaints, investigated individual and systemic abuse, and implemented policies to prevent further harm. They ensured that civil rights laws like PREA were actually enforced in detention facilities.

The elimination of oversight came precisely as the administration accelerated attempts to arrest, detain, and deport people—including some with legal status and even U.S. citizenship—to detention sites with seemingly no internal government oversight, safeguards, or controls.

The pattern of retaliation for reporting became even clearer after the oversight elimination. In October 2025, Silvia Reyna Mendoza, a mother of eight who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 40 years, was detained by ICE in California. Her family believes the detention was direct retaliation for reporting sexual harassment by an ICE contractor.

According to court documents, Reyna Mendoza had reported a contractor named Ruiz to another specialist and supervisor in November 2024. The lawsuit claims the supervisor, Montserrat Esquivel, deleted the harasser's text messages and videos from Reyna Mendoza's phone—destroying evidence of abuse. The lawsuit states that Reyna Mendoza had already saved copies of some evidence, but BI Incorporated, the contracting company, never followed up on her complaint.

Instead, they began requiring her to wear an ankle monitor in March 2025. Six months later, in September, ICE detained her. Her children described the message as clear: report sexual harassment and face detention. Francisco Govea, her son, told reporters: "It's really hard when you're trying to speak up to the authorities of what's going on and they dismiss it. Who do you ask for help at that point?"

The sexual violence inside ICE facilities reveals the culture of the agency in ways that connect directly to the street-level violence documented in Part 1. In a heavily male organization where 87% of enforcement agents are men, power imbalances create conditions for systematic sexual abuse. When male staff can sexually abuse detained women with impunity, when reporting leads to retaliation rather than protection, when oversight is eliminated to remove "bureaucratic hurdles," this culture doesn't stay contained within detention facility walls.

The same agents who work in a system where male staff force women to perform oral sex, where guards tell victims "no one will believe you," where supervisors delete evidence and retaliate against women who report—these same agents walk out of facilities and onto American streets with six weeks of training and federal authority to detain, search, and use force against U.S. citizen women.

The sexual violence inside ICE facilities isn't separate from the violence against U.S. citizen women documented in Part 1. It's the same culture of male dominance and impunity. It's the same pattern of retaliation against women who resist or report. It's the same elimination of oversight and accountability. The only difference is location—inside detention facilities or on American streets. The pattern of violence against women remains consistent.

ICE Agents Detain a Protestor

The Training That Wasn't

Traditional ICE training lasted six months, covering comprehensive immigration law, extensive Fourth Amendment training on constitutional protections, de-escalation tactics, cultural competency, use of force continuum, and community policing principles. The curriculum was designed to transform recruits from civilians into federal law enforcement officers who understood not just how to use force, but when not to—and why constitutional limits exist.

Six-week training cannot adequately cover these areas. Based on reporting about recruits failing immigration law and Fourth Amendment tests, constitutional training appears catastrophically inadequate. These agents now make split-second decisions about whether they can stop someone (reasonable suspicion required), search someone (probable cause required), detain someone (arrest warrant or exigent circumstances required), or use force (proportional response to immediate threat required).

Without thorough grounding in constitutional limits, agents inevitably overreach their authority, violate Fourth Amendment rights, escalate unnecessarily, and make arrests without proper legal basis. Every failure appears in Part 1's cases: Sue Tincher arrested for standing on a public sidewalk, Berenice Garcia-Hernandez detained for photographing vehicles in public, the Santa Ana woman threatened with a gun for recording an agent.

Physical fitness standards matter because they correlate directly with an agent's ability to use non-lethal force, maintain confidence without immediately drawing weapons, sustain operations without excessive fatigue, and pursue suspects without resorting to vehicles as weapons. White House border czar Tom Homan acknowledged a "high fail rate" on physical standards. An internal email described recruits as "athletically allergic."

Agents who lack physical fitness are more likely to use vehicles aggressively—ramming Dayanne Figueroa's car—and draw weapons quickly—shooting Renee Good—rather than engage in physical restraint or foot pursuit. These recruits were deployed anyway, suggesting that meeting quota mattered more than meeting standards.

The vetting crisis compounds the training crisis. CNN and PBS documented cases requiring attention: no interviews conducted, provisional clearances issued, virtual swearing-in ceremonies, recruits with pending gun charges advancing to training, a DEA informant conditionally offered employment, someone charged with domestic violence-related crimes getting through initial screening.

Two hundred recruits were eventually dismissed, but they reached training facilities first, consuming time and resources. The real concern isn't documented failures—it's undetected ones. With rushed timelines, quota pressure, and reduced standards, statistical likelihood suggests hundreds of unqualified agents now operate on American streets.

