Why Trump Might Want ICE To Be His Private Militia

Seeing ICE as a coup-proofing corps

When the Donald Trump administration started the federal takeover of Washington DC, I put on my “think like an autocrat” hat and considered the situation.

The strongman’s appetite for revenge is truly boundless, and I am certain that Trump has spent many hours brooding over the failure of his insurrection at the Capitol and waiting for an excuse to punish the city where his coup dreams died. It is also payback for the Capitol Police’s valiant attempts to defend our elected officials from the MAGA mob.

The takeover of the police, the streets, and now Union Station could also be seen as actions taken to heighten the chance of operational success when and if it is time for the next power grab.

Strongmen are either thinking about how to get more power, or thinking about how to prevent others from taking power from them. The things they do in the latter case are called “coup-proofing.”

This is the topic of this essay by fellow scholar of autocracy Marcel Dirsus about why the Trump administration may be investing so heavily in ICE. I hope you find it thought-provoking.

Marcel Dirsus is a German political scientist. He is the author of the book How Tyrants Fall. He also writes a Substack newsletter called The Hundred, to which you can subscribe here. You can read his previous essay for Lucid, which was adapted from his book, here:

When a Tyrant Becomes Vulnerable

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Every (aspiring) dictator on earth is at risk of being overthrown by his own soldiers. That is why almost all tyrants pursue strategies to try to reduce the risk of a military coup. Collectively, these strategies are known as “coup-proofing.” Trump is no exception, and it’s in that context that the dramatic expansion of ICE should be seen.

The administration is massively empowering ICE. If things go according to plan, the agency will have more money than the Coast Guard, the TSA and the FBI combined. Billions and billions of dollars. Officially, the money will be spent to enable mass deportations. Unofficially, of course, it also lays the groundwork to disappear political enemies. But as dreadful as that is, the real risk here is something else: Trump could use an expanded ICE to coup-proof his regime while he destroys American democracy.

Military coups are such a big risk to dictators because they can be carried out by a small number of soldiers. When conspirators carry out a coup, they aren’t aiming to beat the government in an open fight. They storm the capital’s main airport, the presidential palace, parliament. They take control of intelligence headquarters and key media outlets before shutting down the city. Importantly, they capture the leader himself.

The point of all this is to create an impression of inevitability. If it looks as if the coup plotters will succeed, the mere impression of strength can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s how they win. And although conspirators must plan under the watchful eyes of the government, coups are comparatively easy to organize. A general strike is difficult to coordinate and rebellions can take years. But a coup? As powerful as a ruler might be, he could be dead by sunset.

Ordinarily, American presidents don’t have to worry about being overthrown by their own paratroopers or infantrymen. But Donald Trump is no ordinary commander-in-chief, and American soldiers swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Since his administration is dismantling the constitutional order, Trump has to consider the possibility that a part of the military could attempt to overthrow him to protect it. There’s an acute coup risk, and that’s a real issue for the self-declared stable genius.

Trump doesn’t need the active support of the military to turn the country into a dictatorship, but he does need them to stand aside as he uses the judicial system and his thugs to grind down institutions until there’s nothing left. If the United States Armed Forces were to turn on him, they could overthrow him in the blink of an eye.

There are many ways to reduce the chance of a coup. In a first step, you purge the security apparatus to make compliance more likely. Get rid of the head of the National Security Agency. Fire as many generals as possible. Elevate loyalists to all key posts in law enforcement, intelligence and the Pentagon. It’s loyalty that counts, not competence. When that is done, do your best to intimidate former associates who dare to criticize you. Make sure everyone knows that dissent will not be tolerated.

But even that’s not quite enough. You still need a parallel security force to deter the military. You need to “counter-balance” them. In Iran, this is the job of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Under Saddam Hussein, it was a huge militia. These forces don’t need to be strong enough to win a civil war, they just need the men and the weapons to defend the core of the regime against its own generals. Almost every dictatorship has some version of this.

In Trump’s America, it could be ICE. Thousands of armed men, comparatively loyal to the great leader – perhaps even willing to put him above the constitution. In the right place at the right time, ICE agents could make the difference between the military stepping in and the military standing by.

ICE agents at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building’s U.S. Immigration Court, New York City, July 24, 2025. Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images.

But how? Soldiers are trained to fight wars, and they are reluctant to get involved in domestic politics. If they can avoid it, they definitely don’t want to fight fellow Americans. This is something that Trump can use to his advantage if he structures the security apparatus the “right” way. As ICE expands and becomes more loyal, it can help Trump.

The presence of ICE agents in key locations around Washington D.C. could drastically reduce the chances of a successful coup attempt. Even thousands of ICE agents couldn’t defeat the might of the American military in a direct confrontation, but that’s not what a coup is. All the agents would need to do is to prevent the coup plotters from capturing the White House, Congress, a few bridges and Trump himself.

Long before that moment ever comes, the mere existence of an empowered ICE can help Trump to stay in power. Knowing that the leader has the loyalty of thousands of armed agents could prevent soldiers from ever plotting against an aspiring despot in the first place. It’s a common misconception about military coups that they are inevitably violent. In reality, something has usually gone very wrong if there’s fighting in the streets.

Talk of a military coup in the United States might sound far-fetched, because America has long been a democracy. There are laws. Elections! But I urge you to consider this: If I’ve learned one thing from studying tyrants for more than a decade, it’s that institutions are made up of people, and people can be replaced, imprisoned or killed. Elections can be suspended.

If America keeps going down this path, the military could become democracy’s last line of defense. And if it ever comes to that, Trump’s ICE might make all the difference.