ICE + CBP + Palantir: A Tool of Mass Political Repression
With the passing of Trump’s bill, there is nothing preventing a total surveillance state backed up by state violence
The passing of the “Big Beautiful Bill” was a moment of dark clarity. Millions of people will die through the deliberate, completely unnecessary infliction of suffering on the most vulnerable and marginalized populations in America. Cutting over a trillion dollars from the public safety net while filling the pockets of the 1% is a jaw-dropping crime against humanity. It’s not just immoral, it’s homicidal eugenics.
However, perhaps the most chilling part of this bill is the creation of what will be a tool of political repression rivaled only by the Chinese Communist Party and the Russian government.
The CCP’s system of internal repression is accomplished through its million-strong paramilitary force People’s Armed Police (PAP), mass surveillance, and completely subservient institutions. The PAP are responsible for brutal campaigns of violence, detention, and psychological warfare against their own people, as well as carrying out the systematic suppression of the Uyghurs, and the repression in Tibet, Hong Kong and Inner Mongolia.
Putin’s Rosgvardiya aka National Guard of Russia—which was commissioned by Putin in 2016—is comprised of 300-400K troops, plus the internal intelligence service FSB, and performs a similar function as the PAP, if slightly less totalitarian in its capacity for complete control. Rosgvardiya are responsible for repression of the Navalny protests, cracking down on Russian elections, and in large part, the occupation of Russian-held Ukrainian territory.
With a combined budget of nearly $200 billion over the next four years, the combination of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and Peter Thiel’s Palantir will create a surveillance state backed up by a massive internal paramilitary force with a budget larger than most mid-sized nations spend on total defense.
In addition to the mass escalation in physical state violence made possible by adding at least 10,000 more shock troops to American streets, Palantir does great violence to all hope of privacy, or neutrality, in government.
Palantir’s Foundry and ImmigrationOS tools integrate:
Facial recognition and biometrics
Social media activity
Travel, DMV, and immigration history
Financial, health, and education records
These databases can be fused into profiles of “subversive” individuals or groups, regardless of legal status.
Result: Political activists, journalists, or opposition supporters can be quietly flagged, tracked, and targeted.
“You don’t need to outlaw dissent if you can predict, isolate, and disrupt it before it happens.”
Here is a table generated by ChatGPT which reflects a fairly conservative comparison of the potential capacity of the newly expanded ICE-CBP-Palantir complex to serve as an instrument of political repression, versus the existing CCP and Russian operations.
The only thing separating the Trump system from the Russian and Chinese versions is the American constitutional order and Rule of Law, which are both under deep attack, if not completely defunct already. The Trump regime has been actively and openly calling for the dismantling of habeas corpus and due process, the only things that prevent the system from wide-scale detention or outright disappearance of American citizens antagonistic to the regime.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, on his return from El Salvador, has sued for civil rights abuses because he was subject to beatings and torture in CECOT. He is the only one of hundreds of US residents imprisoned there who has escaped from the “Night and Fog” that the regime has created.
At the same time, Trump has openly stated multiple times that he plans to use his internal paramilitary operation for political purposes. He has threatened everyone from “Democrat Power Centers,” to Zohran Mamdani, to Elon Musk with abuse of the system.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“ICE Officers are herewith ordered… to achieve the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History” by focusing on cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, which he labeled the “core of the Democrat Power Center.”Trump threatened arrest and deportation of political opponent Zohran Mamdani (a U.S. citizen): He questioned Mamdani’s citizenship and stated, “we’ll have to arrest him” during a press briefing.
The context included criticism of Mamdani’s anti-ICE position and New York City mayoral campaign.
Trump also suggested deporting Elon Musk, despite his U.S. citizenship:
While acknowledging Musk’s citizenship, Trump said, “We’ll have to take a look.“
There is no doubt what Trump and his henchmen plan to do with this operation. This is a massive system of state surveillance, repression and violence designed to protect, preserve and defend the regime, not the Constitution, or the Rule of Law.
We are under attack by our own tyrannical government. I am deeply concerned that the ultimate goal of this operation is to ensure that we never have a free and fair election again. It’s time to pull the scales from our eyes and decide: Is this acceptable, or not? If no, organize, prepare, and get ready for a long fight. This is the real thing.
If you ever wondered, “what would I have done?”—now you know.
Long live a free America. Heroyam Slava.
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I wrote a short essay called "Sleepwalking into Authoritarianism" long before the Canadian election and before I discovered Jim's prescient writing. It's the only piece on my Substack if anyone is interested. I included an awesome photo of an Orca bagging a seal, which is an appropriate metaphor. The essay got me banned from YouTube and resulted in my complete deletion from the platform. No warning or appeal...I just became a persona non grata. I'm very proud of my wife, who helped me write it. We were able to fit the pieces together(several months ago) from our living room on Vancouver Island. Jim's writing has been an affirmation that our intuition was right. The surveillance state has become a juggernaut.
Build networks! Build slowly, first, those you trust with your life and vice versa.
Also, keep in light touch with neighbors to make sure nobody is “in trouble” (that is, to ensure everyone has food, medical care, someone to call in an emergency).
Finally, build outward, slowly, contact circles. That is, maybe not neighbors and not your “most trusted,” but folks with who you can work on local problems.