Fifteen US Cities Rise Against Trump-Linked ‘Militias’ Targeting Migrants: What’s Behind the Backlash?

After a woman was killed in her car by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, part of a force President Donald Trump deployed to several states to pursue migrants, reports began to link the masked officers to extremist evangelical groups that took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in protest of Trump’s loss in the presidential election.

Some Americans reported the disappearance of well-known far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, alongside the emergence of lookalike figures operating as officers who shoot at and drag Americans in the streets and carry out large-scale raids. 

Those actions have fueled public anger and sparked demonstrations in 15 cities.

Observers suggested that immigration agents are the same extremists drawn from evangelical groups backed by Trump, noting that some individuals arrested, tried, and imprisoned for their role in the Capitol attack were later released.

Writers have accused Trump of turning the United States into a “West Bank,” adopting repressive practices associated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, and applying them to Americans.

Trump’s Militias

The story began with U.S. media reports citing relatives and friends of officer Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed American citizen Renee Nicole Good with a bullet to the head, describing him as a hardline conservative Christian and a supporter of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, which backs President Donald Trump.

The website The Advocate reported that Ross is a defender of the white supremacist group the Proud Boys and has written as much on his social media accounts, portraying himself as the type of candidate sought for recruitment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Minnesota Star Tribune revealed that the officer seen in the video opening fire, Ross, is a firearms instructor who promotes white supremacist supporters online.

The newspaper reported that Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent, was deployed to the occupation of Iraq in 2004 and 2005, where he operated machine guns mounted on patrol trucks, before joining Border Patrol units in 2007 and later transferring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claimed the slain woman used her car as a weapon in an attempt to run over agents, describing her actions as domestic terrorism and the officers’ response as self-defense. 

Multiple eyewitness accounts and video footage of the incident contradict that claim.

The Wall Street Journal documented 13 shooting incidents involving immigration agents firing at or inside civilian vehicles since July 2025, a six-month period that resulted in eight people being wounded and two killed.

According to Zeteo, “In the wake of an ICE agent’s grotesque shooting of an unarmed woman – a US citizen – in Minneapolis on Wednesday, it has become chillingly evident that no one is safe in America from President Donald Trump’s 21st-century Gestapo.”

The site also offered a legal rights service to Americans through attorneys titled, “What to Do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement Shows Up.” 

The guide included five instructions on how to respond if federal immigration agents stop individuals, approach them, or knock on their doors.

Americans who track the agents’ activities say roughly 20,000 armed, masked men who refuse to identify themselves and claim to be immigration officers are roaming the country in unmarked vehicles, randomly questioning people at gunpoint, asking whether they are Americans.

Immigration agents are pursuing Americans they suspect are not white, or believe to be migrants or workers, questioning people at random by asking, “Are you an American citizen?” They raid homes, smash vehicles, and aggressively detain workers at retail shops and gas stations.

Americans have complained about what they describe as a “street war,” accusing rogue Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of firing dangerous stun grenades at civilians.

A protester, speaking through tears to Status Coup News, said, “Trump is in full-blown dictator mode […] This is what MAGA has done to our country. America is now unrecognizable.”

Because of their racist and aggressive practices, scenes have spread of immigration agents being expelled from restaurants and denied service by stores.

A member of Congress embarrassed Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen when he told her that some of those arrested and deported by immigration officers were U.S. military veterans. When she denied the claim on air, he called her a liar.

ICE had detained and deported Army soldier Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart recipient, to Korea, as well as Navy veteran Jim Brown, who served during the Gulf War, along with his wife.

The congressman said, “Shame on all of us if we allow this, shame on us while wearing the badge of Christianity at Christmas and letting you come here and lie!”

Immigration agents detained Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and prevented her from exercising her constitutional right to oversee their activities, barring her from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

This occurred despite the fact that members of Congress have a legal right and constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in detention facilities, a right that the Trump administration eliminated through a legal loophole, according to Politico.

