Immigration enforcement in the United States has come to rely on force as a matter of routine, not last resort, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union that lands amid one of the most aggressive deportation drives in memory.
What the report found
The ACLU said it reviewed more than 1,200 immigration enforcement operations across eight states, from January to the end of 2025, and found that nearly a third involved the use of force or the threat of it. "You're seeing the threat of using force and actually using it become the default tool for immigration enforcement agents," said Naureen Shah, an ACLU official and one of the report's authors, in comments cited by the outlets that reviewed the findings.
The documented conduct ranged widely. Researchers cataloged dozens of cases in which officers rammed vehicles, boxed drivers in and smashed car windows, along with physical takedowns and the use of chemical agents. Crucially, the report found the force was not confined to the people ICE was seeking: hundreds of incidents swept in U.S. citizens, children, protesters, bystanders and journalists, often in ordinary places, at bus stops, in grocery-store parking lots and along roadways.
How it was compiled
Because the government does not publish comprehensive, real-time data on its use of force, the ACLU built its picture from the outside, drawing on news accounts, statements from schools and hospitals, and documentation gathered by community groups. That method, the authors acknowledge, captures a sample rather than the full universe of encounters, but they argue the pattern across so many incidents points to something systemic rather than a series of isolated lapses.
The response, and the context
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have not engaged the report's specific findings, and the administration has broadly defended aggressive enforcement as necessary and lawful. The report arrives on the heels of a wrenching stretch that included fatal shootings by ICE officers during vehicle stops, a brief agency pause on such stops, and a quick reversal after President Trump insisted the tactic continue.
Why it resonates in Los Angeles
Few places feel this debate more directly than Los Angeles, a city with a large immigrant population that has seen repeated enforcement surges and street protests against them. For Angelenos who have watched agents operate in their neighborhoods, the report puts data behind a fear already in wide circulation, that an encounter with immigration officers can turn physical quickly, and that the people caught up in it are not always the ones the government set out to find. The ACLU is pressing for stronger oversight and limits on when force can be used; whether that gains traction is, for now, a political question as much as a legal one.
