from the starting-from-the-most-helpless-and-working-their-way-up dept

The “worst of the worst” are coming for the “worst of the worst.” Of course, this administration has completely given up on this pretense, despite sending out lots of noisy messaging otherwise every time an immigration officer murders a person.

For the entirety of Trump’s anti-migration surge, it’s been obvious that it’s all about expelling certain people and has nothing to do with ridding this nation of criminals. But there are quotas to meet. Trump is awful enough on his own, but he can’t read a spreadsheet. That’s why Stephen Miller exists: to apply the pressure Trump simply can’t stay awake to do himself.

For years, law enforcement officers at every level have abused their power and positions to violate the rights of regular people. That alone is a crime, even if it’s usually just considered a civil violation. Guess what else is a civil violation? Being in this country without having the proper paperwork or processes in place to comply with immigration law.

To keep up with demands for ever-increasing arrests, this administration has also engaged in hiring surges. The people responding to huge signing bonuses and the simultaneous lowering of training standards tended to be the people you expected them to be. And, as the DHS soon discovered, stripping standards and all but eliminating training that would be useful to new ICE/CBP officers, its pool of applicants ran from the sub-par to the absolutely criminal.

Given what else we’ve always known about how those with power seek out the weakest people to exploit and abuse — combined with the free pass courts now give to federal officers when they’re only violating civil rights — this new report that’s based on hundreds of criminal cases against immigration officers makes it clear a lot of the “worst of the worst” are employed by the federal government.

A new report by the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, released today, pulls back the curtain on a stunning level of sexual criminal behavior within ICE and CBP. Out of 152 cases of identified immigration officials or contractors accused or convicted of criminal behavior, 131 of them, or 86.2 percent, were charged with sex offenses. Seventy-eight of them—51 percent of the entire cohort—”committed sex offenses against children—the single largest category on the list,” the report states. Cases involving a CBP officer, the report finds, “are more likely to involve underage victims” than those of an ICE officer. Yet fully half of ICE officers accused or convicted of sex offenses (12 of 24) had a minor as their victim.

As bad as this looks, it’s probably even worse. As the Ohio Immigrant Alliance report [PDF] notes, this only covers immigration officers who have actually been caught and are facing criminal prosecutions.

This means there are many more who just haven’t been caught yet. And the chances of them being caught has been drastically reduced in recent months. ICE’s OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) has always been tasked with investigating complaints filed against ICE officers. It’s not just history. It’s the directive handed down by law, which now seems to be something the OPR can just ignore because it would rather investigate critics of Trump’s anti-migrant activities.

If you’re wondering how it gets so bad that most criminal allegations against immigration officers involve the sexual abuse of children, this is how we’ve reached what we can only hope is an inflection point.

First, there’s the Supreme Court, which has made it all but impossible to sue federal officers for rights violations, many of which include clearly criminal acts. Added to that is this administration’s absolute refusal to perform internal investigations, much less punish officers for excessive force, child molestation, or murdering US residents and citizens.

Now, I’m sure there will be dishonest comment brokers arriving to fill the comments with stupid stuff like “well, 152 officers is only X% of immigration officers, so this is actually a good thing.” They can fuck right off. I guarantee any commenter thinking this sort of thing is acceptable because it only involves a small minority of officers is also in favor of letting internet vigilantes beat/maim/murder anyone these amateurs happen to think might be seeking to harm minors. The Venn diagram of “get all the pedos” and “whatever Trump wants to do is fine” is pretty much a full eclipse.

In other words, it’s forgivable if a few ICE/CBP officers do this while engaged in God’s/Trump’s work. But anyone asking for gender-neutral bathrooms should be executed immediately because the only reason a trans person would ask for this is because they want to rape children.

And, in case you’re wondering, of course this isn’t all Trump’s fault. The lack of oversight and accountability has been a problem for years, reducing the deterrents from zero to less than zero. That being said, it’s been getting a lot worse since Trump took office for a second time:

All this, the report finds, is accelerating. Nearly 25 percent of examined criminal offenses tied to ICE and CBP happened during the second presidency of Donald Trump. More occurred in 2026 (22 so far) than in 2025 (14). Both years outperformed the previous peak year of 2024 (11). Still, the fact that the previous peak occurred during Joe Biden’s presidency testifies to Biden and the Democrats’ unwillingness to confront ICE and CBP.

To sum up, this situation was fucked from the get-go and it’s exponentially getting worse under the current [cough] “leadership.” And no one truly thinks Trump or anyone in his administration will look at this report and see a chance to improve things. Trump could try to beat Biden at his own “molested by an immigration officer” game, but this administration has already written off anyone subjected to violent acts (including sexual violence) by immigration as subhumans who just got what the deserved.

Expecting him to care about the steadily-increasing number of molestations by ICE or CBP officers is to expect the sun to rise in the west tomorrow. No one cares, because they never have. And this administration is capable of not caring at levels we’ve never seen before, to cop a favorite phrase of our current president.

Filed Under: cbp, ice, law enforcement misconduct, mass deportation, worst of the worst