This ACLU research report, Agents of Chaos and Cruelty, documents widespread civil rights violations carried out by immigration agents during the first year of President Trump’s second term. The report highlights intentional changes at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that have unleashed thousands of masked, menacing, and unaccountable agents on communities across the country at a scale that mirrors aspects of countries under authoritarian rule. The result of these changes has led to violence throughout the country, including widespread terror during Operation Catch of the Day and this week’s killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford.

The report examines immigration enforcement incidents in eight states – representing a cross-section of the country and reflecting varying degrees of federal law enforcement presence and personnel surges – and finds that over 400 of the more than 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents examined involved misconduct by immigration agents. The report ends with detailed recommendations urging policymakers to call for transformative change to our immigration system, in recognition that it is broken and dangerous to human rights.