"Rep. John Mannion, a New York Democrat, called ICE "a personal paramilitary unit of the president." Journalist Radley Balko, who wrote a book about how American police forces have been militarized, has argued that President Donald Trump was using the force "the way an authoritarian uses a paramilitary force, to carry out his own personal grudges, to inflict pain and violence, and discomfort on people that he sees as his political enemies.""
"The term paramilitary is commonly used in two ways. The first refers to highly militarized police forces, which are an official part of a nation's security forces. They typically have access to military-grade weaponry and equipment, are highly centralized with a hierarchical command structure, and deploy in large formed units to carry out domestic policing. These "paramilitary police," such as the French Gendarmerie, India's Central Reserve Police Force or Russia's Internal Troops, are modeled on regular military forces."
ICE meets many but not all of the most salient definitions of a paramilitary. Elected officials and commentators have labeled ICE with terms such as personal paramilitary unit, virtual secret police, and paramilitary enforcer. The term paramilitary commonly denotes two distinct categories: highly militarized police forces formally integrated into state security, and less formal partisan armed groups that operate outside regular security sectors. Militarized police typically possess military-grade weaponry, centralized hierarchical command, and deploy in large formed units for domestic policing, with examples including the French Gendarmerie, India's Central Reserve Police Force and Russia's Internal Troops. Comparison of ICE's deployment to foreign paramilitaries highlights both similarities and differences in structure, equipment and partisan alignment.
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