It’s going to take all of us, but we can all do this.
By Matt Cameron
Editor’s Note: Whether or not you perceive that the situation we currently face is as bad as this author portrays it, this is a tactic that has been used in the past to nonviolently demoralize occupying military forces. Shouldn’t we add it to our resistance toolkit?
Today a federal police force accountable only to the president surrounded a press conference held by the governor of the opposition party’s most populous state while he was announcing a political strategy to counter the ruling party’s attempted national legislative coup through its own most populous state.
Take a minute to read that back—possibly out loud and preferably to the closest person who will consent to hearing it—and consider that this is not the lede for a late-filed BBC story about some immiserated land ten time zones away. It is a coldly objective description of something which has just happened in the single most privileged nation ever to exist, and only just a few hours ago.
This national emergency didn’t start today, but it did just kick up another alarm with CBP making its presence known at Gavin Newsom’s press conference on how California can counter the cementing of a permanent hard-right managed democracy which is being made policy in Texas right now even as Trump sends federal troops into California and DC in an unprecedented show of federal force. As many people as can possibly hear it need to know some version of the facts stated above, and what they mean for all of us.
But we need more than that. We will need nothing short of a national sociocultural revolution to stop what is coming.
I call it THE BIG FREEZE—but we’ll get there.
First, the chart.
Well before all of this we were already spending more on immigration enforcement than all other federal law enforcement combined. But these orange lines represent a coming tsunami of federal funding 1 which is about to permanently change how the federal government relates to every resident of this country. This will be a police state on a scale and of a routine brutality which is beyond the average American’s 2 political (or personal) imagination.
Let’s look at it again:
I will have more to say another time about how a bipartisan effort created the ideal climate for this perfect storm, but for now just focus in on the orange lines above.
The Trump/Miller narrative that ICE only enforces against the “worst of the worst” has already been blown apart by their own actions of the past seven months. The numbers speak for themselves—as they were always going to, because you can’t target a million people a year and also only deport violent felons and gang members.
If you were born a US citizen, consider what life will be like in the federalized police state those lines represent for your non-citizen neighbors—but also, even and especially if you were born in the U.S., for you .3 Imagine the new archipelago of shambolic American gulags which will combine to allow ICE to hold 125,000 people across this country each night which are about to be dotted across West Texas and beyond—and what other uses they might start to be put to when a turbocharged ICE has terrified the majority of the undocumented population into leaving voluntarily. iety.
Consider the sociocultural shifts which will follow as a new generation accepts as given that this is the kind of country in which masked secret police haul people off to camps, and when “masked secret police” is just another job that an American can have.
We are well within sight of something that we will not be able to come back from in my lifetime.
Eight days ago, the National Review published this tepid op-ed claiming that it those of us who have been noticing the obvious points of comparison between ICE and the Gestapo were “totally cracked.” We had a lot of fun doing a line-by-line response on Opening Arguments yesterday, but this news today had me returning to a paragraph which has already aged worse than Stephen Miller:
DJ, run that back slow:
ICE agents are simply doing their job
You might even say they are simply following orders. But more importantly: what part of showing up to Newsom’s press conference was “doing their job”? The Japanese American National Museum is a private museum which is “Smithsonian-affiliated,” but that’s not enough to make it federal property. 4
which is a function of the legitimate power of the federal government to regulate immigration and to expel those with no legal right to live or work in this country.
What about showing up to Newsom’s press conference constituted “a function of the legitimate power of the federal government to regulate immigration”?
ICE officers only take steps to protect their identity because they are facing violent resistance.
No other law enforcement routinely does this. If you don’t want us to call you secret police, maybe don’t go around looking and behaving exactly like secret police.
They, obviously, are nothing like the Gestapo.
This is such a good point, and such an important distinction! The Gestapo were a politicized police force answerable only to the head of state which conducted mass surveillance on the national population and pulled members of specific minority groups off the street and into vans for processing and deportation to concentration camps in horrible conditions in occupied territory. ICE is a politicized police force answerable only to the head of state which conducts mass surveillance on the national population and pull anyone it wants to 5 off the street and into vans for processing into long-term detention in horrible conditions and likely deportation to their home countries. Hope that helps!
The Gestapo arrested people for political crimes without any judicial process
they attacked partisan enemies of the Nazi party
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
U.S. Representative Monica McIver.
NYC Comptroller Brad Lander.
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla.
and they secretly monitored religious organizations
Mosque surveillance was a very important joint FBI/ICE activity for many years. (Also, did you know that this country literally already had a Muslim registry? I really think that you should.)
among other crimes and hideous acts.
In his excellent book The Gestapo: A History of Horror, author 6 Jacque Delarue interviewed dozens of former Gestapo men in prison after the war and generally found them to be regular people (albeit “of low character and no moral fiber”) who didn’t have any particular ideology and for the most part just seemed to be trying to earn a living.
But, much more tellingly, Delarue writes that they also did not understand anything that they had done to be wrong. Being natural authoritarians, he observed that they all simply recognized vengeance as the natural right of the conquerer, and that they saw themselves as nothing more than victims of the Allies who had lost their freedom just because they happened to be on the losing side and really for no other reason.