Under the banner “ICE Out for Good,” demanding the abolition and removal of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in demonstrations stretching from Minneapolis to New York, from Chicago to Los Angeles, and Portland in Oregon and Maine, with dozens of other events in cities across the country chanting against Trump, “New York hates you, lock him up!”

The 50501 movement, one of the organizing groups, said in a statement, “The agency has perpetrated violence against communities for decades, but its pace has accelerated dangerously under the Trump administration, and it must be removed from American cities.”

Americans on the ground described immigration agents as killers.

Meanwhile, far-right extremists, Trump supporters, and Jewish donors contributed through a GoFundMe campaign in support of the officer who killed Renee Nicole Good. 

Billionaire Bill Ackman donated $10,000 to the ICE agent who fired the fatal shot.

The New York Post reported on January 12, 2026, that the campaign, which claims to cover any legal services this officer may need had raised more than $270,000 and was still ongoing.

Ironically, a field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was discovered in Israel, prompting Americans to question why the office was established there and whether it is intended to train agents in Israeli tactics of violence against Palestinians.

Are They The ‘Proud Boys’?

Coinciding with the rise of ICE agents’ activities against Americans, reports noted the disappearance of far-right groups supporting Trump, such as the Proud Boys, with speculation that they joined immigration enforcement and therefore wear masks to avoid being recognized.

Americans on social media wrote, “Trump gave these armed men $10 billion in cash from our taxpayer money to buy a personal army of masked killers to indulge his favorite pastime of hunting migrants, people of color, and attacking democracy.” They called them the “Masked Thug Gang of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

On August 8, 2025, The Atlantic Daily asked, “Where have the members of the Proud Boys gone?” linking their disappearance to the Department of Homeland Security’s unveiling of a “new recruitment strategy to expand the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” suggesting that they may have joined the agency.

At the time, the department announced bonuses of up to $50,000 for new federal law enforcement recruits, a move that caught the attention of Proud Boys groups. Some wrote on Telegram, “Get ready, guys, for a life of luxury!”

The Atlantic Daily saw the Proud Boys’ welcoming of ICE’s new recruit initiative, particularly the “Toledo chapter” in Ohio, as a “clear indicator,” though it remains unclear whether extremist group members actually sought positions within ICE.

Proud Boys members strongly oppose undocumented immigrants and have long intimidated and physically provoked their opponents. 

During Trump’s first administration, they frequently clashed with leftist protesters, behavior the group now seeks to replicate under the guise of immigration enforcement and government authority, according to the newspaper.

Western reports have criticized ICE’s hiring policies amid the current recruitment campaign, which aimed to attract roughly 10,000 new employees, including deportation enforcement officers. 

The Guardian reported on September 2, 2025, that “financial incentives, bonuses, and relaxed hiring standards have led to the inclusion of individuals with extremist views, far-right opinions, and former soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

On his first day in the White House, Trump issued pardons for all those convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, including roughly 100 known members of the Proud Boys and other extremist organizations.

Many of these individuals had received some of the harshest sentences related to the Capitol riots. 

All fourteen who remained in prison when Trump returned to office were affiliated either with the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.

A terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations warned that the pardons “could be catastrophic for public safety,” sending a message to extremist groups that violence in the name of Make America Great Again is “legal and legitimate.”

Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys who was pardoned, said on InfoWars that there would be a high price to pay, stating, “I’m glad the president is not focused on revenge, he is focused on success,” “but I tell you, I will not follow these rules!”

A White Supremacist Campaign

In an implicit confirmation of their use, the U.S. network PBS aired a report stating that “Trump administration publications reflect rhetoric associated with extremist groups, and since the beginning of the year have launched a campaign across various federal departments, using images and ideas drawn from far-right and white nationalist circles.”

The network documented the campaign’s use of images and concepts borrowed from far-right and white nationalist circles, linking them to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by Trump in American cities.

The report stated that a campaign is now escalating to promote the Trump administration’s efforts by calling potential recruits for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “defend the homeland” against outsiders, featuring heroic images of white men, often from a past era.

