Border Fury: DHS Accused of Hidden Power Grab, Experts Warn of Dangerous Precedent

In what critics call a quietly unfolding shift in U.S. immigration and enforcement policy, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is being accused of executing a “hidden power grab” — expanding its reach, dismantling oversight, and changing enforcement rules without transparent debate. As recent immigration raids, deportations, and new policy measures intensify under the current administration, a chorus of legal experts, civil‑rights advocates, and former oversight officials warn that the changes could erode fundamental checks and set a dangerous precedent for unchecked executive authority.

The fight over America’s border — and the agencies policing it — has long been heated. But what is unfolding now, some argue, surpasses partisan conflict: it may permanently recalibrate how power is exercised in immigration, civil‑liberties and law enforcement.

DHS’s Expanded Enforcement Powers

One of the clearest signals of this shift was revealed in September 2025, when a legal analysis laid out how DHS has expanded its authority to use “expedited removal” under immigration law. Under the expansion, the agency can summarily deport certain noncitizens — including asylum seekers or undocumented immigrants — without the usual standards of judicial or administrative review. The court ruling described how Section 1225(b)(1) of immigration law gives the Secretary of Homeland Security “sole” discretion, without “discernible standards by which a court could evaluate” the judgments.

In practice: in January 2025, DHS reversed a previous rollback and reinstated this broad authority — restoring power that many saw as past its expiration.

Supporters argue this expansion is necessary. According to one DHS hearing, between April 2022 and September 2023, the agency removed or returned at least 360,000 noncitizens — more than any comparable five‑month period in the last decade. During the same window, DHS says it arrested nearly 17,000 suspected human smugglers and seized more than $13 million in illicit currency. The agency also reports stopping over 43,000 pounds of fentanyl at the border in fiscal year 2023, resulting in thousands of narcotics‑related arrests.

To supporters, these are signs of a more effective, enforcement‑oriented border security regime — one capable of deterring illegal entry, trafficking, and national‑security threats.

Dismantling Oversight: Watchdogs Gone — and Civil‑Liberties at Risk

However, the expansion of enforcement has come hand-in-hand with a systematic dismantling of oversight mechanisms — widely viewed by advocates as the linchpin that ensured accountability.

In early 2025, three internal oversight offices of DHS — including the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman — were shuttered. These offices, though small in size, played a critical role in reviewing complaints about detention conditions, delayed immigration processing, civil‑rights violations, and more. Their closure, critics argue, removes an essential check on DHS’s vast enforcement machinery.

Former oversight officials have publicly warned that this institutional gutting “paves the way for grave immigration abuses” — enabling DHS to operate with far less transparency and effectively “with impunity.”

The timing of the dismantling is also telling: it comes just as DHS’s enforcement capacity — under newly expanded authority and fresh congressional funding — is being supercharged.

New Funding, New Powers: The Fiscal Engine Behind the Surge

A major enabler of the renewed DHS ambition is the recent passage of a sweeping appropriations measure, which dramatically increases the resources available to enforcement agencies under DHS control. According to analysis, the bill injects some $75 billion into DHS agencies — including roughly $45 billion earmarked for expanding detention capacity to 100,000 beds, and nearly $30 billion for personnel and enforcement operations.

Critics argue the bill creates an “unaccountable slush fund,” granting the government immense enforcement powers with minimal oversight or accountability. The expansion, they warn, enables mass deportations, widespread interior enforcement, and large‑scale detention — all without adequate protections for civil rights or due process.

Moreover, the new financing arrives alongside efforts to recruit new agents — a process that some former ICE officials fear may lower hiring standards, and potentially open the door to extremist candidates.

In short: DHS now wields expanded legal, institutional, and financial power — the exact configuration critics warn could lead to systemic overreach.

Consequences On the Ground: Deportations, Arrests, and Civil‑Rights Complaints

The results of this shift are already visible. In November 2025, federal agents arrested at least 81 people during the first day of a new immigration crackdown in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to DHS’s own Border Patrol — a frontline agency — many of those arrested reportedly had “significant criminal and immigration history.”

