Securitization is a rhetorical strategy in which the securitizing party creates and defends against threats before they present themselves, thereby creating a state of exception in which otherwise unfathomably drastic measures are justified [1]. Originating as a methodology to identify and defend against international antagonists, security rhetoric permeates ever-increasing portions of modern-day political discourse. The War on Terror, which helped to justify the PATRIOT Act, is the most widely understood instance of security rhetoric in US politics. Today, Trump and his administration employ security rhetoric in a similar manner to paint migrants as existential threats to the American way of life, justifying a state of exception in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) receives unprecedented powers. 

Security as a term stems from national security, or the protection of the sovereign from foreign enemies [2]. However, as the nature of threats evolves and the world faces a multitude of destabilizing forces from pandemics to climate change, securitization theory can be extrapolated as a lens that frames emerging events around any given issue, or the prevention of events yet to happen. Thus, the future is the object of securitization, and action is a preventative measure [3]. Fundamentally, the process of securitization can be understood broadly as follows: once a potential threat presents itself, the issue is rhetorically presented as originating from some Other, and is framed in such a way that it poses an existential threat to some referent object of value [4]. A referent object in this context is simply something of value and worth protecting, whether it be national security, the American way of life, etc. When identifying some Other, the agent securitizing also identifies who belongs to the in-group: “identity is the defining point regarding existential threats for a society because it defines whether ‘we’ are still us” [5]. Being part of this in-group creates a shared sense of identity and connectedness, further alienating the Other. This process justifies the state of exception to protect the object of value. In international relations, the state of exception justifies cross-border military action. In domestic political discourse, it justifies policy action and legislation that would otherwise be far too controversial. Security is a never-ending telos. Because there is always another potential threat or disruption, security calls for further security in an unstoppable cycle. This logic of control assumes that disruption is inevitable and that the Other is always inclined to transgression—thus, they should constantly prove their innocence [6]. 

The state of exception is an idea primarily drawn from Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben. As Schmitt states, “Sovereign is he who decides on exception” [7]. This idea refers to the state of emergency, which security rhetoric attempts to mirror. When a valued referent object is under attack, the existing order is set aside, and extraordinary measures become the norm. Agamben complements this idea with the concept of exception-as-the-rule. The process blurs the lines between normal and exceptional over time, eventually resulting in unlimited sovereign control. Under these conditions, laws remain technically preserved but are suspended indefinitely in practice. For example, even in times of peace, American presidents have exercised significant control over matters of economics, migration, and other policy issues [8]. In analyzing security rhetoric, we therefore analyze the ways in which the agent justifies the state of exception to legitimize extraordinary means. 

The War on Terror exemplifies securitization creeping into domestic political discourse. On September 11, 2001, George W. Bush gave a series of three speeches. In his second speech, Bush opened by declaring that “Freedom, itself, was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended” [9]. This statement showcases security rhetoric in multiple ways. First, Bush personified freedom and equated it with American identity. He also constructed the Other, an entity too nebulous to act against directly, but concrete enough to instill fear in Americans and serve as a tangible enemy to the US. By contrasting the Other with American identity, Bush began the process of securitization to justify the War on Terror. On September 20, 2001, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress, saying that “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there” [10]. With this sentiment, Bush continued the securitization process. By painting terrorism as war, he followed Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs in framing a more conceptual issue in military terms. In doing so, Bush made concrete, drastic military action justifiable. His insistence on this rhetorical device is because war grants the privilege to kill, detain without trial, and otherwise bypass typical mechanisms of due process [11]. Additionally, Bush identified a more concrete actor in Al Qaeda as the source of insecurity while leaving room for further securitization should Al Qaeda be stopped, demonstrating the idea that security demands more security. Because Bush defined the Other beyond al Qaeda, the public was pushed to constantly experience fear and insecurity, predisposing Americans to support exceptional measures in the name of security. The most visible result of the eventual state of exception caused by the War on Terror is the USA PATRIOT Act. The Act’s name is another rhetorical device that reinforces the securitization of terror. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act is not a particularly intuitive or descriptive title, but its rhetorical strength is so impactful that no one cared to question it. 