It highlighted a recruitment announcement for ICE that included the phrase “We Will Take Back Our Homeland” superimposed over an image of a man on horseback with a Phantom missile soaring in the background, a reference to the song “We Will Take Back Our Homeland,” a white supremacist anthem favored by members of the Proud Boys.

Another image urged Trump supporters with the words, “Trust the Plan,” the slogan of the right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory, which alleges a global plot by deep-state actors that Trump is fighting against.

The Trump administration also launched a new website that rewrites the history of the day his supporters stormed the Capitol, placing blame on Democrats for security failures and justifying Trump’s pardon of more than 1,500 of those rioters.

In this context, billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk posted the number “100” over a message on X stating, “If white men become a minority, we will be slaughtered. White solidarity is the only way to survive!”

This is known as the “Great Replacement” theory, popular among white nationalists, which falsely claims that nonwhite people are deliberately replacing white populations. The theory originated in France but has attracted far-right adherents in the United States and worldwide.

Cynthia Miller-Idris, director of the Research Innovation Lab on Polarization and Extremism at American University, told PBS that the Trump administration’s racialized campaign can be explained by the rise in public dissatisfaction with ICE to 57 percent among Americans following killings and street chases of civilians.

She added, “I think this is why we are seeing this type of campaign, attempting to portray what ICE is doing as a matter of public interest and safety, with many racial undertones.”

She said that the U.S. Secretary of Defense, as part of the campaign, told the military that white men are losing their status, and something must be done to restore standards of masculinity.

Trump’s Private Army

The Proud Boys are a radical far-right group that believes in white supremacy and spreads Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. They gained notoriety after storming the U.S. Capitol in 2021, being described as Trump’s private army.

The group was founded in 2016 by media activist Gavin McInnes to champion white interests and oppose Muslims and immigrants. They responded to Trump’s call to sow chaos in the U.S. Capitol, occupying the building and chasing lawmakers.

Notable members include Richard Barnett, a pro-gun advocate, and Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as Jake Angeli, a conspiracy theorist who appeared wearing a bison horn costume and describes himself as a “spiritual warrior” and soldier in QAnon, the conspiracy theory movement that depicts Donald Trump as a hero.

The New York Times estimated the group’s size at up to 200,000 members across roughly 300 militias, a quarter of whom are military veterans or affiliated with extremist militias in the United States.

A joint investigation by The Daily Atlantic into the Oath Keepers, one of the most prominent extremist groups, revealed a leaked database of around 25,000 current or former members, two-thirds of whom have military or law enforcement backgrounds.

The Proud Boys describe their ideology as “Western chauvinism,” which they claim reflects a deep embrace of Western civilization and traditions. Critics argue the group uses “Western” instead of “white” to obscure its racism.

Following the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, four leaders of the group were convicted in federal court of conspiracy to incite sedition and sentenced to between 15 and 22 years in prison, but Trump pardoned them immediately upon taking office for a second term in January 2025.

On September 5, 2023, a U.S. court sentenced former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison for his role in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

During his trial, one member described themselves as “right-wing foot soldiers,” while federal prosecutors and a congressional investigation characterized the Proud Boys as conspirators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said in court that the Proud Boys “lined up behind Donald Trump” and were “willing to commit violence on his behalf,” describing them as “Donald Trump's army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”

Since the 2021 Capitol attack, Reuters reported on January 3, 2024, that the Proud Boys were involved in roughly 29 political violence incidents, nearly all focused on social issues.

In the first three months of 2024, their activity declined significantly. One member told Reuters that some former Proud Boys had left the group to join other, more openly racist and violent organizations, including the so-called “New Nazi Blood Tribe” and the secretive Active Club movement, which advocates white supremacy.

Julie Farnam, a former assistant to the chief intelligence officer at the U.S. Capitol Police who now runs a private investigative agency, said there are 154 Proud Boys chapters across 48 U.S. states.