USA Today Op-Ed: I worked for ICE and CBP. Our current system makes everyone less safe

This original commentary appeared in the online version of USA Today on January 13, 2025.

Immigration enforcement in the United States has drifted away from its core purpose. What began as a public safety function – focused on serious threats and guided by professional judgment – has become something far more volatile: politicized, disconnected from local realities and increasingly dangerous for everyone involved.

The recent tragedy in Minnesota should force a reckoning. Not because it is unique, but because it is the inevitable outcome of where we are – and where we are headed – if we refuse to change course.

I’ve spent two decades inside the national security and homeland security system. I’ve worked alongside agents who take their oath seriously and understand the weight of the authority they carry. We also all know how fragile public trust is, and how quickly it can be shattered when enforcement loses its grounding in common sense and accountability.

What we are witnessing now is not enforcement designed to protect Americans. It is enforcement untethered from public safety, driven by optics, speed, daily arrest quotas and political pressure rather than judgment. And that makes everyone less safe.

First, this approach is dangerous for law enforcement officers themselves.

When federal agents are pushed into fast-moving, high-visibility operations without clear prioritization or coordination with local partners, risk skyrockets, and officers are placed in volatile encounters with little margin for error. Split-second decisions carry life-or-death consequences – for both civilians and for agents.

Second, this model undermines public safety instead of advancing it.

Public safety is not measured by arrest numbers or viral footage. It is measured by whether communities are safer tomorrow than they were yesterday. When immigration enforcement prioritizes volume over threat, resources are diverted away from the work that actually protects people – investigating violent crime, dismantling trafficking networks and disrupting transnational criminal organizations.

Every hour spent arresting noncriminal students, workers, parents, older people and decade-long leaders in our communities – people chosen for visibility, not threat – is an hour stolen from real public safety work. That tradeoff is rarely acknowledged, but it is real. And it compounds quickly. Investigations stall. Intelligence dries up. The system grows weaker even as it looks tougher.

Third, this approach destroys trust – the most critical currency in law enforcement. Trust between federal agencies and local law enforcement. Trust between officers and the communities they serve. Trust that the law is being enforced fairly, rationally and with common sense.

When federal enforcement operates without transparency or coordination, local partners pull back. When communities see enforcement as arbitrary or performative, cooperation evaporates. Witnesses stop coming forward. Tips disappear. Fear replaces dialogue.

You cannot police effectively in an environment of fear. You cannot protect communities that do not trust you. And once that trust is broken, rebuilding it takes years – if it can be rebuilt at all.

Fourth, this moment exposes the cost of leadership failure.

America’s immigration system is broken. That is not a controversial statement. What is controversial is pretending that aggressive enforcement alone can fix it.

For decades, leaders have avoided the hard work of reform – updating laws, creating legal pathways that reflect economic reality, investing in immigration judges and other adjudication capacity and legislating clear enforcement priorities rooted in public safety. Instead, they’ve leaned on executive action and enforcement surges as a substitute for governance.

That long-standing avoidance has real consequences. When enforcement becomes a blunt tool for political frustration, agents are left to execute missions that policy never clearly defined. They are placed in situations that stretch beyond their training, authority and resources, increasing risk for officers, agencies and the communities they serve.

That is how we arrive at moments like Minnesota – not as anomalies, but as symptoms.

If this trajectory continues, the damage will not be linear. It will be exponential.

More dangerous encounters. More mistrust. More disengagement from local partners. More pressure on officers caught between their oath and political demands. More communities are convinced that federal law enforcement is something to fear rather than rely upon.

What we are seeing now is not a tougher or smarter phase of immigration enforcement. It is a failure of focus. The system has shifted away from identifying and neutralizing real criminal threats and toward producing images, metrics and moments that play well on cable news and social media. Enforcement decisions are increasingly shaped by what can be filmed, posted and amplified – not by what actually reduces harm or encourages compliance with our law.

This is enforcement optimized for narrative, not safety.

This moment is being framed as a correction to past failures at the border. But the problems created by a system under strain are not solved by shifting enforcement inward toward people who pose little or no public safety threat. Border breakdowns reflect failures of capacity, coordination and policy. Redirecting enforcement power away from real risks and toward political signaling does not fix those failures – it creates new ones, increasing danger for officers, communities and the integrity of the system itself.

For years, the administration claimed it needed sweeping enforcement powers to protect Americans from criminal migrants. That narrative justified extreme rhetoric and broad promises. But it was never supported by the facts. There were not enough serious noncitizen criminals to sustain it. What existed then – and still exists now – is a broken immigration system.

Instead of fixing it, today’s strategy relies on quotas and optics to manufacture threat. The result is more dangerous: enforcement untethered from purpose, increased risk on city streets and harm to Americans as well as migrants. A system once strained by volume is now destabilized by design – and that is a far greater public safety risk.

Minnesota should be understood in that context – not as a single failure, but as a warning about what path we are on as a nation. When enforcement is driven by messaging instead of mission, when optics outweigh judgment and when leadership substitutes spectacle for strategy, the risk to officers, civilians and public safety increases exponentially.

This is not inevitable. But reversing it requires leadership willing to reject the performance model and recommit to targeted, disciplined and grounded enforcement. It requires acknowledging that immigration enforcement cannot substitute for a functioning immigration system – and that no amount of theater can compensate for the absence of law, accountability and reform.

Jason P. Houser is a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff and Customs and Border Protection counterterrorism official.