Why ICE is a Failed Experiment: Lessons from Psychology

Philip Zimbardo could have told us in advance that the ICE operations were going to turn out very badly.

Images and reports coming out of Minnesota—a woman protestor shot in the head, a peaceful protestor gang tackled and then shot multiple times in the back, young children being taken out of their classes, an American citizen with no criminal history led out of his home into freezing temperatures while in his underwear, another protester held down by multiple agents and pepper sprayed in his eyes at close range—are as shocking as they are disturbing. Unfortunately, however, they are all too consistent–even predictable–with what we know from psychological research. The Stanford Prisoner Experiment, conducted in 1971 by Zimbardo, then a professor of social psychology, is especially telling.

By the toss of a coin, Zimbardo randomly assigned 24 middle-class college men to assume the role of either a prisoner or a guard.   The experiment was conducted in the basement of a university building transposed into a makeshift “prison.”  The college students, who had volunteered to participate in the study for $15 a day, were supposed to act as either a prisoner or as one of the prison guards for a two-week period.

After just six days, however, Zimbardo ended the experiment because of disturbing changes in the participants.

Most notably, the guard group had become abusive, cruel, sadistic, and tyrannical in less than a week.   Many of the prisoners, meanwhile, were traumatized and mentally distressed.

The Reflection of an Experiment Gone Bad

We can see a reflection of this experiment in the images and news coming out of Minnesota and other U.S. communities.   Unfortunately, however, today’s images are not part of a university laboratory project but the all too real scenes that are occurring in the streets of America where the Trump administration has sent in large forces of ICE officers.

Social psychology can help explain the violent and inhumane actions by ICE.

Zimbardo’s research conclusions emphasized the strong influence that the environment and social roles have on individual behavior.  (Other social, political, and individual factors also contribute.)

Zimbardo (who died in 2024) found that cruel behavior resulted less from a few “bad apples” and more from a “bad barrel” of social context.

8 contributing social factors

More specifically, here are eight factors from social psychological research that help to explain the violence and cruelty of ICE officers against U.S. citizen protestors and immigrants.

(1.) The social roles that are prescribed to different groups of people—and the formal power granted to the group–dramatically influence the behavior that follows.

• The Trump administration has granted immense power to ICE.  Officers are allowed not only to arrest people, but to yank them from their cars, pull adults from their jobs and young children from school, and to break into homes without a judicial search warrant.  They have also been given an arsenal of weapons and combat gear.  Vice-President J.D. Vance and other officials have also stated their power includes “absolute immunity” regardless of their actions.
• In contrast, the federal government has attempted to strip the power of Constitutional rights for U.S. citizens who act as community observers or protestors. The rights that have been attacked include the right to assemble, the right to free speech, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

• Immigrants, too, have had their rights abridged, including by denying due process, which is guaranteed for everyone in America under the Constitution, and by arresting individuals who are in the country under legal authority, such as Temporary Protected Status and DACA.

(2.) One of the strongest factors that leads to cruel and violent actions are the qualities, characteristics, and value assigned to each social role or group.

• Trump and many of his administration officials have repeatedly called immigrants “garbage” and “poison” to the country.  This language serves to try to dehumanize immigrants, to make them seem less than human.
• Immigrants have also been cast by Trump as “killers,” “migrant criminals” “gang members” and “insane” people who have “invaded” the U.S.  The effect is to create a sense of all immigrants as dangerous criminals, which incites the need for violence action back toward them.
• Community members who observe or protest the ICE operations have been portrayed by the Trump administration, without credible support, in demeaning and dangerous terms, including as “domestic terrorists” “left-wing lunatics” and “paid agitators” seeking to kill federal officers.
• ICE officers meanwhile have regularly been referred to by the Trump administration as “heroes” and “patriots” for the work they do.

This language creates a social context that glorifies and unconditionally supports ICE while portraying immigrants as inherently dangerous sub-humans and U.S. citizen observers and protestors as dangerous and without rights.

(3.) The masking of ICE and organizing officers in groups (and without personal identifiers) contribute to deindividuation. Deindividuation is a psychological state where people lose self-awareness. They feel less personal responsibility, less restraint for their actions, and are more prone to impulsive and aggressive behavior, especially if it is the group norm.   Anthropological research also shows masked combatants are more likely to be more sadistic and cruel.  Shrouding ICE in secrecy (e.g., unmarked cars, failure to collaborate with local police) further contributes to this behavior.)