The difference between six months and six weeks isn't just duration—it's philosophy. Six months instills constitutional values, community engagement principles, and tactical patience. Six weeks teaches compliance through force, views non-compliance as threat, and provides neither time nor curriculum for questioning when violence is appropriate.

When agents learn that force is the primary tool and that hesitation endangers them, they approach every encounter prepared to escalate. The "warrior mindset" promoted in shortened training creates agents who see threats everywhere, particularly when they operate in communities they've been told harbor "invaders," "criminals," and "terrorists."

January 6th

The January 6 Question

On the morning of January 20, 2025, President Trump's first day back in office, he granted blanket clemency to nearly 1,600 people convicted of or awaiting trial for offenses related to the January 6 Capitol attack. The scope was extraordinary: more than 600 had been convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers—the very profession many would now seek to join. Another 170 had used deadly weapons during the attack, including flagpoles wielded as spears, chemical sprays aimed at officers' faces, tasers deployed against police, and metal whips. The pardons included Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, whose 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy disappeared with a signature, and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, whose conviction for orchestrating one of the most serious domestic threats to American democracy evaporated instantly.

Two sources told The Atlantic that Trump made the decision at the "last minute," just days before the inauguration. One advisor reported Trump's final position: "Fuck it: Release 'em all." The language captures the casual dismissal of rule of law—these weren't careful deliberations about justice but impulsive grants of impunity to political allies.

Within hours, a question began circulating: Are pardoned insurrectionists now working for ICE? The concern wasn't paranoia—it was pattern recognition. ICE was hiring 12,000 agents in four months, offering $50,000 signing bonuses, recruiting from UFC fights and gun shows, lowering standards, shortening training, and implementing provisional background checks. The overlap between January 6 participant demographics and ICE recruitment targeting was substantial.

On April 30, 2025, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California proposed addressing this directly during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Her amendment language was simple: ICE funding "may not be used to hire any personnel who participated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol, even if such individual was pardoned for a crime associated with their participation in such insurrection and attack."

The vote was 15-17. Every Democrat voted yes. Every Republican voted no. Eight Republicans and four Democrats abstained. The vote established that there would be no legislative prohibition on hiring people who had violently attacked the Capitol, assaulted police officers attempting to protect Congress, or participated in attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power—even if those actions had resulted in federal convictions.

The implications extend beyond symbolism. The vote signal that attacking law enforcement officers to achieve political objectives would not disqualify someone from becoming a law enforcement officer. That using violence to resist democratic processes would not prevent someone from enforcing federal law. That pardoned crimes would be treated as if they never occurred, regardless of their nature or severity.

Senator Steve Cohen of Tennessee, alarmed by this outcome, wrote to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in November 2025. His letter sought straightforward answers: "Can you confirm that participation—whether charged, convicted, or pardoned—in the January 6 attack would render an applicant ineligible for employment as an ICE agent or officer? What policies or safeguards does ICE have in place to ensure that individuals who attacked law enforcement officers or attempted to undermine our democratic system cannot be hired into positions of federal law enforcement authority?"

Cohen emphasized what should be foundational: "Effective law enforcement depends on credibility, integrity, and adherence to constitutional obligations. Ensuring that ICE's workforce meets those basic standards is essential to its mission and to public trust." As of this writing, no public response has been issued. The silence itself constitutes answer—if DHS had robust policies preventing such hiring, announcing them would serve their interests.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has repeatedly stated that "any individual who desires to join ICE will undergo intense background investigations and security clearances—no exception." But what does background investigation reveal about pardoned convictions? Does it examine motivation for being at the Capitol? Does it assess whether attacking police suggests unsuitability for police work? Does it consider that someone willing to use violence against democratic processes might abuse authority?

A former assistant ICE director spoke more candidly to Slate. He was "very worried" that "Proud Boys and other insurrectionists and hoodlums" would be hired, and his reasoning was pragmatic: "What self-respecting person who wants a meaningful career in law enforcement would go to work [for Enforcement and Removal Operations] right now?" The implication was clear—if professional officers weren't applying in sufficient numbers, ICE would hire whoever responded. And recruitment messaging about "Homeland Defenders" battling "invaders" would naturally appeal to people who viewed January 6 as patriotic action rather than criminal attack.

While there is no confirmed, documented evidence that specific January 6 rioters have been hired as ICE agents, the interest from far-right groups is public and documented. According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which monitors extremist activity on platforms like Telegram, the response from Proud Boys chapters was immediate and enthusiastic.

The Toledo, Ohio chapter posted: "Toledo Boys living high on the hog right now!!" in response to ICE recruitment announcements. The language—"high on the hog"—suggested financial opportunity, fitting with the $50,000 signing bonuses. The Portland chapter (Proud Boys PDX) openly fantasized about being "deputized as ICE under Trump's second term" to aid in mass deportations, revealing how they viewed potential ICE work—not as constitutional law enforcement but as paramilitary operations against designated enemies.

