Thematic Focus

In the US, in 2025, violent and headline-grabbing clashes between federal immigration agents, local authorities and local communities are emblematic of a highly divided country on issues of mixed migration. On the one hand, tough, hardline, Trump-mandated anti-immigration measures seek to slash migrant numbers dramatically through extreme actions such as mass raids, detentions and deportations; on the other hand, more liberal localities, their communities and state agents continue to reaffirm the need to safeguard the rights of those with irregular migration status by choosing not to cooperate, outright oppose and defy the central government.

Large urban centres such as New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington stand at the forefront of this resistance, while state courts, local grassroots organisations and civil society representatives are progressively becoming powerful voices. People have been galvanised like never before because, instead of watching events unfold at distant border locations, they are witnessing first-hand individual community members targeted, neighbours uprooted and families separated.

While immigration enforcement is the remit of the federal government, states and localities still have power in terms of controlling priorities and resources related to law enforcement. Increasingly, and especially in the case of sanctuary cities and jurisdictions, local actors are rejecting and resisting hardline anti-migration policies from federal authorities.

Since the early summer of 2025, the Trump administration’s policy towards migrants has become highly contentious, as US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been deployed in an increasingly militarised and reportedly unaccountable manner.

Immediately after being sworn in at the end of January 2025 and acting on the platform and agenda that elected him, US president Donald Trump began announcing, in rapid succession, a series of provisions and executive orders aimed at slashing immigration in the country.

Among these, the January Executive Order 14159 directs officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to identify and cut funding to parts of the country where local authorities challenge or defy the government’s immigration laws in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, resulting in hundreds of them being listed and some sued. In April, the government launched Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Civilians, a bill that bolsters the presence of both military and national security officers working alongside city and state law enforcement agents. In June, Federal Law H.R. 1 — dubbed the Big Beautiful Bill — allocated USD 170 billion to DHS, which included USD 3.5 billion specifically designated for local- and state-level enforcement. Throughout 2025, the ICE budget was tripled and, in parallel, tent-detention sites were erected on military bases.

This massive cash injection paved the way for federal immigration enforcement agents to put increasing pressure on cities and states — including those that identify as sanctuary jurisdictions — by:

• requesting local jails to detain immigrants awaiting due process
• demanding that cities and states provide sensitive and personal data to be used by ICE agents
• operating in the proximity of schools, hospitals, courthouses and places of worship
• threatening to withhold grants and remove law enforcement funding from sanctuary cities and jurisdictions if they fail to cooperate.

As expected, such tough provisions were met with fierce opposition by many liberal, immigrant-heavy cities and states, fuelling their resistance and generating major and, in some cases, violent clashes with the federal government.

A few days after Trump’s announcement of the January 2025 executive orders, US cities and localities began sending out reminders “about the delicate balance of sanctuary laws, which draw distinctions between not cooperating with federal immigration officials … and actively undermining those federal officials”.

New York City circulated a notice throughout its police forces forbidding them to “assist in any manner with civil immigration enforcement” while, at the same time, not taking “any action that will interfere with or impede civil immigration enforcement undertaken by federal authorities”. This signals the willingness to strike a delicate balance between not complying with federal mandates without, however, actively hampering the operations of ICE officials. With the city’s mayoral elections coming up in November 2025, it remains to be seen whether the latter will, in fact, continue to happen, especially in case of the — highly anticipated — victory by Democrat Zohran Mamdani. The socialist candidate for the Democratic party has announced a Trump-proofing New York City policy memo, pledging to protect immigrants and bolster legal support in order to, ultimately, “Make NYC the Strongest Sanctuary City in the Country.”

In June, the sweeping ICE raids that had started across California in late January and early February intensified. In Los Angeles, protests against the raids erupted quickly and included clashes with ICE agents, vandalism and blockages. Trump deployed approximately 2,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 marines — under federal authority — to suppress the protests, without gaining prior consent from California’s governor Gavin Newsom or Los Angeles’ mayor Karen Bass, who vowed to seek legal action — and with the former calling Trump’s action an “assault” on democracy. By the end of June, raids targeting warehouses, factories and even car parks in Los Angeles had culminated with the arrests of more than 500 people.

Other California cities such as San Francisco and Santa Ana strongly reaffirmed their non-support of and non-participation in the federal-mandated crackdowns, while people nationwide continued to express their dissent through street protests and demonstrations.

While large cities across the country continue to stand at the forefront of the resistance, heterogeneous groups of people comprising faith leaders, lawyers, college students, professors and elderly people have consistently shown up at immigration courts nationwide to provide immigrants at risk of detention and deportation with both moral and logistical support, before they are often escorted away by masked ICE officials.

Representatives at both the state and the city level have mobilised to request that ICE agents stop wearing masks and instead provide regular identification through visible badges. These requests were advanced, for instance, by California, New York and Massachusetts in July 2025. To many observers, masks visually represent authoritarian, non-democratic regimes, not to mention the absence of individual accountability for acts that may be excessive or illegal.

While Republican leaders have generally supported stricter immigration enforcement, some have expressed reservations about certain aspects of ICE’s recent operations, especially the targeting of non-criminals. In June 2025, for example, a group of six Hispanic Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to the Trump administration urging ICE to focus enforcement efforts on criminals rather than non-criminal undocumented immigrants.

Republicans are concerned that controversial ICE actions could provoke a political backlash in 2025, particularly in the lead-up to the 2026 mid-terms. While the push for increased enforcement enjoys strong support among the Republican base, concerns about negative public perception, economic disruption and potentially alienating key voting demographics have led some to express caution about tactics used. The extent of the political fallout remains to be seen, but the issue is a notable point of division and concern within the party.

A June 2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Americans are split on Trump’s use of military against immigration enforcement protests, indicating a significant divide in public opinion. However, the same report also showed that Trump’s support on immigration policy has been consistently higher among his base than on other issues.

The reality that immigration has become an increasingly polarised issue, with politicians from each party often using it to galvanise their base, adds to the factors that limit bipartisan opposition to Trump’s extraordinary use of ICE in 2025.

With the ICE raids in California and elsewhere continuing through September 2025 and showing no sign of slowing down, it is likely that the situation will not see a firm resolution in the near future. Recent developments confirm that immigration enforcement has, in fact, intensified, with reports indicating actions in cities and against specific groups.

The divide between federal and state, central and local, therefore, will continue to deepen, showcasing that non-federal actors possess powerful dissenting voices and the determination to protect the most vulnerable in the face of what many regard as increasingly inhumane measures. This is an unfinished war of values and actions, bringing into sharp focus the different interests on a state and on a federal level whilst also, arguably, offering a visceral illustration of democratic, community-led protest to locally unpopular and unwanted policy implementation.