In last week’s issue of Revolution/revcom.us, we highlighted an insightful comment from writer Tom Nichols on Trump’s killing spree in the waters off Venezuela and Colombia: “The American president has said: ‘I can point the U.S. military any place I want and kill anyone I want.' That, eventually, is going to become a principle in the domestic use of the military. He is acclimatizing people to the notion that the military is his private army—unconstrained by law, unconstrained by norms, unconstrained by American tradition.” [emphasis added].

In the week since then, there have been new leaps toward locking in a fascist police state. Here are four examples:

1. 23,000 Soldiers to Be Pre-Positioned to “Quell Civil Disturbances”

The Guardian newspaper revealed that on October 8, Major General Ronald Burkett, director of operations for the Pentagon’s National Guard bureau, ordered that all state and territorial National Guard must immediately establish “quick reaction forces”—about 500 soldiers for each, a national total of over 23,000.

While they are to be trained in “riot control” including the use of batons, Tasers, pepper spray, this is the military of Christian fascist Pete Hegseth who has emphasized the need to train soldiers with "maximum lethality, not tepid legality." 

Burkett drew his authority for this move from an executive order Trump signed on August 28, 2025. Two important points: One, Trump’s August order explicitly states that these forces should be “‘available for rapid nationwide deployment’ in ‘quelling civil disturbances.’” Translation: suppressing mass protests. Two, in that August order, Trump specified that he wanted about 600 “rapid response” troops stationed at just two military bases. But now, just two months later, he wants 23,000—40-times as a many—spread throughout the U.S. and able to go into action on eight hours notice. 

2. Purging ICE... to Make It More Ruthless

Multiple sources inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS—the department that oversees Trump's mass deportation campaign) report a major purge of regional ICE leaders, and their replacement by Border Patrol officials. 

The Washington Examiner reports that on October 24, “ICE leaders in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego were relieved of their jobs” and these five cities “are believed to be the first of more to come across ICE’s 24 field offices nationwide.” 

Gregory Bovino, a longtime Border Patrol agent and vicious nazi, is now ascendant in leadership.  After becoming well known in Southern California, Bovino is currently leading the attack on immigrants in Chicago.  He was on site when federal agents led the Blackhawk raid on a Chicago apartment complex, and he was recently videoed hurling a tear gas canister into a crowd of protesters with no warning. According to the Examiner, he is being viewed as “the new standard for what is to come at ICE.”

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the Border Patrol are separate agencies within DHS. The Border Patrol operates at the U.S. border and up to 100 miles away from it (a legal restriction that has lately been tossed aside). It developed historically as a violent, paramilitary organization with a Wild West cowboy mentality, and a track record of extreme brutality. 

ICE operated in the interior of the U.S., hunting down immigrants who had lived here for months, years or decades, but were alleged to have committed some legal infraction, missed an immigration hearing, etc. Like the Border Patrol, ICE’s role was/is oppressive. But unlike the Border Patrol, ICE at least made a pretense of adhering to the rule of law—acting on the basis of legal orders from courts, seeking out specific individuals, acknowledging the immigrants have some legal rights. 

While ICE has sent its masked goons to brutalize immigrants, raid workplaces and kidnap people off the streets, from the standpoint of the MAGA fascists things are behind schedule. MAGA was aiming for one million deportations a year, but the Examiner says that “those high figures have been impossible to achieve as ICE has simultaneously focused on arresting the ‘worst of the worst,’ often a one-by-one process.” That is, to some degree ICE leadership is being held back from sweeping up and deporting every immigrant they can lay hands on, by the idea that they should (sometimes, at least!) focus on people who may have done something wrong!

This takeover by the Border Patrol signals a serious and dangerous leap toward outright ethnic cleansing of nonwhite people, and the further forging and unleashing of a fascist force that can also be turned against other sections of the people.

3. Anti-ICE Protesters Indicted as “Terrorists” in an “Antifa Cell” for Guilt By Association

On October 15, federal prosecutors filed “terrorism” charges against two people, accusing them of being part of an “Antifa Cell”—in relation to a July protest at an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas. This is the first time such charges have been brought down with the “antifa” label, after Trump designated “antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.” In reality, “antifa” is not an “organization” but an orientation toward opposing fascists, racists and other forms of injustice. The Trump regime is using the label as justification for ramping up repression against a wide range of individuals and groups who are politically opposed to the regime. 

The police claim that at the end of the July protest at the ICE prison, someone exchanged gunfire with cops and one officer was injured. Nine protesters were arrested on the scene, and more in the following days—17 now face state and federal charges. The two now accused of being in an “Antifa Cell”—Zachary Evetts and Autumn Hill—were not arrested at the protest and are not accused of firing the gun. They are charged with allegedly “providing material support to terrorists” and having “aided and abetted” attempted murder of officers. The indictment describes “antifa” as “militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups, primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology.” 

A former Justice Department official cited by the New York Times pointed out that this was a “somewhat vague definition of antifa that offered no clear evidence of connections between targeted people or groups other than their leftist ideology.” And this posed the danger that the “inquiry could end up focusing not only on those accused of committing actual violence, but on others adjacent to them who believe in similar ideas but have not acted violently.” In other words, the Trump fascist regime is going after protesters on the basis of “guilt by association”—not for committing any alleged actual crimes, but for having ideas that this illegitimate regime has labeled “criminal.”

4. Democratic Congressional Candidate and Others Indicted for Protests at Broadview ICE Facility

Since September, when ICE raids began ramping up in Chicago, people have protested at the ICE processing center in Broadview. Immigrants held in detention there face brutal, inhumane conditions. The protesters have heroically stood up in the face of rampaging violence by ICE and state police.  They've gone up against clouds of tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and violent arrests. The repression intensified in a major way last week when federal prosecutors charged six Broadview protesters with felonies, including “conspiracy” in a September 26 protest “to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat” an ICE agent “from discharging the duties of his office.”

One of the six is Kat Abughazaleh, Palestinian American and a Democratic Party candidate for Congress. Other codefendants include a candidate for a seat on the Cook County Board, a trustee for the suburb of Oak Park, and a Democratic ward committeeman. At a protest at the Broadview ICE facility on September 19, Abughazaleh was violently thrown to the ground by ICE agents—this was caught on video, which went viral. Abughazaleh said about the federal indictments: “This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.” More than 100 elected officials, including most of Abughazaleh’s opponents for the Congressional seat, publicly condemned the indictments.

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As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said in his social media message REVOLUTION #141, The Time Is Urgently Upon Us Now—To Drive Out The Trump Fascist Regime!

Every day this is driven home more and more forcefully and cruelly: There is no living with this Trump/MAGA fascism—it must be removed from power before it commits even more horrific atrocities and forcibly shuts down any real possibility of resistance.