ICE occupies an exalted place in President Donald Trump’s hierarchy of law enforcement. He praises the bravery and fortitude of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers—“the toughest people you’ll ever meet,” he says—and depicts them as heroes in the central plot of his presidency …

The reality of Trump’s mass-deportation campaign is far less glamorous. Officers and agents have spent much of the past five months clocking weekends and waking up at 4 a.m. for predawn raids. Their top leaders have been ousted or demoted, and their supervisors—themselves under threat of being fired—are pressuring them to make more and more arrests to meet quotas set by the Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Having insisted for years that capturing criminals is its priority, ICE is now shelving major criminal investigations to prioritize civil immigration arrests, grabbing asylum seekers at their courthouse hearings, handcuffing mothers as their U.S.-citizen children cry, chasing day laborers through Home Depot parking lots. As angry onlookers attempt to shame ICE officers with obscenities, and activists try to dox them, officers are retreating further behind masks and tactical gear.