(4.) The dress and equipment of ICE with military uniforms, tactical gear, and weapons can trigger more violent, combative behavior.

(5.) The human tendency to obey authority contributes to the abuse and violence by ICE. A well-known study on obedience by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that the majority of citizens would overrule their own morals and inflict what they believed were painful shocks to another person when ordered to do so by an authority figure.  ICE agents are of course responding to the highest authority in the U.S. by following the mandates of the president and his cabinet members as well as by local commanders.

(6.) Peer influence and the power of the group: Zimbardo’s study showed that about one-third of the guards acted aggressively or sadistically. The other two-third of the guards did not do so but accepted the aggressive behavior of their peers without protest or efforts to stop it, thereby reinforcing a group norm of cruelty and aggression. Undoubtedly, many ICE agents are good individuals who have misgivings about the morality of their work but go along with their aggressive peers and social mandates.

(7.) Incentives increase behavior and ICE officers are expected to meet arrest quotas.

(8.) Role induction or training for the role also affects performance. As others have noted, ICE officers have not received adequate training.

These eight factors make it highly likely that ICE will abuse its power and mistreat protesting citizens and immigrants alike, given the social roles, messages, and context.

In important ways, the ICE operation is a failed social experiment.

A broader evaluation of ICE

To be fair, ICE has met some of its stated policy objectives.  Unauthorized border crossings are down.  Some immigrants who have committed serious illegal acts or who are dangerous have been deported.

But let’s take a broader, deeper view of the ICE social experiment, including these facts:

• The percentage of serious and violent immigrants deported is a small fraction of the total number.  Reports show that only 5 percent of people detained by ICE have serious criminal convictions, only 27 percent have any kind of conviction (often for low-level activities such as traffic offenses), and that 73 percent of the people detained by ICE have no history of criminal conviction.  Immigrants also have a lower rate of crime than native American citizens.
• Some U.S. citizens, especially people of color, who are simply not carrying personal identification (or, which ICE refuses to consider if they are) are also being swept up and detained, sometimes for indefinite periods of time.
• A number of deaths and other problems are occurring in federal “detention centers” for immigrants—e.g., eight deaths have occurred already in January 2026.  Food, sanitation, and medical care are reportedly poor in these well-funded, for-profit detention centers paid for by tax money.
• The cost-effectiveness of ICE is poor.  The annual budget for ICE has grown astronomically to $29 billion a year—more money than allocated to all other federal law enforcement agencies and activities combined.  This operation is a prime example of the government throwing money at a problem without a well-conceived plan. (Where is DOGE the one time it’s really needed?)  The huge budget also adds to the rapidly growing federal debt.

• A number of negative side effects have also resulted:  ICE has created trauma, anxiety, and mental health distress for a number of U.S. citizens.  In a real sense, ICE has led to a decreased—not increased–sense of safety for a majority of Americans.  Although there is a divide by political party, many people are also feeling that America is becoming less of a democracy and more of an authoritarian state.

ICE is operating with no or very little accountability. Individual agents should be held accountable for potentially illegal violent actions, but the problems are inherent within the larger federal system. In particular, the statements and decisions of the president and other leaders drive the system and the behavior on the streets.

For these reasons, ICE is failing as a social experiment.

Although many Americans support policies that allow for the removal of violent and illegal immigrants and for secure borders, ICE is failing in the court of public opinion. Early in 2025, a majority of Americans supported Trump’s immigrant policies.  As of  January 23, 2026, only 36 percent approved of ICE’s operations while 63 percent did not.

A Question of Morals

Most importantly, ICE operations are failing on moral grounds.  People are dehumanized, abused, violated, injured, and even killed.

Secure borders and the removal of violent and illegal immigrants can be pursued with much greater compassion and humanity, as well as greater effectiveness and efficiency.

When the patterns of abuse and degradation by the guards in the Prison Study were reported to Zimbardo, he had the moral integrity to terminate the experiment immediately.

The question we face today is whether President Trump has the same moral integrity to do so with ICE?

 

Lead photo by Yasmin Peyman on Unsplash