The U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (also commonly known as ICE) and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are mutually-informed by the other’s displacement strategies and have more overlap than one might believe in their ethical approach to homeland security.
Because U.S. operations often mirror those of Israel and vice versa, it would benefit everybody, especially those threatened by developing ICE deportation efforts, to examine the example set by the IDF during the Israel-Hamas conflict and consider that legality does not determine morality and how legal precedent can be used to legitimize unfair and immoral displacement methods.
ICE is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security that aims to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety,” according to the official ICE website.
On Jan. 29, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to reopen Guantanamo Bay as a detainment site for criminal migrant offenders.
According to Associated Press, since Feb. 5, 177 Venezuelan migrants have passed through detainment at Guantanamo on their way back to Venezuela as the United States ramps up “for the possibility to expand mass deportations,” according to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in a DOD press interview, opening the door for the potential of further expanded ICE operations that target non-violent and legal migrants.
In the mission statement published on the official website, IDF operations “focus on maintaining the security of Israeli civilians” and “the overall safety of civilians everywhere” with one of their four core values being an obligation to “protect human dignity.”
This is in demonstrable contrast to Israel’s military actions; in a news release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Palestinian detainees, including children, are being subject to “torture and mistreatment” on bases undisclosed to human rights investigators.
Following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas fighters and the renewal of the “Detainment of Unlawful Combatants Law” in 2023 that was originally drafted in 2002, over 4,000 Palestinians have been detained in military detainment camps like Sde Teiman.
According to the Library of Congress, “The law authorizes IDF chief of staff to issue a detention order when there are reasonable grounds to believe that an inmate is an unlawful combatant and that their release would harm state security,” meaning that said law is predicated on suspicion and probable cause rather than the outcome of a fair trial that would definitively prove ties to Hamas. Since the passing of the “Unlawful Combatants” Law
According to the U.S.-Israeli Embassy website, “the U.S. participates in a high level of exchanges with Israel, to include joint military exercises, military research, and weapons development.”
This means Israeli military detainment operations weren’t coordinated in a vacuum. Following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay was opened in 2002 as a means of detaining and interrogating Al-Qaeda combatants during the Global War on Terror that started under former President George W. Bush’s administration. Since then, the site has been exposed by numerous human rights organizations as a hub for rights violations, including, but not limited to, torture of people largely unproven to be Al-Qaeda combatants.
Undocumented students that are most likely to be affected by ICE operations can seek legal and counseling assistance through the Dreamers Success Center located in Holt 201.
