At the 2025 Border Security Expo, Acting Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons remarked that, “We need to get better at treating this like a business, where this mass deportation operation is something like you would see and say, like, Amazon trying to get your Prime delivery within 24 hours. So, trying to figure out how to do that with human beings.” While the casualness with which Lyons considers treating people like packages is deeply concerning, it overlooks that the corporatization of ICE has already occurred. We are already in the era of ICE Inc.
Instead of warehouses, ICE Inc. has over four hundred and thirty detention centers, with more being added. In September 2025, ICE Inc. took over a portion of Louisiana State Penitentiary, notorious for its history of violence and harsh conditions, to use as a holding facility. Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved Florida’s $608 million request to pay for construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” located in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Instead of barcodes, ICE Inc. scans machine-readable bodies. DHS is currently funding the development of its Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) program. Once completed, HART will serve as DHS’s primary system for storing and processing biometric and biographic information for several purposes including national security, law enforcement, as well as immigration and border management.
While technological innovations may make good investments, they don’t always get things right. In April 2025, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a US citizen, was detained by ICE and threatened with deportation based on an incorrect biometric identification. For ICE Inc., such mishaps are simply the cost of doing business – hundreds of wrongfully detained ‘packages’ won’t deter them from making their numbers.
Instead of profits, ICE Inc. chases higher arrests and deportation figures. DHS press releases mirror quarterly reports touting “new milestones” and celebrating that the “Trump Administration is on pace to shatter historic records.” In business, the bigger the number, the greater the success. As Border Czar Tom Homan put it, “ICE is kicking butt. The numbers are good. They’re not good enough. I want more.”
To achieve this, ICE Inc. is aggressively seeking fresh talent. It even offers a slew of competitive incentives including a $50,000 signing bonus, $60,000 in student loan repayment and 25% premium pay.
Instead of physical and digital goods, ICE Inc. ships and packages human beings stripped of their rights and legal protections. This includes ‘packages’ such as Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, an immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador after he was accused of being a member of MS-13. It also includes Leo Garcia Venegas, a US citizen who was arrested and detained twice by ICE within the span of a few weeks.
So dedicated to their corporate goals, ICE Inc. scours the streets of our most diverse cities looking for misplaced ‘packages.’ In Chicago, ICE agents knock down doors in an apartment complex, rounding up and zip-tying residents, separating children from their parents, arresting dozens in the middle of the night. ICE Inc. will recover its assets at any cost.
ICE Inc. is booming, and, like Amazon and other major corporations, it is completely indifferent to the negative externalities it generates. In their pursuit of maximizing favorable statistics for its political investors, ICE Inc. operates with callous, capitalist indifference. Even citizens are at risk. After all, unlike a public institution, ICE Inc. is only beholden to its shareholders. Like any major corporation, ICE Inc. understands that any wrongful pain and suffering caused by their services can be settled in court.
So, what can we do? As a Hispanic philosopher who works on issues of race and immigration, this question looms heavy on my mind. And to be blunt, there is no simple solution here. ICE Inc. reflects the convergence of multiple forces, including widespread belief in false narratives about dangerous “illegals,” growing xenophobia and white nationalist sentiments, a militarizedimmigration enforcement agency, and the Trump administration’s desperation to project strength. It also reflects the prioritization of efficiency and automation over human rights by DHS – ultimately, ICE now runs like a business because the people in charge of ICE want it to run like a business.
Philosophy traditionally champions rationality and dialogue; however, what is transpiring now will take more than arguments. What we need now is political action. We need to pressure Democrats to pass meaningful legislation at the local, state and federal levels. Recent bills like California’s SB 805 and SB 627, as well as H.R. 4456 and H.R. 4843 are a good starting point, but more is needed.
We need to support organizations like the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the National Immigration Project and United We Dream who advocate for the rights and legal protections of immigrants. We need to develop mutual aid networks to help those who are too afraid to walk outside for fear of detainment. And while words will not be enough, we need people to continue denouncing the atrocities of ICE Inc. We need people to keep educating and informing others about what is happening. This problem will not solve itself, and complacency until the next presidential election is not a moral option. To be sure, ICE Inc. is not a uniquely Republican or MAGA phenomenon – it is the byproduct of a decades-long bipartisan effort.
Things will get worse unless we – not as ‘illegals’ and citizens, not as ‘packages’ and shippers, but as human beings – resist ICE Inc.