Benjamin James Waddell is a legal advocate for immigrants in Colorado who has seen ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, become increasingly aggressive. Since President Trump took office, ICE has arrested nearly 33,000 people, though only half of them were convicted criminals.
Waddell says that ICE agents disregard our nation’s most cherished rights, from freedom of speech and due process to protection from government excess. Trump recently hinted that “homegrowns are next” in his mass deportation effort. And now, in order to more easily target undocumented residents, agents of ICE are gaining access to data compiled by the Internal Revenue Service— which means no one’s information is secure. “It’s time to take a stand against federal overreach,” Waddell writes, “and ICE is the place to start.”