The Cape Fear and Columbus, Ohio chapters discussed more explicit plans: taking on "independent contracts" to collect "bounties on illegals." The language shifted from legitimate employment to mercenary work, suggesting they viewed ICE operations as opportunities for vigilante action with federal backing and financial reward.

Stewart Rhodes, whose Oath Keepers had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the January 6 attack, praised Trump's National Guard deployment in August 2025. He announced plans to relaunch the Oath Keepers—an organization convicted of plotting to use force to prevent the transfer of presidential power—and made a public request: he asked Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and "call up" far-right militia groups, including his own, for immigration enforcement operations.

Most brazenly, Philip Anderson Lang, pardoned for attacking police during the Capitol riot, announced his Senate candidacy in Florida days after his release. His campaign platform included a specific, detailed proposal: he would "deputize the Proud Boys and the January 6 Patriots to bounty hunt illegal immigrants." Lang told Newsweek his plan involved "formally authorizing members of the Proud Boys and Jan. 6 protesters to find and detain immigrants without legal status in the U.S." He proposed offering "a bounty to work with local sheriffs and deputize and give legal access to be able to have these people join en masse and be able to work alongside federal law enforcement."

Legal analysts uniformly noted that Lang's proposal raised serious constitutional questions about deputizing private citizens, particularly those with criminal records for attacking law enforcement, to conduct federal law enforcement operations. But Lang felt comfortable making such a proposal publicly as part of a Senate campaign, suggesting he believed the political environment supported such ideas.

What matters as much as confirmed identity is behavioral pattern—and the parallels are documented and striking. On January 6, 2021, Proud Boys arrived in Washington, D.C. wearing tactical vests. They marched through the city stealing and destroying Black Lives Matter signs from two historically Black churches—Mother Emanuel AME Church and Asbury United Methodist Church. As they tore down the signs, they posed for cameras while mockingly chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" The performative nature was essential—this wasn't just property damage but territorial dominance captured on video for distribution to supporters.

On August 10, 2025, ICE agents in Mount Pleasant, a diverse neighborhood in Washington, D.C., arrived wearing masks and tactical gear. They removed a large banner reading "Chinga la migra, Mount Pleasant Melts ICE" that community members had hung in the main plaza. Clutching the torn-down banner, one agent said directly to camera: "We're taking America back, baby." The ICE official account posted the video on social media, suggesting institutional approval of the action. (A new banner quickly appeared: "They are fascists. We are artists. We melt ICE.")

The tactics are identical: masked men in tactical gear, removing political speech from public space, declaring territorial ownership through slogans about "streets" and "taking back" territory, performing for cameras to create content for supporters. The rhetoric is identical: resistance to their authority represents illegitimate occupation requiring forcible removal. The target is identical: immigrant communities and political speech supporting them.

As The New Republic documented in August 2025: "It used to be far-right groups who flooded cities wearing masks and military gear, looking for a fight. Now it's anonymous federal agents who are violently attacking people on the street." The article traced a direct line through Trump's relationship with political violence: from characterizing Unite the Right rally participants who killed Heather Heyer as "very fine people" in 2017, to instructing Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" in 2020, to pardoning their members in his first days back in office in 2025. "From the beginning, violence against Trump's perceived enemies has been invited and rewarded. Now it is just being institutionalized."

The integration of January 6 participants into federal positions extends beyond speculation about ICE hiring. Jared Wise, a former FBI supervisory agent arrested on misdemeanor charges for January 6 participation—he had repeatedly shouted "Kill 'em!" while watching rioters assault officers outside the Capitol—was pardoned and then became a counselor to Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin. Wise's new position involved overseeing the "weaponization working group" investigating the FBI—the agency he had previously served and whose officers he had encouraged rioters to kill.

Another January 6 participant became an advisor to Trump's "immigration czar" Tom Homan, demonstrating that people who had participated in attacking democratic institutions were being integrated into positions advising on federal law enforcement operations and policy.

The revolving door operated openly. People who had violently attacked federal law enforcement officers while attempting to prevent the constitutional transfer of power were being welcomed into positions where they would advise on or conduct federal law enforcement operations. The message was clear: attacking law enforcement to achieve political objectives would not preclude—and might actually facilitate—joining law enforcement to continue achieving those objectives through institutional authority.

When the FBI issued its November 2025 memo urging ICE agents to identify themselves because criminals were impersonating them and communities couldn't distinguish between legitimate officers and impostors, the warning came from Trump's FBI under a Trump-appointed director. Even federal law enforcement under this administration recognized that ICE's transformation into a masked, militarized force operating without clear identification had created a crisis where distinguishing federal agents from criminals had become impossible.