I have just read two long books about the history of Nazi secret policing, and while of course I agree that ICE in their current form are not the literal Gestapo—well, let’s remember that neither was the Gestapo only seven months into the Third Reich. And I think I’ll have more to say about that sometime soon.
But I’ve gone more more than enough about the problem here.
There is only one realistic solution to this thing.
As of August 2025, there are no democratic means to remove ICE, CBP, and their greedy private sector enablers from government. Reversing the massive funding which they have just received will require far more electoral and political capital than people of conscience are going to have in DC anytime soon, and we just have to be real about that. But if recent polling numbers are any indication of the state of our national conscience on this issue, this country has never been more ready to join together across race, class, gender, and political loyalties to abolish ICE and anyone who has ever been associated with it—if not from government, than from society.
We will never have the votes in Congress to claw the money back before it is too late, but we can do everything possible to keep the 10,000 officers they intend to bring in as quickly as possible from ever being hired.
Which is where you come in.
It’s time for THE BIG FREEZE.
WHAT IS (AND ISN’T) THE BIG FREEZE?
THE BIG FREEZE is a full social, financial, political, and lockout for anyone associated with:
(1) ICE or CBP 7
(2) immigrant detention centers
(3) private prison companies which run these detention centers; and
(4) the looming dystopian tech infrastructure 8 which is on the verge of enabling a terrifying new round of state repression and violence on a scale that this country has never known before
THE BIG FREEZE is an urgent and necessary response to an impending American crisis, and it is the only way that we will survive it.
THE BIG FREEZE was directly inspired by “The Big No,” an organizing principle of uncompromising moral clarity taken from my good friend Meghan Kallman and her co-author Josephine Ferorelli’s outstanding book The Conceivable Future: Planning Families and Taking Action in an Age of Climate Change. In Meghan’s own words: “The Big No is saying, “We don’t want this compressor station here — or anywhere.” It’s not NIMBYISM—it’s not, we’re chasing it out of my neighborhood. This is: we need a world that doesn’t require natural gas compressor stations.”
THE BIG FREEZE is NOT a modest proposal. It is the product of thinking this through after years of my own personal and professional struggle against American fascism—most especially as it enters a dangerous new era of nearly-unlimited funding for federal enforcement and detention. I truly believe that widespread social, personal, financial, and practical resistance to anyone with even a passing association with these evils is the only realistic way that we can now stop what is coming. (But we can stop it.)
THE BIG FREEZE is a radical call to non-violent resistance. It is not—and I will now stress this in bold for a good reason—ever intended to provide an excuse for threats, violence, vandalism, doxxing, or otherwise endangering the lives or safety of anyone. Not ever. Anyone inspired by these words to do anything like that will prove only that they haven’t read them.
THE BIG FREEZE is a collective societal effort with little cost or effort required from any one individual. It can be carried out with virtually no risk of personal confrontation and (more likely than not) with little to no personal sacrifice required on the part of anyone who will ever read this. It can easily be practiced by decent people of every imaginable description and background across socioeconomic strata.
THE BIG FREEZE is the sociocultural equivalent of radical guerrilla tactics. But I also truly believe that if we can’t as a society cabin immigration enforcement away now as the known province of white nationalist Nickelback fans who are hopelessly bad in bed and never tip more than 10% 9 that we don’t stand a chance of stopping what’s coming.
THE BIG FREEZE is ten ways to stop the growth of immigration enforcement on a national level at virtually (in nearly all cases) no cost or personal effort. Few of us are in a position to do all of these things, but all of us can do some of them.
- SHOW UP AND REPORT ON THEM. Show up for your community wherever ICE is in the biggest numbers you can get together, just to let them know you are watching. Record them whenever and however you possibly can within the bounds of your local law. Keep telling the stories of the awful things happening to good people at the hands of masked kidnappers, most especially to people who might not otherwise hear about them, and amplify and platform others as you see them.
- DON’T SWIPE RIGHT ON THEM. Fuck ICE? Sure, but also: no. The Lysistrata strategy 10 is just my starting point here, but it’s a time-honored classic for a reason. (Also given that (as of 2020) only about 13% of ICE and 20% of CBP are reported to be women, this one is mostly going to be limited to people who have sex with men anyway.)
- DON’T FRIEND THEM. Actually, or even just casually on social media. Don’t invite them to your cookout, your housewarming, or your wedding. If they are blood relatives, consider the difficult decision as to whether they should still be family.
- DON’T SERVE THEM. Anti-ICE signs are popping up at businesses around the US, from Cincinnati to California. They’re easy to print and display, and a great way both to let federal law enforcement know that you know your rights as a business owner—but also to advertise to non-citizen patrons that you care about theirs. These signs are generally intended to advise ICE that can’t enter without a judicial warrant, but why not extend that to the off-duty presence of individual officers? Your servers, hosts, bartenders, barbacks, and kitchen staff will thank you even before your community does.
- DON’T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. Is your local Honda dealership owned by a former ICE agent? I think the majority of your neighbors who now agree that “ICE has gone too far” might want to know that.
