A masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent grabbed Monica Moreta-Galarza’s hair as she clung to her husband, pleading with the agents who were detaining him. She was wrestled away from him as her crying children were held back by other agents.
Moreta-Galarza was taken to a nearby room for an unknown period before she was seen in videos captured by onlookers in the hallway of an immigration courthouse in Manhattan in late September, telling a different federal agent in Spanish: “You guys don’t care about anything!”
The agent, wearing a flannel shirt and baseball cap, replies, “Adios, adios,” as he grabs the mother and forces her several feet down the hallway, shoving her into the wall before pushing her to the ground.
Moreta-Galarza was rushed to the hospital for possible head trauma.
Her experience is a snapshot of an array of incidents nationwide caught on camera by bystanders, revealing heavy-handed tactics by federal agents since President Donald Trump took office in January, experts told CNN. Videos over the months have shown ICE agents wearing face coverings and plainclothes, driving unmarked cars and swarming worksites and streets during their deportation operations. Tensions flared again in Chicago this week when an immigration operation resulted in a crash, bringing anger from residents and tear gas.
Many of the incidents in this story, including Moreta-Galarza’s, have been reported by CNN and authorities confirmed ICE agents were involved, with eyewitness videos showing the sometimes violent nature of the arrests.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to CNN federal agents are facing “smearing” by claims the agency is using “harsher approaches,” and said they “put their lives on the line every day to enforce the law.”
Echoing past statements DHS has made after many of the incidents, the agency said it is targeting arrests of the “worst of the worst” and agents are facing a surge in attacks against them. Last month, investigators said a shooter targeted ICE officers at an ICE field office in Dallas, killing two detainees and injuring another.
ICE and US Customs and Border Protection agents are trained “to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and themselves,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement.
Federal officers under DHS are “highly trained” in de-escalation tactics and “regularly receive ongoing use of force training,” McLaughlin said.
Pressures to meet deportation goals are fueling aggressive tactics, experts say
Former Homeland Security officials and immigration experts argue the aggressive tactics are a result of the immense pressure on immigration agents to ramp up arrests of undocumented immigrants as the administration tries to meet its deportation goals. Historically, the agencies charged with those arrests, like ICE, have been strained, making White House-imposed goals more difficult to meet. The administration says it’s a whole government effort.
Officers from other federal agencies, such as the FBI and CBP, the agency responsible for border security, have also been pulled into immigration enforcement efforts, flooding the streets of blue cities such as Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Chicago.
Law enforcement sources told CNN the increasingly aggressive tactics they’ve observed from immigration agents in recent months have led to confrontations between DHS and agents from other federal agencies working on joint task forces.
John Sandweg, former acting director of ICE under President Barack Obama, said the tactics are not aimed at fighting criminality – they’re designed to increase overall arrests.
“You don’t arrest people in immigration court … who are on stays of removal unless you’re looking for cheap, fast and easy arrests,” said Sandweg, who remains in contact with current ICE and DHS personnel.
In cases like Moreta-Galarza’s, a good agent can still carry out their mission while treating people with “dignity and respect,” said Sandweg.
“Of course she’s going to have that reaction,” he said, “you just arrested her husband and the father of her children … maybe not to be seen in this country ever again.”
While DHS has largely doubled down on its defense of the tactics ICE agents have been using in many of the incidents captured on video, the agency condemned the actions of the agent who shoved Moreta-Galarza and “relieved him of his current duties,” calling his actions “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE.”
It’s unclear whether the officer is still employed by ICE. The agency did not respond to CNN’s questions about disciplinary actions against the officer, his current status or his name.
ICE and CBP resources freed up after drop in border crossings
Illegal border crossings reached “all-time lows” in July, DHS said, which allowed resources at ICE and CBP to be freed up, according to Sandweg. ICE has also referenced the steep decline in border crossings as a reason its agents are now “focused on the core mission.”
ICE is slated to receive a landmark $75 billion in federal funds through 2029 from the president’s sweeping agenda bill for detention expansion and enforcement and removal operations, including hiring new agents, CNN has reported.
The surge in agency resources comes at a time when ICE is aggressively trying to recruit more agents. This could make even more agents available, as they were previously tied up dealing with border cases or spending hours, sometimes days, pursuing one arrest and quietly working with local authorities to target “truly the worst of the worst,” said Sandweg.
Over the past decade, Sandweg said enhanced border activity and asylum claims were “an incredible strain on ICE resources,” as agents had their hands full with taking people into custody, processing, supervising and removing many of the migrants who were apprehended at the border.
Now, ICE and CBP resources are more available to bolster non-border operations, Sandweg said.