Whether specific January 6 rioters work for ICE ultimately matters less than the operational reality: ICE agents now behave indistinguishably from January 6 rioters. The masks, the tactical gear, the performative dominance, the declarations of "taking back" America, the targeting of political speech and immigrant communities, the refusal to clearly identify themselves—these are characteristics of paramilitary extremism, not constitutional law enforcement.

And when those tactics are deployed on American streets by federal agents with badges, guns, and prosecutorial immunity protection, the distinction between insurrectionist and ICE agent becomes functionally meaningless for communities being targeted. Both groups operate outside normal law enforcement norms. Both perform violence for political purposes. Both target marginalized communities. Both operate with impunity. The only difference is which carries official sanction—and that distinction provides no protection to people being subjected to force.

The Accountability Vacuum

In multiple cases documented in Part 1, local police officers explicitly refused to assist ICE agents. In Santa Ana, California, a Fullerton Police officer told an ICE agent he could not assist with someone recording the agent "if no crime had occurred" and left the scene. In Chicago, local police declined to cooperate with federal operations they viewed as unconstitutional or excessive. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O'Hara publicly criticized ICE tactics and called for federal agents to leave the city.

Local police who work in these communities, who know these residents, who understand local dynamics, are repeatedly concluding that ICE agents are acting outside the bounds of reasonable law enforcement.

When Renee Good was killed in Minneapolis, the FBI initially agreed to a joint investigation with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Then the FBI removed state investigators, claiming sole jurisdiction. BCA Superintendent Drew Evans stated his agency was told it "would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation."

The federal government investigating itself, with no outside oversight, in a case where federal claims about the shooting have been called "bullshit" by local officials who reviewed the evidence. This isn't accountability. This is impunity.

ICE in Windbreakers and Khakis

The Disappearing Act

Historically, ICE agents were recognizable by design. They wore navy blue windbreakers clearly marked "ICE" or "POLICE ICE," polo shirts with visible agency insignia, standard duty uniforms displaying badges, and operated marked vehicles bearing federal identification. This wasn't aesthetic choice—it was accountability architecture. Public identification served multiple essential functions: civilians could verify legitimate federal authority, agents could be distinguished from local police operating under different jurisdictions, community members could identify specific officers for complaint or testimony, and impersonation became significantly more difficult for criminals seeking to exploit federal authority.

The system worked because visibility created responsibility. An agent in a clearly marked uniform making an arrest understood that witnesses could identify them, that supervisors could track their actions, that complaints could be filed against them personally. The uniform itself functioned as restraint on misconduct—not perfect restraint, but meaningful deterrent.

The 2025 transformation shattered this architecture deliberately. With 12,000 new agents deployed in four months, ICE's appearance evolved into what observers describe as "a massive, un-uniformed, masked domestic army." The change wasn't gradual adaptation but rapid transformation suggesting intentional policy shift.

Current ICE agents wear mismatched tactical gear that appears assembled from multiple sources—some body armor from military surplus, some tactical vests from law enforcement suppliers, some equipment bearing no identification at all. Military-style camouflage appears in some operations despite ICE being a civilian law enforcement agency. Masks and balaclavas cover faces, eliminating the most basic form of identification. Some agents wear plainclothes ranging from jeans and t-shirts to business attire, making them indistinguishable from any civilian until they draw weapons or display badges that may or may not be clearly visible.

The gear marking demonstrates the problem. Some tactical vests display "POLICE" but not "ICE," creating confusion about whether federal, state, or local law enforcement is operating. Some equipment says "DHS" (Department of Homeland Security), some says "FBI," some says nothing at all. Witnesses at multiple operations have reported agents wearing gear from different agencies simultaneously, suggesting either deliberate deception or chaotic equipment distribution where agents grabbed whatever was available.

The vehicle situation compounds the identification crisis. ICE increasingly operates in unmarked civilian vehicles indistinguishable from any other car, truck, or SUV on American streets. Vehicles lack agency identification, government plates, or any external indication that they're being operated by federal law enforcement. In some operations, agents have used armored personnel carriers—military-grade BearCat vehicles—without clear marking. In others, they've borrowed vehicles from different agencies, creating situations where multiple federal agencies' equipment appears at single operations without clear command structure or jurisdiction.

The cases from Part 1 illustrate the operational implications. Dayanne Figueroa was rammed by masked men in an unmarked vehicle who never identified themselves—she had no way to know they were federal agents rather than criminals until after being dragged from her car by her legs. Sue Tincher was grabbed by people who never said who they were and thrown into an unmarked truck—her family spent hours trying to locate her because agents wouldn't disclose which facility they'd taken her to. The Santa Ana woman was threatened by an agent in an unmarked vehicle who pointed a gun at her for recording him—when a local police officer intervened, the agent claimed authority but the officer verified no crime had occurred.

