- ICE spent over $71 million this year on arms, a sevenfold increase from 2024, including rifles, body armor, chemical agents, and explosive components.
- Critics warn the buildup—and expanded budget under Trump—signals domestic militarization, with aggressive tactics, arrests of citizens, and violent street confrontations.
- Experts forecast major economic and social fallout: mass deportation plans could cut the workforce by millions and fuel nationwide protests and legal challenges.
WASHINGTON—As President Donald Trump’s second term barrels ahead with promises of the “largest mass deportation program in history,” a stunning revelation about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s shopping spree has critics sounding the alarm.
Federal records show ICE has poured more than $71 million into arming its agents this year—seven times what it spent during the same stretch under President Joe Biden—stocking up not just on rifles and body armor, but on chemical agents and components labeled as “guided missile warheads and explosive components.”
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The escalation, detailed in procurement logs analyzed by independent journalist Judd Legum’s newsletter Popular Information, has lawmakers and advocates questioning whether the agency is gearing up for urban warfare on American soil.
The numbers hit like a gut punch. From Trump’s inauguration on January 20 through October 18, ICE shelled out $71,515,762 on “small arms, ordnance, and ordnance accessories manufacturing,” according to the Federal Procurement Data System.
That’s a leap from the $9,715,843 spent over the same period in 2024 under Biden.
For context, during Trump’s first term, the agency averaged just $8.4 million annually on similar gear through October, and in 2019, it was a mere $5.7 million.
Legum’s report notes that the bulk went to firearms and protective vests, but the eyebrow-raisers were the “significant purchases” of chemical weapons—think tear gas and pepper balls—and those cryptic explosive warhead components.
One single buy on September 29 stood out: $9,098,590 from Geissele Automatics, a Pennsylvania-based outfit known for high-end semi-automatic and automatic rifles.
It’s not just the dollars that have people rattled; it’s the timing and the tactics.
Trump’s administration has flooded ICE with cash via the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed over the summer, which earmarked $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border measures, including a whopping $75 billion extra for ICE alone.
That bill, pushed through by Republicans, boosted ICE’s overall budget to nearly $28.7 billion for fiscal year 2025 when layered on top of earlier appropriations.
The agency, now under DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, has ballooned its detention population to 59,762 as of late September, up sharply from prior years, and it’s hiring like mad—over 175,000 applications and 18,000 tentative job offers since January.
ICE Aggression Sparks Fight Against Authoritarian Perception
But the real heat is coming from the streets, where masked and heavily armed ICE agents have become a fixture in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and New York.
Even popular podcast host Joe Rogan has called the administrations immigration policies a “dangerous precedent”.
Videos circulating on social media capture agents deploying tear gas on protesters, tackling individuals in broad daylight, and even firing on bystanders.
In Chicago’s Broadview suburb, the violence has escalated to the point of tragedy.
On September 19, Rev. David Black, a 52-year-old pastor, was struck in the head by a pepper-spray ball while praying outside an ICE facility.
Nine days later, CBS Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei reported an agent blasting a similar round into her open-windowed truck, filling the cab with chemicals that left her vomiting and sparking a criminal investigation.
Just this week, during a botched operation in Los Angeles, an ICE agent accidentally shot a U.S. marshal while fumbling a draw.
The fallout? A federal judge slapped a 14-day restraining order on DHS last month, curbing the use of force against non-threatening people near Broadview after journalists and activists got caught in the crossfire.
“All of this is unprecedented,” former ICE Acting Director John Sandweg told Politico, describing the ramp-up in deployments and aggression.
Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, echoed that to National Public Radio: “These are just the tip of the iceberg… People being tackled, people getting pepper sprayed or tear gassed.
We’ve seen people getting threatened. And we’ve seen at least two incidents involving gunfire.”
The ACLU of Illinois fired off a lawsuit earlier this month, accusing the feds of trampling free-speech rights with these heavy-handed moves.
Enter Wisconsin State Sen. Chris Larson, who’s been one of the loudest voices pushing back.
