The Spiralling War of Terror: How Trump Inherited the National Security Machine He Now Wields

Without the War on Terror, there would be no ICE. The immigration crackdown dominating American politics was not invented by the current administration. It was built over two decades, by both parties, and handed over ready to use.

ICE was born out of the post-9/11 Homeland Security Act, and the methods it relies on were first used against Muslims. After 9/11, more than 1,000 Arab and South Asian men were rounded up and cut off from their families and lawyers. The surveillance that mapped Muslim communities in New York is now ICE’s model. The battlefield-tested technology in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the walls and sensors that keep Palestinians as prisoners, are now deployed against migrants. Palantir, seeded by the CIA and built to hunt targets in war zones, now builds the systems ICE uses to choose which neighbourhoods to raid.

The same machinery is being turned on dissent. Protesters outside an ICE facility in Texas have received multi-decade sentences under terrorism laws honed against Muslim defendants. Guantánamo Bay, the War on Terror’s most notorious prison, is holding migrants once again.

This report traces that inheritance, from Sami Al-Arian to Mahmoud Khalil and from Camp 6 to Alligator Alcatraz. It argues that these powers are doing exactly what they were built to do, and that the movements against ICE and against Guantánamo are confronting the same system.