Jonathan Ross, who killed Renee Good, operated in unmarked vehicles conducting his "hundreds of vehicle stops" of people he described as "confused" about whether he was actually law enforcement. This confusion isn't citizen failure—it's design outcome. When plainclothes agents in unmarked vehicles approach civilians without clear identification, confusion is inevitable and dangerous.

Masked agents without visible name tags or badge numbers create accountability black holes. When Renee Good was shot, identifying Jonathan Ross required investigative journalism—DHS never publicly released his name, and local officials had to fight for access to basic information about the shooting. The agent who shot Marimar Martinez seven times bragged about it in text messages to colleagues but faced no public identification or accountability despite prosecutors dropping charges against Martinez after determining agents had lied.

The transformation signals philosophical shift from civilian law enforcement to military-style occupation. The evolution from windbreakers to tactical gear represents movement from community policing principles to warrior mentality, from de-escalation as primary objective to domination as operational framework, from transparency as accountability mechanism to intimidation as control strategy.

ICE defends mask usage by claiming agents need protection from being identified—but this reasoning collapses under examination. Local police officers don't wear masks while conducting operations in the same communities facing similar risks from criminals they arrest. FBI agents typically identify themselves clearly despite investigating cartels, terrorists, and organized crime networks that pose substantial threats. Federal prosecutors appear in open court prosecuting dangerous criminals without mask protection. Border Patrol wore distinctive green uniforms for decades while facing armed drug smugglers in remote areas.

The decision to deploy masked agents in mismatched gear serves specific purposes: intimidating communities into compliance through fear of unaccountable force, avoiding accountability by making individual agent identification impossible, operating without meaningful oversight because witnesses can't identify perpetrators, and creating confusion that makes resistance difficult because civilians can't verify legitimacy of claimed authority.

The accumulation creates systemic crisis. When Sue Tincher asked masked agents grabbing her if they were ICE, they told her to get back without confirming their identity. They never said who they were, where they were taking her, or on what authority they were seizing her. They simply grabbed her, threw her down, shackled her legs, cut off her wedding ring, and transported her to a facility they wouldn't name. This isn't law enforcement—it's kidnapping with badges.

The parallel to historical secret police forces becomes unavoidable. Unmarked vehicles. Masked agents. No identification. No disclosure of detention locations. Operating outside normal oversight. Protected from accountability. These are characteristics not of democratic law enforcement but of authoritarian state security forces designed to operate through fear rather than law.

Masked and Mismatched

When No One Can Tell the Difference

In November 2025, the FBI issued an extraordinary memo: ICE agents need to identify themselves because criminals are impersonating them to commit violent crimes. The bulletin stated: "Due to the recent increase in ICE enforcement actions across the country, criminal actors are using ICE's enhanced public profile and media coverage to their advantage to target vulnerable communities and commit criminal activity."

A CNN investigation found two dozen impersonation incidents in 2025—more than during the previous four presidential terms combined. The crimes span kidnapping (at least five cases), sexual assault and rape (at least four cases), robbery, extortion through deportation threats, and harassment.

Women are disproportionately targeted, revealing how vulnerability to authority creates opportunity for predators. In April 2025, a Florida woman obtaining U.S. residency was kidnapped by someone wearing an "ICE" jacket who claimed to be picking her up. She entered his vehicle, was driven to an apartment complex, and managed to escape. In January, a North Carolina man entered a woman's hotel room with a fake badge and sexually assaulted her after threatening deportation. In February, a Brooklyn man claiming to be ICE lured a 51-year-old Hispanic woman to a stairwell, punched her, attempted to rape her, and stole her belongings, leaving her with lacerations and bruises.

The impersonation crisis creates an impossible situation. If you comply with someone claiming to be ICE, you risk kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, or trafficking. If you don't comply, you risk dealing with real ICE agents who will shoot you like Renee Good, drag you like Dayanne Figueroa, detain you like Sue Tincher, or confiscate your property like Berenice Garcia-Hernandez.

The FBI explained why: "These criminal impersonations make it difficult for the community to distinguish between legitimate officers conducting lawful law enforcement action and imposters engaging in criminal activity." Real and fake ICE agents look identical—mismatched tactical gear, unmarked vehicles, masks, no clear identification, immediate use of force. You can buy ICE jackets and tactical vests online. When a masked person in ICE gear approaches in an unmarked vehicle, verification is impossible.