Both agencies have been involved in large-scale deportation efforts unfolding in areas previously protected from immigration enforcement, such as schools, churches and courthouses, which hinge on the Trump administration’s decision to roll back a 2011 policy preventing immigration enforcement in sensitive areas.
None of those operations would be possible, according to Sandweg, if border crossings hadn’t fallen drastically since last summer when former President Joe Biden issued an executive action barring migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum once a threshold of average daily crossings is met.
Trump officials have said the differing tactics stem from so-called “sanctuary policies” that have been around since the 1980s in many Democratic-controlled areas that limit prisons and jails from cooperating with ICE, so immigration arrests take place in the community rather than at a detention facility.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has repeatedly cited sanctuary policies as disruptive to immigration enforcement – and threatened to have an increased presence in those cities. Homan, a veteran of immigration law enforcement, also served under the Obama administration.
Most detained immigrants don’t have serious criminal convictions, data shows
As the second Trump administration shifts how ICE has traditionally operated, Sandweg says the range of ICE’s tactics aimed at hiking up arrests and driving migrants to self-deport is working to build an agency “designed to amp up immigration enforcement to levels we’ve never seen in this country.”
While DHS did not specifically address CNN’s request for comment about whether its tactics are designed to maximize arrests, the agency said in its statement it was targeting violent criminals, including murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles and rapists.
Federal data reveals most immigrants taken into custody don’t have serious criminal convictions, according to a report by CNN Investigates. More than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no criminal conviction other than an immigration or traffic-related offense, according to ICE records from October through the end of May.
ICE has launched large-scale raids at worksites like Home Depot parking lots in various cities and the Hyundai Metaplant in a small southeast Georgia community last month – assisted by CBP and other federal and state agencies. Nearly 500 people, mostly Korean nationals, who worked at the manufacturing plant were arrested on suspicions they were living and working illegally in the US.
Undocumented people who have not been convicted of any crime and have been arrested in raids like the one at Hyundai have become “collateral” in the larger mission to fight criminality, says Jerry Robinette, former ICE Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge during the Obama administration who also worked for the agency under President George W. Bush.
These people get caught when an officer checks their status and discovers they’re in the country illegally, which is a civil – not criminal – offense, he added.
“As much as they want to target the worst of the worst, you look at who you end up arresting. You’re not being as successful as you would like,” Robinette said. “You are getting a lot of collateral.”
More extensive immigration raids, like the one at Hyundai, are coming, Trump’s border czar told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union: “The short answer is yes, we’re going to do more worksite enforcement operations,” Homan replied.
Protests over immigration actions escalate into clashes
Children and adults were pulled from their homes as federal agents raided an apartment complex in Chicago last month, arresting 37 undocumented immigrants in another recent, large-scale raid.
DHS said gang members and violent criminals were among those arrested, the agency said in its statement.
It’s just one example that shows the tactics fueling protests for weeks outside the ICE facility in Broadview, near Chicago, where federal agents have at times used pepper balls, rubber bullets and tear gas to clear protesters, putting tensions on full display.
Protests at the site this month again turned into heated clashes between protesters and armed agents from CBP and ICE, leading to at least 18 arrests, including five who were charged with aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting and obstruction.
In the Chicago apartment raid, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is investigating claims children were separated from their parents and “zip-tied,” as well as elderly people who were detained for three hours, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
DHS rejected Pritzker’s claims in a news release, saying children were never zip-tied in the raid and added the agency has “routinely debunked the absurd claim” that it’s targeting US citizens.
The type of aggression from federal agents the public is witnessing in many of these recent incidents has some similarities to the 1950s-era federal program aimed at mass deportations, known as “Operation Wetback” under then-President Dwight Eisenhower, according to Jean Reisz, co-director of the University of Southern California Immigration Clinic.
The Trump administration is echoing rhetoric from that era, referring to immigrants “as being ‘the worst of the worst,’ as being dangerous, as being invaders,” Reisz said, which empowers agents in the streets to “use aggression toward those who could be viewed as resisting.”
The public fury this year over how ICE is operating is rooted in how the Trump administration is pushing the boundaries of various individual rights — such as birthright citizenship — that have been protected for over 60 years, Reisz said. Just last month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the president’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
DHS did not respond to CNN’s request for comment about the comparison with the 1950s-era federal program.
In pictures: Protests in LA after immigration raids
This summer, tensions reached a tipping point during weeks of protests in Los Angeles after a wave of detentions in the city, when protesters’ confrontations with local police and federal officers escalated into violent clashes that prompted a controversial, federal deployment of National Guard troops. Federal agents used flash-bangs and tear gas to disperse crowds, with some hitting demonstrators, as well as protesters setting fire to self-driving cars.
Robinette said the “optics” of the tactics federal immigration agents have been using are “not good for us as an agency,” but they are a result of officers having to follow orders from top administration officials and confrontations with people resisting as they execute the orders.
