“Like Amazon Prime, but with human beings” was the bold suggestion from Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), speaking at the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix. The event, as reported by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy for Arizona Mirror, was teeming with surveillance-state companies, as well as Trump donors and boosters.
‘We need to get better at treating this like a business,’ Lyons said, adding, ‘like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.’ Lyons was one of a series of Trump administration speakers at the Security Expo, including Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, and Kristi Noem, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Most extolled Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, and Noem promised to expand its use to swiftly deport immigrants. Several speakers, including Homan, told the military industrial complex representatives in the crowd that the Trump administration is depending on the private sector to implement its mass deportation agenda. ‘We need to buy more beds, we need more airplane flights and I know a lot of you are here for that reason,’ Homan told the crowd in his keynote speech.
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy for Arizona Mirror
Numerous event sponsors have ties to Trump and his associates, the Mirror added, in addition to a seat on the advisory board of Heritage Foundation‘s Project 2025—the right-wing manifesto they all lied about for the better part of last year.
Notably, organizers barred media from attending the conference but changed their minds when DHS‘ Kristi Noem was named as second keynote speaker.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
There are a couple of passages from this Arizona Mirror piece (which I found to be superb; you should read it, just take a sedative) that I want to highlight. Setting aside Lyons’ callback to plutocrat Jeff Bezos‘ creepy boostering of Donald, this entire event was designed to create clickbait-y soundbites for right-wing hate media.
The Mirror examined the list of companies in attendance and found that some of them have ties to Trump and his allies, such as Andruil Industries, which is tied to Trump ally Palantir, and whose director of defense technology was nominated by Trump to serve as the Army’s No. 2 official. Private prison company Geo Group, an ICE contractor who has seen its stock price skyrocket since Trump’s election, also was present at the event.
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy for Arizona Mirror
This network of surveillance operatives mentioned above is important to keep eyes on. Palantir is of course GOP megadonor Peter Thiel‘s surveillance-tech firm, which continued getting government contracts even during the Biden Administration. The Private Prison Industrial Complex (including Geo Group) is enmeshed with Donald’s administration, and has a track record of squalid conditions and even forced hysterectomies.
Much like Homan, Lyons also shared that he supports the use of the Alien Enemies Act, calling it ‘amazing’ to be able to speed up the process of deportations. He also said that he has been working with billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. Department of Government Efficiency to get social security numbers to look for ‘voter fraud.’ There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud connected to illegal immigration.
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy for Arizona Mirror
That passage should chill everyone to the bone, mainly because they’re congratulating each other on exploiting an ancient law that’s never been used without Congress. And there’s “no evidence” of voter fraud connected to undocumented immigrants because that group commits crime at far lower rates than other Americans—even Republicans as a group.
Historian and author Timothy Snyder made an accurate and chilling point that the idea of modeling government after business has echoes of the Third Reich.
SOURCES
- Arizona Mirror
- USA Today
- Timothy Snyder on Twitter/X