On Bluesky, he warned that “the President is building an army to attack his own country,” pointing out that at least 170 U.S. citizens—including children—have been swept up in ICE detentions so far.
In a follow-up post, Larson added, “There’s no telling how far this Administration will go if Congress does not act.”
Americans Are Being Attacked and Tensions Are Growing
His fears aren’t isolated. Texas state House candidate Sally Duval voiced similar bewilderment on social media: “I’m curious to know why ICE needs ‘guided missile warheads.'”
And a progressive critic summed it up bluntly to The Real News Network: “ICE was always going to be Trump’s private military to deploy domestically against Americans.”
Even staunch Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene has slammed the administration for its deportation policies.
The warhead label, in particular, has fueled speculation—and some head-scratching.
Procurement categories can be fuzzy, with “guided missile warheads and explosive components” (code 1336) sometimes encompassing smoke grenades or chemical munitions rather than actual missiles, as military Redditors have dissected in online forums.
Still, the optics are grim, especially against the backdrop of Trump’s overseas strikes.
Since early September, the administration has greenlit lethal U.S. munitions hits on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, with videos shared by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth showing vessels off Venezuela’s coast getting obliterated.
At least 27 people have died in these operations, but the government hasn’t released evidence proving they were traffickers, drawing fire from legal experts and foreign policy wonks.
And in the latest fresh blow to the Department of Homeland Security’s credibility, the agency has been called out for using an outdated photo to bolster claims about a drug-smuggling boat, amid escalating tensions with Colombian President Gustavo Petro over U.S. naval operations.
The incident highlights what critics see as a troubling pattern of misleading the public under Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership.
This domestic arms race ties directly into Trump’s broader 2025 playbook, laid out in executive orders and echoed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint penned by ex-Trump aides like Tom Homan (now border czar) and Ken Cuccinelli.
The plan calls for scrapping “sensitive zones” protections around schools, churches, and hospitals, greenlighting raids anywhere, anytime.
On day one, DHS axed Biden-era guidelines limiting enforcement in those spots, betting on agents’ “good judgment.”
The Laken Riley Act mandates detention and swift deportation for anyone undocumented accused of minor crimes like shoplifting.
However, ICE has been capturing laborers and even U.S. citizens.
And to hit deportation quotas—millions per year—the admin’s pulling in military support, reassigning DEA, ATF, and FBI agents, and even deputizing local cops and National Guard from red states.
The U.S. Workforce May Be Slashed by 15 Million
The human toll? A new study from the American Immigration Council projects these policies could slash the U.S. workforce by 15 million by 2035, hammering GDP growth by half a percentage point annually and jacking up prices in sectors like agriculture.
As one Redditor said, “It’s all fun and games until Hunter, Blake, and John are forced by the administration to mow lawns and are unwillingly drafted for agriculture work.”
That includes ending Temporary Protected Status for over 700,000 people, axing DACA for 500,000 Dreamers, and halting refugee admissions via a fresh travel ban.
Border encounters are down 93% from last year—49,620 from February to August—but at what cost?
Protests have erupted nationwide, from “No Kings” rallies to clashes outside detention centers, and even ICE agents aren’t immune: A gunman killed two detained immigrants and wounded an agent in a September 24 shooting outside the Dallas ICE office.
DHS and the White House haven’t commented on the weapons spike or Larson’s charges, but with a government shutdown dragging into its third week, Trump pulled another maneuver Thursday: Diverting billions from his tax bill to pay 70,000 DHS law enforcement folks, including ICE and TSA agents, despite the funding freeze.
Noem touted it on X as a win for “vital roles,” but critics see it as more proof of priorities skewed toward enforcement over everything else.
As Congress dithers and cities brace for more raids, the question lingers: Is this buildup about securing borders, or something more ominous?
With ICE’s arsenal growing faster than its body-cam budget—despite claims it can’t afford the tech—the line between immigration control and domestic overreach feels thinner than ever.
For now, the agents on the ground, protesters in the streets, and families in the shadows are left holding the bag.
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