The political pressures on ICE have caused “a lot of headaches” as it deals with protesters who don’t just have issues with the agency but are also driven by political grievances related to the Trump administration, Robinette said. “The job is getting difficult.”
The sweeping raids have instilled a “persistent mental anxiety” within the immigrant community when encountering local police or National Guard troops who might report them to federal immigration officers, said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock with the National Immigration Law Center.
“Even if you’ve got your papers, even though you’re a US citizen, you kind of have to check over your shoulder and that’s having a pretty negative impact on people mentally,” Whitlock said. “And then that translates to a fear or flight response that happens when you do encounter them.”
Officer anonymization fuels public mistrust
Scenes from some of the incidents captured on video in recent months have shown federal agents wearing masks or plainclothes while arresting people — something they have historically done only while performing undercover work or arresting some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, experts say.
In Los Angeles, masked agents were seen yanking a Colombian immigrant out of her vehicle and detaining her on the ground. In Washington, DC, video showed masked federal agents struggling to arrest a man before he appears to be tased and subdued on the pavement. In Massachusetts, Turkish national and Tufts University grad student Rümeysa Öztürk was physically restrained by six plainclothes officers, most of whom were wearing face coverings.
There is no federal policy dictating when officers can or should cover their faces during arrests. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said federal officers are covering up to protect their families after some have been publicly identified and then harassed online, along with relatives.
“I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” Lyons said.
But there is a risk of escalating encounters when people can’t identify them as federal agents, said Jeffrey Swartz, a Cooley Law School professor and former prosecutor and judge.
“We’ve never tolerated people who are engaged in law enforcement, who keep who they are and their identification secret from the people who might have complaints about the way they’re being treated,” said Swartz. “Police officers have always identified themselves.”
DHS said the “vilification” of ICE “must stop,” claiming its agents are facing a 1,000% increase in assaults against them since Trump took office in January. ICE noted “criminal illegal aliens” have targeted its federal agents in the past.
A review of federal court records by Colorado Public Radio, however, revealed a 25% increase in people facing charges for assault against federal officers through mid-September, as compared to the same period last year.
When asked by CNN whether ICE is giving any directives for its agents to wear face coverings, DHS said: “When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves and their families from being targeted” by gangs, murderers, rapists and other violent criminals.
Strong federal presence in cities impacts public ‘psyche’
The Trump administration is on pace to deport nearly 600,000 people by the end of Trump’s first year of his second term, DHS said late last month. It is not clear what the breakdown of deportations is by agency.
Including the 71,400 deportations recorded by ICE between October 2024 and the end of December before Trump took office, ICE was already on pace to surpass 300,000 deportations by September 30 – the highest number recorded in a single fiscal year since the Obama administration, when around 316,000 people were removed in fiscal year 2014, CNN reported. CBP recorded more than 132,000 deportations this year.
The agency said 70% of ICE arrests are “of criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted or have pending charges in the US.”
Former ICE officials, like Sandweg and Robinette, worry about the long-term impact on the agency because of the pressures they’re facing this Trump term.
Sandweg says the lasting impact could be “devastating” for an agency that has historically worked as a close and quiet partner of state and local law enforcement.
With agents now working side-by-side with local agencies participating in the revived 287(g) program – allowing ICE to authorize state and local law enforcement officers to perform specific immigration enforcement duties under its supervision – it’s fueling tensions with local leaders, who have expressed concerns about ICE overstepping or keeping them in the dark.
“My biggest concern is … what’s going to happen for the future of the agency?” Robinette said. “This agency, since its birth, has never gone through anything like this.”
The strong presence of federal officers in communities has “impacted the psyche of the American public,” deterring people from engaging with local and federal authorities, fracturing trust and instilling fear and uncertainty, said Thaddeus Johnson, a former law enforcement official in Tennessee and a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, an independent nonpartisan organization.
Johnson said he’s concerned the impact will undercut the legitimacy and authority of local and state agencies long after federal agents leave communities.
For people on the receiving end of harsher ICE tactics – such as Moreta-Galarza in New York – the experience can be re-traumatizing and fuel mistrust. After she was pushed and shoved by the ICE agent, the mother told reporters she fled violence in Ecuador only to suffer “the same thing” in the US.
She and her family have open asylum claims, according to US Rep. Dan Goldman, who added they are here “lawfully but are being targeted by ICE regardless.”
“They encircled us, then they slammed me against the floor, they grabbed my kids and dragged them away,” Moreta-Galarza told CNN affiliate WXTV. “They slammed me against the floor and caused my head to slam against the floor. Everyone from ICE fell on top of me.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Josh Campbell and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.