this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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I read that it makes ICE bigger than the fucking Chinese army. It's beyond obscene. One thing that I wonder about is... are there even enough racist sociopaths in this country to fill the ranks? You need a specific type of person to be willing to join ICE. It's possible that there simply aren't enough Americans who are willing to brutalize immigrants to use the $200 billion they were given.
Pay enough and many more are willing to do it.
All the better to "disappear you". Seriously, history books in first world countries will document this sudden collapse of, "due process" and the U.S. Constitution.
You give them (yourself?) too much credit. US has been brutalizing people abroad for no fucking reason for decades. How many people do you think protested against killing brown people? Did the involved (apart for a very few cases) face any consequences? No? They live for that shit.
What do you think "Thank you for your service" means when they're literally murdering civilians abroad.
Trump of a symptom of generations of racism. People didn't come out and vote for a felon, rapist and a bankrupt moron, who probably couldn't add 2+2, just for the kicks. They organized it, so they could embolden themselves and live their fantasies about oppressing people they hate.
54 million MAGA out there. Plenty of jobs. They might not be able to run 50 feet without a smoke break, but they are there.
In terms of pure numbers, yeah, there are plenty of MAGA out there to hire. But they need to be mentally and physically fit in order to join ICE and carry out these raids. I would be genuinely surprised if there were enough MAGA in this country who could pass the physical.
I could be wrong. But if I'm right they might try hiring literal mercenaries for this, or just embezzle the funds. Or buy stupid militarized vehicles like police departments like to do.
Sweet summer child
They need to be mentally fit? What do the mental fitness evaluation standards look like for a brown shirt? I get what you’re saying that traditionally ICE agents may have had those requirements but it’s a new dawn where the only requirements moving forward are going to be MAGA loyalty.
That's why the police have the vehicles to begin with, most of them are ridiculously out of shape. I mean the typical shoe they wear are proof very few of them are actually fit enough to even try the activity of running.
What is scary about the modern world is just how much damage can be caused by a handful of people thanks to technology. They don't need millions of people to run their gestapo if they have the NSA surveilling the internet, a network of facial recognition enabled surveillance cameras, military gear that would let a handful of agents take on anything short of an armed mob, and drone strikes for the ones they can't even be bothered to capture.
There aren't a lot of psychos, but it really doesn't take that many to cause problems if nobody else has the will or capacity to fight back. And this will make oodles of money for "defense" contractors.
One can only hope that a sufficiently-motivated populace can destroy them faster than they can be replaced.
I dare say that the Chinese are only all too happy that US is providing outsized budget to an agency that is relatively useless in the grand scheme of things, because the resources would otherwise go to countering China's growing influence.
Well, good news. If we do get in a war with China, we have a ready supply of fighting-age men who apparently fit enough to serve in law enforcement and military roles. I propose we simply conscript all the ICE officers and send them to the front lines first.
China is not gonna start a war with the US. China is going to do whatever it pleases and they have 0 to gain from a war with the US. Plenty of resources elsewhere.
Taiwan is the issue. It's not about raw natural resources.
I know, and they will do as they please and invade Taiwan. They will consider the response of US and Taiwans allies of course, but having a war with the US isn't the goal. The reason I mention resources is that starting a war with US will never be their goal, because there is literally nothing on US soil that can't be found elsewhere (where the local army is even less of a threat).
Not the response I was expecting but a welcome one! Because now that I think about it, the German SS had this image of being a formidable force to be reckoned with, but the organisation's overall performance in World War 2 was that they were actually useless. It is only like couple of SS units who did well, while the rest are actually just LARPERs who ran away, surrendered, or got smashed easily by opposing armies. The conscripted ICE would suffer the same fate! Both ICE and SS are only seen as intimidating but that's what they are only good at: intimidation. They would be crushed easily by a more motivated and valiant force who don't fear them!
Honestly, sounds like a win-win to me. Maybe the ICE conscripts can do some militarily useful work. If not, well, at least we solved our ICE problem!
Seconded.
among the 5 US militaries, ICE is bigger than two of them combined:
US NAVY: $292B
USAF: $249.5B
US Army: $179.4B
ICE: $75B
US marines: $57.2B
US Coast Guard: $14.5 B
Marines are supposed to be underfunded, they make do with less. They also pass their audits, unlike literally everyone else.
still, having a secret police with a budget greater than practically every nation's military is a dystopian nightmare
Hi, let me share something with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
They might not want people, they might want coders.
The SS was 800.000 members strong by 1944 so I think you're wrong, there's plenty of people who are willing to brutalize those they seem lesser for a plethora of reasons - money, feeling of power, ideology, opportunism, hate, the ability to do violence without consequences or any number of combinations of those.
Yep and what that turns into is instead buying military level expensive equipment to justify the money to make up for each empathetic person who refuses to join ranks.
Dont need unmarked vans and ski masks when you can drive tanks down poor neighborhoods looking fot minorities to abuse.
Yes there are more than enough. The American way of life makes them. We promote them, make leaders out of them, show them as examples of success... Rinse repeat.
200 billion? The people's liberation army is about 2 million strong so that would make 100k per person for salary, side costs, space and equipment. Considering the equipment is pretty cheap, say 3k total, add fifty square meters of office space per officer at 20$/sqm and 10$ per sqm of electricity, water etc, it leaves 79k fir salary and side costs. Assume 30% side cost level for medical and whatnot it leaves 49k/year for salary before tax.
Can you hire a goon for that in the US? I would assume yes, since the internet tells me the starting pay for a sergeant first class in the US Army is 43k/year.
Let me introduce you to something called purchase power parity. When you actually consider what things cost in each country, the US and China spend comparable amounts on their military budget right now. The cost for the US to field a single soldier is around $250k/year. And more if they're deployed somewhere hostile. Similar, the salary of an ICE agent is but a fraction of employing an ICE agent.