Every woman in Part 1 faced this confusion. Dayanne Figueroa was struck by masked men in an unmarked vehicle—how could she know they weren't carjackers? In the case of the Florida medical worker she screamed "I'm a U.S. citizen, please help me" because she couldn't verify who was pulling her from her car. Sue Tincher's family spent hours searching because masked agents never said where they were taking her.

California introduced the "No Secret Police Act" requiring officers to have visible identifiers and prohibiting face coverings during operations. The FBI memo urging identification came from Trump's FBI, demonstrating that even federal law enforcement under this administration recognizes the crisis created by unidentifiable agents.

When the FBI has to tell ICE agents to identify themselves because communities can't distinguish them from criminals, the transformation is complete: ICE has become indistinguishable from the threats it claims to combat.

Why Women?

Part 1 asked why U.S. citizen women are being specifically targeted for federal force. Part 2 provides the systemic answer through interconnected factors that compound into predictable violence.

The agents are overwhelmingly male—87% in enforcement operations. These aren't just men; they're men socialized in specific cultural contexts. Many come from military backgrounds where women's roles were historically limited and masculine dominance was institutional norm. Many were recruited through spaces associated with toxic masculinity—UFC fights, gun shows, tactical gear culture. Many likely consume manosphere content where anti-immigrant and anti-women views intersect and reinforce each other.

The recruitment messaging itself appeals to a specific masculine identity: the protector-warrior defending civilization from invaders. This framing positions women in traditional roles—either as vulnerable innocents needing protection or as threats to masculine authority when they step outside those roles. Women who observe, document, or question federal operations violate both narratives. They're neither vulnerable nor compliant, making them targets.

The ideology is explicitly authoritarian. Terms like "law and order," "strong borders," and "domestic terrorism" don't just describe policy—they create a worldview where resistance, particularly from women, represents existential threat. In authoritarian frameworks, women's political participation has always been dangerous because women organize communities, build networks of resistance, and bear witness in ways that threaten power's ability to operate in darkness.

The training emphasizes compliance as paramount. Six weeks doesn't provide time to learn constitutional nuance or develop tactical patience. It teaches that force is the primary tool, that non-compliance justifies escalation, and that hesitation endangers the agent. This creates officers primed to view any questioning or resistance as threat requiring immediate, often violent, response.

Consider how this plays out in real encounters. When Sue Tincher stood on a sidewalk observing ICE operations, she was exercising her First Amendment right. But agents trained to see non-compliance as threat, operating under leadership calling resistance "domestic terrorism," working in a heavily male force socialized toward masculine dominance—they saw a woman refusing orders. Within seconds, they threw her to the ground, cutting off her wedding ring in what can only be understood as symbolic violence against her identity as a married woman with community ties.

When Berenice Garcia-Hernandez photographed ICE vehicles in public, she was engaging in constitutionally protected documentation. But to agents viewing their operations as warrior missions requiring operational security, a woman with a camera became a threat requiring neutralization. They broke her windows, dragged her from her car, detained her for seven hours, and confiscated both her phone (eliminating evidence) and her engagement ring (attacking her identity and future).

Women who observe are particularly threatening in authoritarian systems. Observation precedes documentation. Documentation precedes testimony. Testimony precedes accountability. The chain must be broken at observation. When agents encounter women watching, filming, or simply present, they respond with disproportionate force not because these women pose physical threat but because they pose informational threat.

The culture normalizes violence against women through multiple mechanisms. Agents work in a system where male staff systematically sexually abuse detained women—308 documented complaints in just six years, with more than half naming staff as perpetrators. They work in facilities where reporting abuse leads to retaliation—solitary confinement, deportation threats, denial of medical care. They work under oversight that has been eliminated specifically to remove "bureaucratic hurdles" that protected victims.

This culture of violence against vulnerable women inside facilities doesn't evaporate when agents walk onto American streets. The same power dynamics, the same impunity, the same willingness to use force against women who resist or report—all of it transfers from detention centers to public sidewalks, vehicle stops, and immigration raids.

The gaming culture conditioning adds another layer. Research documents that extended violent gaming increases aggression while decreasing empathy. When ICE specifically recruits from gaming culture, uses gaming-style imagery in recruitment, and frames enforcement as heroic combat against invaders, they're selecting for and reinforcing this conditioning. Agents approach encounters with the first-person shooter mentality where threats are eliminated, objectives are secured, and the mission continues—not with the constitutional law enforcement mentality where civilian rights are paramount and force is last resort.

When Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good, all these factors converged in split seconds. His military background (machine guns in Iraq). His MAGA ideology (defending the Proud Boys). His trauma from being dragged by a vehicle seven months earlier. His "hundreds of vehicle stops" encountering "confused" people who didn't recognize his authority. His SWAT training emphasizing tactical response. His six weeks of rushed preparation. His gaming-influenced worldview where moving vehicles are immediate threats. His work in an agency where male agents abuse women with impunity.