At the same time, a thorough 2025 investigation found that more than 170 U.S. citizens — not undocumented immigrants — have been detained by immigration agents in recent sweeping operations. Some were kicked, dragged, tased, or even shot; others were held for days without access to legal representation or phone calls from loved ones.

These findings challenge the narrative that expanded powers and funding are directed solely at dangerous criminals or national‑security threats. Instead, they highlight serious abuses — often targeting people with little or no connection to any criminal activity.

In parallel, immigration‑detention centers and facilities have faced increased scrutiny. With oversight offices gone, complaints about mistreatment, inhumane conditions, and due‑process violations have less chance of being properly investigated or addressed. Experts warn this could lead to widespread miscarriages of justice, unlawful deportations, and violations of both U.S. law and international human‑rights norms.

The Precedent That Worries Legal Scholars: Executive Overreach Without Checks

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this transformation — beyond its immediate human cost — is the precedent it sets for executive power.

By expanding deportation authority, eliminating watchdog institutions, and securing vast funding without meaningful safeguards, DHS is operating with a degree of autonomy and power that many consider historically unprecedented. Some legal scholars argue this blurs, if not erases, the traditional separation between law enforcement, due process, and civil‑rights protections.

One widely referenced critique warns that the dismantling of DHS’s internal oversight creates a “grave” risk of unaccountable immigration abuses — essentially giving the agency the power to act without meaningful checks.

Moreover, the expansion of expedited removal — one of the most significant policy changes — sidesteps judicial review entirely, placing enormous power in the hands of a single executive branch official: the Secretary of Homeland Security.

For many constitutionalists and civil‑liberties advocates, these moves echo classic warnings about “imperial” executive power — potentially eroding democratic accountability, due process, and the rule of law.

Who Supports — and Who Opposes — the Hardline Turn

From the viewpoint of DHS leadership and enforcement advocates, these changes represent necessary modernization and hard‑nosed realism. The U.S. border, they argue, has in recent years faced surges in migration, increased human-smuggling networks, and flows of narcotics. DHS officials cite statistics on arrests of smugglers, drug seizures, and the removal of hundreds of thousands of migrants as evidence the expanded powers are working.

Proponents assert that DHS should not be constrained by bureaucracy or internal watchdogs when acting to protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of immigration laws. They argue that the prior system — with its multiple oversight and appeals — was too slow, inefficient, and easily exploited by smugglers and criminal networks.

On the other side, a coalition of civil‑rights organizations, former DHS oversight officials, immigrant‑rights advocates, and many legal experts warn that giving any single agency — especially one as large and broad as DHS — such sweeping power without accountability erodes fundamental civil liberties. They argue that oversight and transparency are not optional add-ons — they are the bedrock of justice.

Many fear that the current wave of reforms could outlast this administration, permanently reshaping U.S. immigration enforcement in ways future governments — even with different political leanings — may replicate or expand.

Broader Implications: Democracy, Rights, and the Future of Enforcement

The stakes, it seems, go well beyond immigration. The configuration of expanded power, diminished oversight, and aggressive enforcement establishes a structural template that could be applied elsewhere — to policing, national security, even domestic dissent.

Erosion of due process: With expedited removal and limited judicial review, immigrants — and potentially even citizens — might be deprived of the opportunity to plead their case, appeal, or challenge evidence. This undercuts the fundamental legal protections that define American justice.

Weakening of institutional checks: The dismantling of independent oversight offices marks a shift away from governance by law and toward governance by administrative discretion. Without watchdogs, there is no effective internal check against abuse, misconduct, or wrongful deportation.

Normalization of heavy enforcement: The infusion of funding, creation of detention capacity, and expansion of enforcement agents suggest a long‑term strategy: not crisis‑management, but systemic enforcement. If unchecked, this could reshape the relationship between citizens, immigrants, and the state — entrenching fear, distrust, and social fragmentation.

Dangerous precedent for future governments: Perhaps most ominously, what passes today might be use