Congress enacted the PATRIOT Act with little opposition six days after 9/11 without any amendments. It set the stage for unprecedented surveillance creep. The government could now collect sensitive information about and surveil Americans—even through communications that previously could not be obtained domestically without a court order—on the basis that the information is relevant to a legitimate purpose [12]. This shift exemplifies exceptional action. All previous legal protections were thrown aside in the name of security, and affected subjects fully supported the changes for fear of the Other’s threat to their object of value—in this case, the American identity and way of life. Initially, the PATRIOT Act was characterized as a temporary measure for an extraordinary threat. However, repeated reauthorizations and legitimations allowed for its continued expansion. Today, the PATRIOT Act is ingrained in American society. It laid the foundation for a series of surveillance legislation, normalizing what were previously policies reserved for a state of emergency. In modern political discourse, there is a significant resemblance between terrorism post-9/11 and immigration—this gives us historical insight into how security rhetoric can play out and is valuable when analyzing migration rhetoric. 

The securitization of immigration in American politics has evolved significantly over the last few decades, taking on new forms and incorporating novel rhetorical strategies. Before the 2000s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) led US immigration policy. The INS was a small agency with an ill-defined purpose and unclear means of enforcement [13]. During this period, immigration policy was framed mostly as an economic and social policy issue, leading to debates on labor markets and cultural integration. Following the 9/11 attacks, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), bridging the gap between intelligence and border security [14]. This event marks the beginning of the transformation of immigration into a more existential issue, one of fear rather than incompatibility. The creation of ICE and the conflation of immigration with terrorism elevated border security to a vital issue. Many Americans viewed immigration policy as protecting the American identity and way of life. 

Trump’s campaign and election in 2016 signaled a stark escalation of immigration rhetoric in contemporary political discourse. There was a near 30 percent increase in registered voters who view immigration as a very important issue for their vote between 2012 and 2016 [15]. Moreover, immigration rhetoric became more extreme: terms like “invasion,” “infestation,” and “attack” were used almost synonymously with immigration, leading to a mainstream acceptance of militarized enforcement. Immigration is now framed as a threat to the American identity and is conflated with crime and terrorism. A key strategy to threat construction is the continuum of threats constructed around immigration. Deliberate ambiguity in immigration discourse allows politicians to blur the lines between asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, and criminals, intensifying the threat the public perceives while minimizing government accountability. When combined with the media’s amplification of immigration crime, this rhetoric promotes public unease. ICE is the result of this combination. 

More important than ICE’s creation is its recent expansion beyond its original scope of enforcing immigration law within US borders. ICE, as it stands, is an institutional manifestation of the securitization of immigration, with ever-increasing autonomy from political oversight. Especially in recent months, limited judicial review of enforcement decisions, minimal congressional oversight, lack of transparency on data, and a culture of unpunished misconduct have shaped ICE’s actions. These characteristics all arise from the state of exception. Judicial review, due process, and governmental transparency are all longstanding norms in the US, but ICE is able to ignore these practices with national security and defense as its excuse. 

The current manifestations of ICE’s state of exception are shocking. Ten years ago, the agency’s annual budget was less than $6 billion, positioning it as one of the DHS’ smallest agencies. Now, its budget has reached $85 billion, making it the nation’s most-funded law enforcement agency [16]. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a part of his initiative to “deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again” [17], supplies this ballooning budget. ICE’s funding source demonstrates how the securitization of immigration both created and magnified ICE. It also illustrates how ICE, painting itself as a fighter for security, instills fear and insecurity in the public to ensure it doesn’t risk losing support. Bonuses and extravagant salaries for new ICE agents—funded by the agency’s massive budget—allow it to grow in size and transform itself from an administrative agency to a paramilitary force with military-style weapons and vehicles. With SWAT-style raid tactics and Border Patrol tactical units (BORTAC), ICE functions as a militia that essentially serves Trump directly, with the DHS as a proxy. Without the securitization of immigration, ICE would never exist in this state, as the public would view it as highly extreme. However, by guiding voters toward uneasiness and a fear of migrants, Trump shifted public sentiment enough to allow ICE to exist as it does today. ICE is also permitted to control immigration regardless of border proximity and conduct workplace raids with little oversight. The fact that ICE now arrests people at courthouses, schools, hospitals, and churches, violating traditional sanctuaries and foundations of the American legal system, makes the agency’s increased power even more chilling [18]. Finally, by positioning local police as immigration officers and sharing information across federal, state, and local agencies, ICE makes military, law enforcement, and immigration control indistinguishable and each agency’s rules nearly unintelligible. 

