World News: ICE, Trump, and The Strategy of Tension

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Category: Haute This Issue

Published on Monday, 26 January 2026 11:48

Written by Olivier Longhi

The growing tensions between civil society and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents in Minnesota illustrate the excesses of Donald Trump's immigration policy in defiance of the constitution in an atmosphere of potential latent civil war.

What if the world's first democracy was on the verge of implosion? Some would consider this question totally absurd and yet in view of the growing tensions around the death of Alex Pretti, who fell under the fire of ICE? That question tends to be justified.

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The strategy of tension desired and defended by Donald Trump seems, to date, to have more perverse than beneficial effects. Responding to one of his multiple campaign promises to reduce immigration and fight it by all means, the President of the United States is bogged down in a position that the facts make increasingly untenable. Thus, justifying the death of Alex Pretti by turning ICE agents into victims and no longer into culprits is akin to the pure and simple manipulation of reality.

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Amendments and violence

Man is accustomed to historical decontextualization and transformation to give substance to his reasoning and his positions, which are often incongruous and anachronistic. Yet, today, including within its own ranks, voices are being raised to denounce a policy relying on federal agents who violate the amendments to the American Constitution, in particular the First and Second of the founding text of 1776.

The question now is: Should the ICE be dismantled or should it be maintained? Abolishing it would at the very least make it possible to re-establish relations described as normal between American citizens who have had to learn to live with the threat of an institution prone to violence; To maintain it is to take the risk of seeing American society gradually split, and at worst, to confront each other between pro-Trump and anti-Trump.

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Furrow and awareness

This is one of the characteristics of populism, the fratricidal split of the societies that are subjected to it. In a vague logic articulated around the desire to restore the United States to its supposed greatness, Donald Trump is working a little more every day to dig the furrow of a latent civil war.

The risk, which many would believe to be far away, is in fact much closer than we could imagine, especially in a society based on divisive or even Manichean concepts. However, if there is no mass awareness in the coming days or weeks, it is likely that the actions of ICE, transformed into agents of terror, will multiply to become commonplace in a society that is both controlled and anesthetized.

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently a professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist and recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, was a press and publishing consultant, and was a communications consultant.