Thousands of undocumented people have been arrested over the last week as part of Trump’s inhumane “mass deportation” plan. As these ICE raids are unfolding, many have been blindsided about the scale of the operation, with over 7,000 people arrested and counting. Today the Trump administration confirmed that all undocumented people are being labelled as criminals, even if they do not have a criminal record. Initially, many had speculated that Trump’s mass arrest plan was unfeasible due to lack of enforcement officers.

This has led to the question of where the labor has come from to allow these mass arrests to unfold?

Leaked letter from DHS provides clue as to where they’re getting so many officers to conduct the raids

“They are stopping most federal law enforcement’s current tasks and they are all tasked with rounding up poor brown people.”

Now, federal employees are coming forward on social media to offer clues as to where the labor came from for these mass arrests of undocumented people. We were first alerted to it in a TikTok video offered by a former army sniper. It was also posted by @TheSidewalkSchool on Instagram, by a Federal BOP employee on Reddit and an X tweet by Camilo Montoya-Galvez.

The January 22 memorandum indicates that other federal law enforcement agencies beyond ICE have been redirected to stop other activities and go after undocumented people.

Hargraves, who posts to TikTok under the username @cfh.unfiltered estimates between 5000-10,000 employees are being diverted to ICE, “that are no longer working at the ATF, FBI, the Department of Homeland Security…and they’re working on rounding up poor brown farm workers.” Aside from the obvious moral imperative, Hargraves emphasized that this is “an insane, insane,waste of time and money,” as many of these five to ten thousand federal employees make more than $100,000 a year. He quoted one of his sources as saying, “I guess I have to drop all my actual criminal investigations to do this nonsense. You have no idea. We just sat out there.”

Additionally, employees of the Department of Justice may also redirect towards exclusively focusing duties targeting the undocumented on a case-by-case basis.

Injustices against the undocumented going overlooked amidst chaos created by Trump administration

Since these letters have been leaked, the story has been broken by CBS News and picked up by WSJ [paywall], and Reuters. But due to a shroud of chaos created by Trump signing a slew of controversial executive orders in his first days in office, people have been too distracted to pay attention to what is happening to undocumented people (history repeats itself).

While the other behaviors of the Trump administration include various threats to public safety and livelihood, it is in these actions against undocumented where Trump is directing the teeth. This is to say: while the other stuff that’s happening is horrible, this is where the police are being directed.

A wide spectrum of federal officers are being forced to drop everything and exclusively focus on the task of rounding up undocumented people.

Bills brought forward at the state level to turn all undocumented people into life-long forced laborers

Amidst these mass arrests of undocumented people, bills have appeared at the state level in Mississippi and Missouri that attempt to make being undocumented a felony punishable by life imprisonment. As deportees are being turned away by other countries, we can’t help but wonder if it has the plan to keep them imprisoned all along, with the goal to rapidly expand the U.S.’s a massive, racialized imprisoned labor force.

The present for-profit justice system in the United States incentivizes packing prisons with as many people as possible, both to divert taxpayer money into the pockets of private prison investors, and to create a massive unpaid labor force due to the provisions in the 13th amendment that allow slavery to take place if it occurs inside a prison.

Beyond being inhumane, this rounding up and incarceration of undocumented people is expensive for American taxpayers, and will drive wages down as U.S. workers are forced to compete with an expanded prison labor force that can be leased to do labor by corporations.

Ways to Help the Undocumented

The time is now to stand up for the undocumented.

Make a fuss. For tips, check out our articles on direct action and how to organize a protest.

General strike. If you’re in a union, reach out to your union rep right now to request a general strike until the ICE raids end.

Help spread the word. Even if you can’t strike or protest, you can help spread the word, or support in whatever way makes sense for you.

Please consider sharing this article—or the information in it—directly with 10 people in your life. The mainstream news has been failing to cover the slavery implications of these law. We absolutely have to get the word out, and peer-to-peer seems to be the best way to do that in this media climate.

Full Text of the Leaked January 22 DHS Huffman Memorandum

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Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20523

Homeland Security
January 22, 2025

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL

FROM: Benjamine C. Huffman
Acting Secretary

SUBJECT: DOJ Immigration Officer Authorization

Pursuant to the authority vested in me by Title 8, Chapter 12 of the U.S. Code, including 8 U.S.C. § [specific section unclear], I authorize employees of the Department of Justice listed below to perform the following functions of an immigration officer granted to the Department of Homeland Security by Title 8, Chapter 12, and confer on them the authority to do the same:

1. Identifying, apprehending, and removing individuals unlawfully present in the United States in violation of Title 8, Chapter 12 or regulations issued thereunder; and
2. Enforcing any requirements of such statutes or regulations.

The intent of this order is to grant to the employees listed below the same authority already granted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this order should be read and understood consistent with that objective.

The list of employees granted this authority is as follows:

• Any law enforcement official in the U.S. Marshals Service;
• Any law enforcement official in the Drug Enforcement Administration;
• Any law enforcement official in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives;
• Any law enforcement official in the Federal Bureau of Prisons;
• Officials in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE);
• Officials in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

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