Anti-ICE language has appeared on the pages of the Washington Jewish Week lately. In my opinion, this language approaches slander.
ICE employed an average of about 15,000 people in 2025 and made about 50,000 arrests. The vast majority of the arrests, even of people wanted for murder, rape, sex trafficking and other very serious crimes, went smoothly with almost no incidents. In areas with protestors interfering with their operations, threatening them, spitting on them, biting them, etc., there were incidents where people were hurt or killed and where ICE officers may have made mistakes.
When you look at the total numbers (about two dozen incidents in 2025 involving ICE officers discharging a weapon), it is remarkable how well ICE did its job, even in the face of provocations and incitement to interference by elected officials and much of the media.
People who are anti-ICE recite the few incidents as if they were the norm and as if they were unprovoked. In many ways, this is similar to the way people slander state and local law enforcement and similar to the way “Hamasniks” slander the IDF, although the scale and lethality of the IDF operations greatly exceeds that of law enforcement or ICE.
Martin Weiss, Potomac
