The machinery of terror

ICE violence and arbitrariness in US cities are symptoms of the fascistisation and militarisation of the declining Western empire.

Protest against inhumane raids by ICE fascists is brutally punished, Minneapolis, January 13, 2026 -- image via junge Welt

By Susann Witt-Stahl, junge Welt, January 29, 2026. Translation and notes by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

The images of the immigration authority ICE's brutal street operations have already been burned into the collective memory of Americans. This also applies to the self-staging of its boss Gregory Bovino, who has since been dismissed by Washington under public pressure, with his undercut hairstyle and military coat in the style of the German Wehrmacht, who openly threatened critics with “consequences.” As the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday proved, his exceedingly violent troops operate in the streets of Minneapolis and other US cities like Freikorps [1], not even shying away from extrajudicial executions. The fears expressed in October 2025 by Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker have long since come true: “They want to create a war zone so they can send in even more troops.”

Such “dirty work” requires militant thugs with paranoid worldviews, short fuses and a pronounced urge to hunt people down, the types who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advertised for ICE recruits on X with the slogan "We Will Have Our Home Again," the title of an anthem by the right-wing folk punk band Pine Tree Riot that is popular among neofascists and racists. Back in August 2025, the DHS had commented on a “Join ICE Now!” meme warning of an “invasion,” among other things, with the words “Which Way, American Man?” – a reference to the antisemitic tract “Which Way Western Man?” from 1978 by Nazi author William Gayley Simpson. In October, the department posted a video of a mob chanting “USA! USA! USA!” with the addition of “America for the Americans,” a slogan of the Ku Klux Klan, and the phrase “We are asleep no longer,” an unmistakable warning to migrants and the Left. A month later, the DHS sent out a dramatic appeal: “Defend the homeland! Deport all foreign invaders!”

Research published over the weekend by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC News) [2] confirms that these messages have been received are being spread among their supporters by right-wing gangs such as the Proud Boys. Many applicants to ICE are said to have explicitly referred to this in a positive light and were apparently hired, as evidenced by SS runes and Wotan's knot tattoos on the arms and necks of ICE officers. Neofascist groups such as the Patriot Front and the Aryan Freedom Network are also increasingly acting as auxiliary forces against civil rights activists who demonstrate against the attacks by ICE units.

Heidi Beirich of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in Palm Springs described the US authorities' actions to CBC News as “unprecedented.” She spoke of a “very toxic and dangerous situation.” In particular, the “normalisation” of white supremacy and Nazi ideologies by “the most powerful government in the world” gives cause for “extreme concern.” Indeed, the problem extends beyond DHS and ICE. Trump's Department of Labour appealed to nationalist instincts on January 11 on X: “One homeland, one people, one heritage – don't forget who you are, Americans!”

Journalist Chris Hedges sees the fascistisation and militarisation of US society, as well as the expansion of lawless spaces and the culture of impunity, as the result of the tectonic shift in the Western-dictated world order: “What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang,” the former New York Times correspondent wrote on Substack on Monday. “Empires in decay” eventually apply the brutal forms of control they usually deploy on the periphery to the interior as well. Hedges reminds us that these methods of oppression are part of everyday life for Iraqis in Fallujah, Afghans in Helmand province and people in other regions occupied by US troops, and are not only tolerated but often cheered on by the majority of Americans: “We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us” [3].

Notes

[1] An influential study of the Freikorps is by Klaus Theweleit. See Male Fantasies. Volume 1: Women Floods Bodies History. Translated by Stephen Conway with Erica Carter and Chris Turner. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Volume 2: Male Bodies: Psychoanalyzing the White Terror. Translated by Erica Carter and Chris Turner. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. German edition: Männerphantasien (1977-78).

In her Foreword to the English translation of Volume 1, Barbara Ehrenreich writes: “Hired by the socialist Chancellor Ebert to bring order to revolutionary Germany in 1918 …, the Freikorps became roaming, largely autonomous armies each commanded by its own charismatic leader. … [T]he Freikorpsmen … [became] the core of Hitler's SA and … key functionaries in the Third Reich.”

[2] For examples of recruitment posts displaying fascist iconography and white nationalist messaging, see Jonathan Montpetit, “ICE nodding to far-right extremists in recruitment posts, experts say. U.S. immigration enforcement agency memes look familiar to far-right groups,” CBC News, January 25, 2026. See also Evan Gorelick, “Administration Social Media Posts Echo White Supremacist Messaging,” The New York Times, January 27, 2026.

[3] Chris Hedges: “The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis … would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province. They were terrorized by heavily armed American execution squads for decades. It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarized police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability. What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang. Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland. ... But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of color.” “Imperial Boomerang,” The Chris Hedges Report, January 24, 2026

Original article: Susann Witt-Stahl, “Vereinigte Staaten. Terrormaschinerie. ICE-Gewalt und -Willkür in den US-Metropolen als Symptom der Faschisierung und Militarisierung des westlichen Imperiums im Niedergang,” junge Welt, 29.02.2026, p. 7.