Collective Punishment Has No Place in A Constitutional Democracy

On January 8, 2026, one day after the tragic killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, held a press conference in New York highlighting what she portrayed as the dangerous conditions under which ICE agents are currently working. Referring to the incident in Minneapolis, she said Good died while engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism.”

She compared what Good allegedly tried to do to an ICE agent to what happened last July when an off-duty Customs and Border Protection Officer was shot on the street in Fort Washington Park, New York. Mincing no words, Norm called the alleged perpetrators “scumbags” who “were affiliated with the transnational criminal organization, the notorious Trinitarios gang.”

Norm said that following the shooting, DHS “began to target every single last person who is affiliated with them.” All that was pretty standard fare for our Homeland Security Secretary.

What was not standard fare was that she delivered remarks while standing behind a podium bearing the phrase “One of Ours, All of Yours.” Above that phrase was the Department of Homeland Security’s logo

“One of Ours, All of Yours” is not the kind of promise law enforcement agencies typically make. Indeed, its website proclaims that ICE will “protect America” and “preserve national security and public safety.”

Noem left that language behind and substituted a threat of collective punishment.

Constitutional democracies provide due process and determine guilt through trials conducted according to strict procedures. Whatever our political differences, Americans should treasure and defend that commitment and lobby Congress to ensure that ICE adheres to it.

In contrast, collective punishment was a tactic used by the Nazi’s during World War II. As one commentator notes, the phrase “One of Ours, All of Yours” evokes “the Lidice Massacre in June 1942, where Nazis retaliated for…(the) assassination (of a high-ranking figure in the German SS) by wiping out the Czech village.”

“SS forces,” they continue, “shot nearly all men over 14, sent women to Ravensbrück camp, and scattered children…. They then razed the site, killing about 340 in a symbol of terror tactics.”

Let’s be clear, collective punishment is never justified, not even to deter violence directed at an individual. It corrodes democratic life and is explicitly prohibited by international humanitarian law.

For example, Article 33 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War says that “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

As Professor Shane Darcy observes, in a just society, “an individual may be punished for acts or omissions only where there is personal wrongdoing on that person’s part; that is to say, one person cannot generally be punished for the acts of another.” But Noem seems to be less interested in doing justice than in using ICE to instill fear.

America should be better than that.

“(L)egions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president,” Pro Publica’s J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam argue, “cross(es)… a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes. ICE…has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force.”

And what do we make of Noem’s use of the phrase “One of Ours, All of Yours”? It is not the first time that members of the Trump Administration have invoked or alluded to things that would once have been taboo in American politics.

But no more.

“Several high-profile political leaders have,” Professors David Collinson and Keith Grint observe, “in recent months been seen apparently dabbling in Nazi allusions. In many cases, dog whistle messages send oblique signals to supporters. These are pitched at a frequency that most listeners can’t hear but are meaningful to those seeking confirmation of their own views.”

Recall Elon Musk’s straight-arm salute during rallies to celebrate the inauguration of President Trump for a second term. Steve Bannon did the same thing during the annual conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee.

And the president himself has used language associated with the Nazi regime when he calls political opponents “vermin” and accuses immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Let me be clear, I do not mean to suggest that Noem, Musk, Bannon, or President Trump are Nazi sympathizers. What seems clear, however, is that they are offering a vision of a society inexorably divided between insiders and outsiders and friends and enemies.

The vision of ICE they offer is as an enforcer of those boundaries, operating with impunity.

It is one thing for a leader to communicate to those who work under her that she will have their backs. It is quite another thing to talk in ways that instill terror in the population that ICE serves.

The United States has had a serious problem of illegal immigration, and we need to address the consequences of that problem. But we don’t need to do so by pitting Americans and residents of this country against each other or encouraging ICE agents to regard migrants as a less-than-human threat.

We need to address our problems in ways appropriate to a constitutional democracy.

The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti should remind us that no one can be safe unless we do so. Kristi Noem’s embrace of collective punishment takes us in a different direction.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.