Every factor pointed toward the same response: shoot first. And Renee Good is dead.

The pattern isn't coincidental or accidental. It's structural. When you create an 87% male force through recruitment targeting masculine-coded spaces, provide minimal training emphasizing force over de-escalation, deploy them with warrior messaging into communities framed as hostile territory, eliminate oversight that might catch abuses, normalize violence against women within the agency, and protect agents from accountability even when local officials call their actions false—you are systematically creating conditions where women who resist will be targeted for violence.

The women in Part 1 aren't isolated victims of individual bad actors. They're predictable outcomes of deliberate institutional design.

The Machine

ICE in 2025 became a machine designed to produce exactly the outcomes documented in Part 1. Understanding how requires examining not individual components but their systematic integration.

The inputs create a pipeline from recruitment to violence. Begin with 220,000 applications—a self-selecting pool attracted to "Homeland Defenders" messaging at UFC fights, drawn to medieval imagery of knights battling invaders, responding to rhetoric about defending America from "murderers, rapists, terrorists." This recruitment strategy doesn't attract people seeking careers in constitutional law enforcement. It attracts people seeking to wage war on domestic soil.

The rushed hiring transforms quantity into official authority. With provisional background checks, no interviews, and virtual swearing-in ceremonies, the vetting process becomes rubber stamp rather than filter. Some recruits have pending gun charges. Some have domestic violence histories. Some are physically unable to pass basic fitness requirements. The dismissal of 200 recruits after they reached training reveals the failure—but the question remains: how many similarly unqualified recruits weren't caught?

The six-week training provides just enough instruction to be dangerous and not enough to be constitutional. Recruits learn to use weapons but not when to avoid using them. They learn that non-compliance justifies force but not that constitutional rights limit their authority. They absorb the "warrior mindset" without the tactical patience that distinguishes professional law enforcement from paramilitary operations.

The demographic composition intensifies every other factor. An 87% male enforcement division creates inevitable power imbalances, particularly when deployed into communities viewed as hostile territory. Research consistently shows that heavily male organizations with minimal oversight develop cultures where sexual harassment and violence become normalized. ICE's 308 documented sexual assault complaints between 2015 and 2021—with more than half naming staff as perpetrators—demonstrates this principle in action.

The elimination of oversight removes the last potential check on abuse. On March 21, 2025, DHS closed the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the USCIS Ombudsman. These offices received and investigated complaints, implemented protective policies, and ensured enforcement of laws like the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Their closure was characterized not as tragedy but as efficiency—removing "bureaucratic hurdles" that "obstructed enforcement."

Without oversight, without interviews during hiring, without adequate training, without physical fitness requirements, heavily male forces operating with warrior messaging in communities framed as enemy territory will inevitably produce violence. The only question is scale and target.

The outputs reveal the pattern. Women shot, dragged, detained, and terrorized for constitutionally protected activities. Federal narratives contradicted by video evidence, local officials, and prosecutors who drop charges after reviewing facts. State investigators excluded from oversight. Sexual violence inside facilities continuing with impunity as reporting leads to retaliation. Zero accountability for agents who lie, injure, or kill.

Consider the case progression. Renee Good is shot and killed—local officials call federal claims false, but FBI removes state investigators. Marimar Martinez is shot five times—agent brags in texts, prosecutors drop charges against her, but agent faces no consequences. Dayanne Figueroa is dragged through streets—released without charges, no investigation of agents. Sue Tincher has wedding ring cut off—released without charges, no accountability for constitutional violation.

The pattern is consistent: women subjected to force, federal narratives proven false, women released or charges dropped, agents protected from accountability. This isn't enforcement failing occasionally. This is enforcement operating as designed, where force against women serves purposes beyond law enforcement.

What purposes? Consider the documented effects. Women who observe ICE operations now know they risk being shot like Renee Good, dragged like Dayanne Figueroa, detained like Sue Tincher. The chilling effect is intentional—observation precedes documentation, documentation precedes testimony, testimony precedes accountability. Break the chain at observation through sufficient violence, and accountability becomes impossible.

Women who question or resist authority learn that citizenship provides no protection. The Florida medical worker screaming "I'm a U.S. citizen" didn't prevent her detention. Sue Tincher's standing on a sidewalk didn't protect her from arrest. Being an American citizen, being engaged in constitutional activity, being non-threatening—none of it matters when agents operate with impunity and local law enforcement refuses to assist them because "no crime occurred."

