Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem addressed questions about what U.S. citizens may be asked to do as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intensifies enforcement operations in cities across the country.
Speaking outside the White House on Thursday, Jan. 15, Noem said “targeted enforcement” actions can include questioning people who are near a suspect during an operation — and asking them to confirm their identity.
“In every situation, we are doing targeted enforcement,” Noem, the former governor of North Dakota, said. “If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and having them validate their identity. That’s what we’ve always done in asking people who they are so that we know who’s in those surroundings.”
Noem added that if ICE believes someone may be breaking the law, that person can be detained “until we’ve run that processing.”
Her comments come as ICE operations face renewed scrutiny during President Donald Trump’s second term. Since Trump returned to office in 2025, a mass deportation effort has been underway, and recent incidents have intensified public attention: a Texas detainee died in ICE custody on Jan. 3; Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good was shot four times by ICE agents on Jan. 7 and later pronounced dead; a 21-year-old anti-ICE protester was permanently blinded on Jan. 9; and a Venezuelan man was shot in the leg during a struggle with officers on Jan. 14. Videos circulating online have shown clashes with protesters, confrontations involving vehicles, and agents approaching homes.
Trump has also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota to suppress anti-ICE protests using military force.
Data obtained by the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project indicates that nearly 75,000 people arrested by ICE during the first nine months of Trump’s second term had no criminal record, with roughly one-third of all arrestees falling into this category. The dataset does not distinguish between minor and violent offenses for those with prior convictions, but public reporting suggests U.S. citizens have been among those detained. ProPublica identified more than 170 cases in which U.S. citizens were caught up in raids or protests during that period.
High-profile critics have also weighed in, including podcaster Joe Rogan, who has more than 20 million YouTube subscribers and frequently tops Spotify’s podcast charts. On the Jan. 13 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan said, “Most people believe law enforcement is necessary and that criminals should be arrested — but many of those same people also believe ICE is operating illegally.” He continued, “Those same people that believe that might also believe that once someone is here, they should be able to stay in this country and ICE is operating illegally and we shouldn’t have militarized groups of people roaming the streets just showing up with masks on, snatching people up, some of them U.S. citizens, and shipping them to countries they didn’t even come from.”
Rogan drew historical comparisons as well: “I can also see the point of view of the people that say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them.’ Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
The combination of expanded enforcement, high-profile incidents, and growing backlash has intensified the national debate over how ICE is operating — and what it could mean for Americans who find themselves near a raid.
