The Price of ICE

Its more than you think

It's the middle of January, so it’s a good time to talk about ice. Namely the cost of ice, in all its forms.

The Price of ICE in the Streets: $16 Billion + Our Founding Principles

Unlike most news in the Trump era, the stories of abusive and violent ICE agents in the Twin Cities—and now other cities—have not died down. In fact, as Trump has doubled down, the story is growing and metastasizing: it has moved beyond a story of immigration enforcement (which most Americans favor) to a story about government overreach, with Americans being subjected to random “show me your papers” stops. With the exception of Trump’s Greenland weirdness (addressed below), ICE agents terrorizing American citizens and non-citizens are dominating the American consciousness this cold winter. MAGA would not have it any other way.

The price of ICE violating Americans’ rights is fairly straightforward. The recent reconciliation act (“One Big Beautiful Bill”) gave $16 billion for ICE personnel and another $45 billion to build detention facilities. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text (Sections 90002 and 90003). The money is being spent, and we see the results on the streets. While I am sure there is a certain segment of the American public that relishes watching bulky, badge-carrying men in brown uniforms (yes, brown) and baseball caps pulling people out of their homes and cars seemingly at random, most Americans believe that is un-American.

Interestingly, while it might be un-American, it is technically not unconstitutional in immigration enforcement: in September 2025, the Supreme Court actually said that random immigration stops based on nothing more than skin color or language are perfectly fine. Really. The case is Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo, which was filed in response to ICE’s enforcement activities in Los Angeles over the summer. A lower court ruled that those stops were unconstitutional. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf That was the decision that stayed (stopped pending appeal) a lower court’s decision that such stops were a violation of the 4th Amendment. It means that while the Court sorts out the constitutionality of those stops, they can go on. It’s going to be quite a while until that happens, if at all.

That, of course, does not mean that those random stops don’t violate state law, and the violence we’re seeing violates other constitutional provisions, like the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, or the other part of the 4th Amendment that prohibits excessive force. We’re also learning that ICE seems to think that administrative warrants, as opposed to judicial warrants issued by a judge, allow them to enter someone’s home. https://abcnews.go.com/US/ice-memo-allows-agents-enter-homes-judicial-warrant/story?id=129 That is in direct contrast to the way the Fourth Amendment has traditionally been understood: you can arrest an undocumented person in a public place without a warrant (just an administrative order), but not in their home, because that requires a finding of probable cause by a judge under the 4th Amendment. The policy of kicking down doors without a warrant will be tested, hopefully by homeowners who don’t want ICE to kick down their doors holding only administrative warrants, and hopefully stayed pending a determination on its constitutionality. But it’s hard to know how or when these issues will be litigated because the remedies against federal agents are so limited. https://fractionallyyours.substack.com/p/your-guide-to-the-law-in-lawless There are legal fixes to that, but it requires some creativity and boldness, which are in short supply on the American left—although we’re getting there. I digress.

As we watch the terrifying and heartbreaking scenes in the Twin Cities and other places, we need to remember that there is a reason we consider government officials acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner—whether it’s using excessive force, kicking down doors without a warrant, or forcing Americans to identify themselves—to be un-American.

Every schoolchild learns about an obscure event in Boston on March 5, 1770, when three Americans were killed by British soldiers (two more died of their wounds later) during a protest—an event we now know as the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre did not arise from an organized protest: the Bostonians killed in the crowd were angry that a British private, Hugh White, had hit a 13-year-old boy, Edward Garrick, on the side of his head with a musket after Garrick insulted White’s superior officer. It’s the type of routine, tense interaction between civilians and government agents that spirals out of control when you have heavily armed soldiers mixing with a restive civilian population. History does not repeat, but it rhymes. We regard those martyred in Boston in 1770 as the ultimate patriots.

Some say instigation is the point. The more of a mess, the more Trump and his sycophants can justify increasing the countermeasures to the point of either canceling elections or martial law. As I’ve written about before, a declaration of martial law (which has been declared 68 times in U.S. history) https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/martial-law-united-states-its-meaning-its-history-and-why-president-cant allows the military to take over what would otherwise go into the criminal justice system. The military does not have a jury of your peers (just a military jury) and other constitutional protections. It’s the best way to disappear your perceived enemies.

Here is where evil meets incompetence: martial law requires the civilian courts to be closed. And only the state can close its courts. Blue states, like Minnesota, won’t do that. Red states might. Ditto with elections: they are run by the state, and blue states are not going to cancel their elections because of disorder. Perhaps this crackdown should be happening in Houston, Nashville, or St. Louis. But, alas, these people are as stupid as they are mendacious. Don’t forget that.

Yes, this talk of martial law and canceled elections sounds very un-American. If the price of ICE is our founding principles of being free from an abusive government (and $16 billion), I have to think that most Americans won’t take that deal. As we enter the 250th year of our independence, I think we need to ask: Who are our patriots now?

The Price of Ice in Greenland: Our Global Goodwill

The whole “Taking Greenland” idea is one of the most extra-legal, extra-sensical foreign policy moves I’ve seen in a long time. I negotiate for a living. And the combination of arrogance and incompetence in the way this was floated—sale, invasion talk, tariffs-as-leverage, the whole grab-bag—was staggering.

If what the U.S. actually wants is reliable access—continued defense positioning, secure basing rights, and the ability to participate in or benefit from resource development—we already have a framework for a lot of that. There are established agreements and longstanding strategic relationships that address those interests.

My clients ask for advice on purchase deals all the time, whether they are being bought or doing the buying. I break it down simply: there are asset deals and stock deals. If you want specific rights—defense access, infrastructure cooperation, resource extraction partnerships—that’s closer to an “asset purchase” concept: you negotiate for particular assets and rights, and you leave the broader “liabilities” behind. Those are typically the right deals for my clients, although there are some instances where we do stock deals.

Here, Trump was demanding a really bad “stock deal”: total control over the entire territory, along with everything that comes with it. And those liabilities are not theoretical. Greenland is vast, remote, expensive to operate, and infrastructure is limited. The asset deal—which he already had—was the way to go. Everything else was just stupidity.

And the collateral damage of that stupidity matters. Even setting aside the substance, the posture was needlessly antagonistic to our European allies. Europe is an enormous market of hundreds of millions of consumers, and it’s also a critical capital partner. When you pick fights for no reason, you invite retaliation—trade shifts, purchasing shifts, and investment shifts. That means real costs: less demand for U.S. assets and potentially higher borrowing costs over time.

Predictably, once the scale of the backlash became obvious, Trump backed off. But the damage lingers. The bigger problem isn’t Greenland—it’s credibility. When the U.S. looks erratic and unreliable, investors price that in. And that’s an expensive price to pay for ice.

Keep thinking, keep building.

Jesse

Hi, and welcome to my newsletter! I’m Jesse Strauss, Your Fractional General Counsel. I’m a lawyer with a private practice based in New York City, helping clients in the United States and globally with their U.S. legal needs. My expertise spans various areas, including raising funding rounds, employment issues, negotiating master service agreements, intellectual property, compliance, legal process management, and dispute resolution. My focus is on founding and nurturing great companies from seed to exit. Discover more at Your Fractional GC and book a complimentary 30-minute consultation. You can also follow me on Threads @lawyerjesse1977, on BlueSky @lawyerjesse.bsky.social, subscribe to my Substack here (follow me on notes), and follow me on LinkedIn here.