Fact check: What are the primary duties of ICE agents during raids?

1. How ICE defines its mission — enforcement first, but complex in practice

ICE’s operational mandate during raids is to enforce immigration statutes by locating, identifying, and detaining noncitizens suspected of being removable, often coordinating with prosecutors to prepare for potential removal proceedings or criminal referrals. This enforcement-oriented mission explains the presence of arrest teams, transport logistics and evidence collection at workplaces, homes, and courthouses. Enforcement priorities can clash with procedural protections when agents encounter individuals with pending immigration cases or valid work authorization, creating legal and operational friction that appears in recent reporting ^[3].

2. Recent videos shifted attention from strategy to conduct

Multiple news accounts from September 25–26, 2025, center less on mission statements and more on agent behavior during operations, with videos showing an agent shoving a woman outside a Manhattan immigration court and body-camera footage of agents making dehumanizing comments and boasting about arrests. These recordings prompted public outrage, internal investigations, and at least one agent being temporarily removed from duties, illustrating how a single widely circulated video can redirect scrutiny from policy to individual conduct ^{[1] [3] [2]}.

3. Conflicting narratives: enforcement necessity versus rights protection

Advocacy and local officials frame these incidents as evidence that ICE’s raid tactics can trample due process and human dignity, particularly when detainees later show they held work permits or open cases. By contrast, enforcement proponents argue that raids are necessary to uphold immigration laws and public safety, and contend that operational decisions often rely on imperfect or changing records. Both frames are evident across reports: documentation of arrests and detentions exists alongside accounts of wrongful or aggressive treatment, forcing a policy debate about safeguard mechanisms during enforcement actions ^{[3] [4]}.

4. Accountability mechanisms under examination

Reporting shows concrete administrative responses: one federal agent was placed on leave or relieved of duties pending an inquiry after footage of a courthouse shove surfaced, and internal reviews have been opened in reaction to recorded conduct. These steps reflect existing disciplinary and investigative pathways within ICE and the broader Department of Homeland Security, but they also raise questions about timeliness, transparency and potential political influences when high-profile videos spur immediate action versus routine cases that remain unexamined ^[2].

5. Operational complexity: courts, workplaces and public spaces

The incidents reported occur across varied settings — immigration courts, workplaces and community locations — underscoring that ICE raids are not a single type of operation but a set of distinct missions with different legal constraints. Arrests inside courthouses, for example, provoke particular controversy because courts are both sacred civic spaces and venues where noncitizens exercise legal rights; mixing enforcement and adjudication environments magnifies scrutiny and raises policy questions about where and how arrests should be made ^[1].

6. What is missing from the coverage and why it matters

The assembled reporting focuses heavily on specific episodes of alleged misconduct and administrative responses, but less on systematic data about frequency of raids, rates of wrongful detention, or outcomes for those arrested. Absent robust, routine transparency metrics, public debate tends to center on headline incidents, which can skew perceptions of how representative these episodes are of overall ICE conduct. The lack of systematic statistical context complicates policy prescriptions and obscures whether incidents reflect isolated misconduct or broader operational problems ^{[1] [2]}.

7. Bottom line: enforcement duties are clear; public trust and oversight are the contested terrain

Statutorily, ICE agents are tasked with identifying, detaining and processing individuals suspected of immigration violations; recent video evidence shows that how agents carry out those duties remains a flashpoint. The key policy questions now are not whether ICE should enforce laws but how to reconcile enforcement with accountability, transparency and protection of legal rights, a debate accelerated by late-September 2025 reporting that led to internal investigations and temporary removal of an agent from active duties ^{[3] [2] [4]}.