Women who document abuse—whether inside facilities or on American streets—learn that reporting leads to retaliation. Silvia Reyna Mendoza reports sexual harassment and gets detained. Jane Doe at Basile resists abuse and goes to solitary confinement. Berenice Garcia-Hernandez photographs vehicles and loses her phone and engagement ring. The message is universal: resist and suffer.

The intersectionality matters. Women of color experience the most extreme violence—shot seven times, car-rammed, dragged face-down. White women experience detention, property confiscation, constitutional violations. All experience force, but the level of violence correlates with race and ethnicity, revealing how multiple forms of marginalization compound vulnerability to state violence.

The gaming culture influence can't be separated from other factors. When ICE recruits from spaces associated with violent gaming, when research shows such gaming increases aggression while decreasing empathy, when the recruitment imagery itself mimics first-person shooters, agents approach encounters with learned patterns: identify threats, eliminate threats, secure objectives, continue mission. This conditioning doesn't replace other factors—it amplifies them. An agent with gaming-influenced instincts, minimal training, warrior messaging, and no accountability will default to violence faster and with less consideration than agents without these factors.

The January 6 parallel illuminates the transformation. Whether specific rioters work for ICE matters less than ICE agents behaving identically to rioters—masked, militarized, performing dominance, declaring territorial ownership, targeting political speech. When federal law enforcement becomes indistinguishable from domestic extremism, when the FBI has to tell ICE agents to identify themselves because communities can't tell them apart from criminals, the transformation is complete.

The sexual violence inside facilities connects directly to street violence. Agents working in systems where male staff force women to perform oral sex, where guards tell victims "no one will believe you," where supervisors delete evidence and retaliate against reporters, where oversight has been eliminated—these agents don't suddenly become constitutional officers when deployed to American neighborhoods. The culture travels with them. The impunity protects them. The pattern of violence against women vulnerable to their power continues, just with different victims in different locations.

The machine works because every component reinforces every other component. Recruitment attracts warriors. Training emphasizes force. Demographics create power imbalances. Oversight elimination removes accountability. Gaming culture conditions rapid violent response. Sexual violence inside facilities normalizes abuse. Warrior messaging frames resistance as terrorism. Minimal physical standards reduce non-lethal options. Provisional vetting allows unsuitable applicants through.

No single factor alone creates the pattern. Jonathan Ross's military background didn't make him shoot Renee Good. His MAGA ideology didn't make him shoot her. His previous trauma from being dragged didn't make him shoot her. His hundreds of vehicle stops didn't make him shoot her. His SWAT training didn't make him shoot her. His six weeks of preparation didn't make him shoot her. His gaming-influenced instincts didn't make him shoot her.

All of them together, in a system designed to produce exactly this outcome, made him shoot her. And ICE built that system deliberately, rapidly, with full knowledge that rushed hiring, minimal training, warrior messaging, eliminated oversight, and protection from accountability would produce violence. They built it anyway.

The women documented in Part 1—Renee Good, Marimar Martinez, Dayanne Figueroa, Sue Tincher, Oriana Korol, Berenice Garcia-Hernandez, and unnamed others—aren't collateral damage in overzealous enforcement. They're intended outputs of a machine built to silence women who observe, question, document, or resist federal power.

The machine transforms men into agents through six weeks of rushed training. It normalizes violence through gaming culture and internal sexual abuse. It protects abusers through eliminated oversight. It frames documentation as domestic terrorism. It deploys masked, militarized agents indistinguishable from criminals. It kills women like Renee Good, shoots women like Marimar Martinez, drags women like Dayanne Figueroa, and then calls them threats.

Part 3 will examine why this pattern isn't new. How authoritarian regimes throughout history have used male-dominated state forces to systematically silence women's political participation. How the targeting of women who witness, organize, and resist serves as early warning that authoritarianism is consolidating power. How Americans have seen this pattern before—in other countries, at other times—but have failed to recognize it emerging on their own streets.

Because this machine ICE built in 2025 has historical precedents. The uniforms change. The technology updates. The rhetoric adapts. But the underlying pattern—male-dominated state forces eliminating oversight, targeting women who resist, operating with impunity, serving authoritarian consolidation—remains consistent across time and place.

And Americans need to recognize it before it's too late.

This article is based on reporting from The Star Tribune, The Intercept, WBUR, NBC News, The Advocate, Government Executive, CNN, PBS, ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Slate, and other news sources, as well as court testimony, Senate reports, civil rights complaints from RFK Human Rights, the ACLU of Louisiana, the ACLU of Florida, Women's Refugee Commission, Futuro Investigates, research from the American Psychological Association, academic studies on video game violence, and official ICE/DHS statements.

Coming in Part 3: The Authoritarian Playbook: Nazi Germany's systematic exclusion and silencing of women from 1933-1945, and what it teaches us about current patterns of state violence against American women who resist.