(Antiwar.com) Law enforcement in the United States has exhibited an exceptional degree of harshness, if not outright brutality, during the initial months of Donald Trump's second term in the White House. A majority of the most flagrant examples have involved enforcement actions by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. Numerous stories have appeared in the news media about ICE agents appearing at workplaces and schools to apprehend individuals suspected of being in the United States illegally. Suspects have been approached by agents dressed in civilian clothes and refusing to identify themselves or present badges. They have dragged suspects off the street and held them in captivity for hours or in some cases, even days. The result is an ugly image that is becoming more and more ingrained with the American public. It is an image of U.S. law enforcement personnel engaging in arbitrary, police-state tactics typical of dictatorships, not a country that has ostentatiously prided itself on respect for civil liberties and the rule of law.

Such alarming conduct is neither new, however, nor confined to ICE. That agency's especially odious recent behavior is the culmination of a long-developing trend of blurring the distinction between domestic law enforcement tactics and those of foreign warfare conducted in the name of national defense. Such alarming militarization of law enforcement has been underway for decades, although it has reached a new peak under Trump.