- DON’T HIRE THEM. It is perfectly legal for employers to discriminate against people on the basis of their prior employment—and they already do it all the time to punish candidates with experience in far more respectable occupations (e.g. sex workers, unlicensed cannabis dealers). There is no reason at all that major corporations, state and local governments, and professional organizations can’t begin to normalize national public announcements that they will not be hiring former immigration enforcement or detention personnel. (I know this is a lot to ask for, but this would be an especially powerful statement from state and local law enforcement agencies and private security companies.) Also don’t put child kidnappers on your board of directors.
- TEACH YOUR CHILDREN ABOUT THEM. Immigration enforcement may be legally complicated, but what it does to people and their families is morally simple enough that any child who has been raised right can immediately understand why it is wrong. I don’t have kids myself, but I know plenty of good responsible parents who are doing their best to explain our times to the next generation. Also: It doesn’t feel fair of me to say that you should keep your kids from socializing with theirs, but there’s no reason at all that your daughter shouldn’t deserve to know that her playdate’s dad hurts people for money.
- NO ENGAGEMENT, NO PLATFORM. I’m talking myself as much as anyone here, but you can work to stop Stephen Miller and Tom Homan without quoting or reposting them. So long as we all know who these people are already, repeating—and especially responding to—their latest hate will do no good for anyone.
- DON’T WRITE IT OFF AS “POLITICS.” How you feel about ICE is not a “political opinion.” We are now galaxies beyond the traditional minor differences on immigration policy which have characterized the country’s only two viable political parties for most of my lifetime even as they both continued to ramp up enforcement to the point we have now reached. This has rapidly become an existential threat to a future in anything that we might be able to recognize as a free country, and the existence of a coming supersized fascist secret police force operating within the interior of the United States is not a matter on which anyone should “agree to disagree.”
- NO RESTORATION WITHOUT RECOGNITION; NO REDEMPTION WITHOUT REPENTANCE. Everyone deserves a chance, but there should be a strong presumption against it for every one of these people. Simply leaving the job behind should not be enough to for any given offender to thaw THE BIG FREEZE and be allowed back to cross back from beyond the pale into decent society. At a minimum, we will need a public statement of credible contrition.
This is of course just a basic start, a set of working principles. There is so much more than we can all do in our own communities, from public education to mutual aid to fundraising for direct immigrant legal services.11
WE KNOW THE BIG FREEZE WILL WORK BECAUSE IT IS ALREADY WORKING
ICE’s collective morale has never been lower, and they are having so much trouble hiring that they have ended age requirements and started offering ridiculous signing bonuses and loan forgiveness. Keep the pressure on, and end the social futures of anyone who even considers this work for themselves.
Also what kind of dumbass is persuaded by this?
One more thing:
I have to admit that this has been sitting in drafts for weeks now. Not because I haven’t been able to finish it, but because I have been afraid to. 12 And so I want to tell you that it’s not just okay to be afraid right now, it’s inevitable for anyone who has been watching it all go down. I would be concerned if you weren’t at least a little afraid. They may be bumbling, disorganized, and led by some of the weakest and dullest minds in the country—but, famously, so was the Gestapo and that certainly didn’t stop them. There will be consequences for many of us, and none of them will be just.
But there are more of us than there are of them, and there always will be. Freeze on.
1 Remember that this only reflects ICE personnel, and doesn’t even account for the massive 45 billion dollar increase in detention capacity which Congress has also authorized.
2 or at at least the average white American’s
3 I felt a deep chill to the marrow a few weeks ago I was reading Trump’s recent executive order on “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” when I got to the sentence about how removing unhoused people from the streets to “long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.” This fetish for domestic security spending—and the disgusting private sector hogs feeding at its trough—is fueling a one-way ratchet, and the next generation of fash-curious Republican electeds will be perfectly comfortable echoing Trump’s rhetoric here to call for a completely new kind of top-down federal domestic enforcement.
4 (I checked)
5 (including US citizens)
6 (and former French Resistance saboteur)
7 N.B. that I am not proposing this treatment for all of DHS, but only these two enforcement agencies. Other DHS components such as the TSA and the Coast Guard provide good working-class employment opportunities for facially apolitical missions, and if we can’t go about THE BIG FREEZE in a fair and narrowly targeted way which doesn’t risk harm to people trying to work honest jobs we shouldn’t do it at all.
8 Palantir being top of the list
9 if that
10 I really wanted to call THE BIG FREEZE the “Ice-istrada,” but that is both kind of a niche joke and reducing the whole thing down to a sex strike so here we are
11 Keep it as local as possible, and if you live in a place where they are already well-funded consider funneling money to jurisdictions where they are not.
12 Not to make this about me, but a few people close to me have recently asked me why I would say any of this in public if I actually believe that we are heading for a future in which ICE is as dangerous as any personal police force of any national dictator has ever been. It’s a very good question, but I guess the short answer is I have already been doing and saying all of this for too long to stop now.
Matt Cameron has been stopping deportations in Boston and beyond since 2006. He is an immigration attorney and legal podcaster with special interests and experience in immigration, civil rights, and criminal defense.
This article was published on August 14, 2025 at DEPORTNATION.