ICE’s recent actions are case studies for the state of exception in action. A widely acknowledged, extreme ICE action was the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American citizen. ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Good during an immigration enforcement operation. By commanding a citizen outside of the context of immigration regulation, Ross already engaged in a problematic show of force. The rhetoric following this incident, however, is a more egregious example of how the state of emergency can expand governmental power. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem justified Ross’s actions by alleging that Good tried to run over Ross, suggesting that Good was engaged in “domestic terrorism” [19]. Noem both legitimized Good’s death as a necessary byproduct of the state of exception and reified the idea that anyone can be a threat, justifying further exceptional action. 

There are a plethora of examples of wrongful detention. The congressional investigation into over 170 US citizens who were incorrectly detained in 2025 shows a clear pattern: ICE acts in a condemnable manner, but the agency’s behavior is never sufficiently punished because of the ambiguity surrounding the criminal, terrorist, migrant Other than can never be fully secured against. Each spectacle serves to reinforce this idea. Every mention of ICE in the news refreshes the threat of the Other. Given broadening definitions of deportable offenses and the expansion of criminal grounds and grounds for detention, virtually every immigrant is now potentially subject to enforcement, giving ICE a near-unlimited supply of migrants to use to promote the feeling of insecurity and fear. Every headline offers another opportunity for rhetorically framing immigrants as dangerous. 

Security rhetoric in immigration and its implications for immigration policy mean little without understanding how the state of exception impacts American society. ICE carries out expedited removals without hearings, limits defendants’ access to counsel, and engages in prolonged detention without bond determinations, creating a two-tiered justice system that separates citizens and non-citizens [20, 21, 22]. Additionally, Fourth Amendment violations such as warrantless arrests and searches, reduced constitutional protections around the border, and pretextual traffic stops erode constitutional protections in ways that affect all residents. 

Democracy overall is also at risk. The normalization of exceptional powers allows what was once shocking to become routine. With courts increasingly deferring to the president on matters of immigration and the continued concentration of power in the hands of the executive, the separation of powers is under siege. Under these conditions, governmental powers can expand without ever contracting to their previous size, setting a dangerous precedent for the expansion of exceptional powers into more policy areas. Furthermore, the fear surrounding ICE could reduce public discourse due to reduced participation from minority and immigrant communities, weakening the principles of democracy meant to undergird American life. 

While the obvious answer to these issues is to desecuritize rhetoric, reduce ICE’s funding, and reduce executive power, the challenge of desecuritization is massive, and desecuritizing immigration is uniquely difficult. Because immigration is so deeply entrenched in political identity and creates such stark in-groups and out-groups, ending the perceived state of emergency for this issue is very challenging. Since an immigrant can come from so many different backgrounds and culture is such an influential in-group, the Other’s ambiguity makes it all the more difficult to desecuritize. There are also hefty political incentives to maintain security rhetoric. Fear-based narratives are incredibly compelling from an electoral perspective, especially in a media environment that rewards polarizing and inflammatory rhetoric. The cost of appearing soft on national security and identity cements, challenging the narrative as a self-destructive fantasy, which is unrealistic for many politicians. 

Securitization theory explains ICE’s current extraordinary powers and actions through a unique lens. By drawing parallels between the War on Terror and immigration rhetoric and discourse, we can hopefully learn from past mistakes and identify power creep before it is too late. Under this theory, ICE stands as an institutional manifestation of the state of exception, normalized through the repeated invocation of security threats from a criminal migrant Other against Americans. More broadly, present-day immigration discourse reveals a pattern of democratic erosion through rhetoric: how we talk about policy informs both what we do and how the future of policy will look. Allowing exceptional powers to become normalized by stress-testing them against vulnerable populations is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set, and it should be acknowledged as a step toward authoritarianism in the West. Thus, security rhetoric should be acknowledged when it is used. By rehumanizing those dehumanized in discourse and demanding transparency from government officials, we can challenge the normalization of exceptional powers. When used carefully, rhetoric is fundamental to democracy. However, employed selfishly in the name of power, rhetoric is one of the world’s most dangerous weapons. Today, rhetoric is amplified more than ever thanks to inflammatory media. An inability to address and counteract security rhetoric will only result in more securitization and continued expansion of governmental power, ironically undermining the very foundations of the US.