The Big Takeover: The Secret Plans to Give Trump Command of America’s Police

Editor's Note: Dallas Observer is bringing our audience this story from Phoenix New Times, our sister publication.

Since President Donald Trump's inauguration in January, his administration has ruthlessly prosecuted his promises of mass deportations. He has sent deportees to Guantanamo Bay and a “terrorist” prison in El Salvador. He has placed control of the southern border in the hands of the military. And, despite promising to focus on hardened criminals, the administration has widened its immigrant dragnet by targeting documented and undocumented immigrants alike.

Trump has done much of this in defiance of the judiciary, while claiming an amount of executive power previously unseen in American history.

To the average American, this administration's approach may be reminiscent of an angry monkey hurling shit at a wall. But these anti-immigrant measures echo a plan that was meticulously crafted, out of public view, over at least the year preceding this Trump presidency.

The purpose of that plan is to drastically restructure domestic law enforcement under the command of the president. The president would then have the machinery to target immigrants en masse and to crack down on those who oppose him.

These plans and the identities of those who authored them have remained secret — until now.

Cochise Regional News (CRN) and Phoenix New Times have obtained a trove of documents laying out these plans. While these documents have specific implications for border states such as Arizona and Texas, this plan is the fruit of a right-wing national security approach that sees the border as a 50-state problem. As such, the documents portend much wider consequences for the country at large.

In coming months, CRN and New Times will deliver reporting revealing the contents of these documents, their implications for the country and their authors. This article is the first in that series of investigative reporting.

This reporting is based on internal Project 2025 blueprints that lay out draft proposals for the Trump administration's immigration and law enforcement agenda. The documents contain several timelines for these actions, which are set to unfold throughout this year. Through the first four months of the Trump administration, the documents have repeatedly proven prophetic, leading us to believe they are likely to continue to forecast Trump’s moves.

Meet the ‘Border Security Workgroup’

Project 2025 was an effort by several far-right think tanks to craft a policy playbook for a second Trump presidency. Per materials we’ve obtained, the documents were created by a subgroup of the larger Project 2025 effort called the “Border Security Workgroup.” This subgroup, which until now was unknown to the American public, was tasked with crafting immigrant mass deportation plans, along with other law enforcement and national security policy.

Though Trump repeatedly denied any involvement with Project 2025 during the election cycle, documents obtained by CRN and New Times strongly suggest that the group worked closely with Trump and his team, right through the election and up the White House steps.

It is unclear whether the Project 2025 documents we have obtained constitute the group's final policy proposals, or whether Trump accepted these policies. It is clear, however, that many of the agenda items laid out in these documents have come to pass during the early months of this Trump presidency.

We have also seen items that seem to have been crafted largely for propagandistic purposes come to pass. This has included the administration's demonization of some immigrant groups — particularly Venezuelans accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua — as “terrorist” threats. The administration has often deported these so-called terrorists on the basis of flimsy evidence and without due process.

Internal Project 2025 documents obtained by CRN and New Times clearly state that targeting these alleged immigrant “terrorists” has been a vital part of a proposed communications strategy. The aim of that strategy: to galvanize political support for a broader plan to dramatically restructure and militarize law enforcement, nationwide, under the command of President Trump.

Who put these plans together? Documents show that many of the authors have ties to Christian nationalists and other far-right extremists.

Project 2025 and Trump

Project 2025 is an effort led by the Heritage Foundation, arguably America’s most influential conservative think tank. The effort included input from a coalition of various right-wing public policy foundations and individual contributors.

In April 2023, the group published a 922-page policy handbook titled "2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." In essence, the handbook sought to reshape the federal government under a second Trump administration around two pillars. The first is the once-obscure “unitary executive" legal theory, which essentially consolidates unchecked executive power in the hands of the president. Critics argue the theory is unconstitutional and reframes the presidency as akin to a dictatorship or monarchy.

The second pillar is hard-line Christian fundamentalism.

The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by right-wing political luminary and Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich. According to the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup materials, many involved in crafting these specific law enforcement and mass deportation plans have substantial ties to Christian nationalists — among other far-right extremists.

The documents demonstrate that Project 2025 continued working, well beyond the 2023 publication of the "Mandate for Leadership" tome, to craft policy for a hoped-for second Trump presidency. While that work was occurring, then-candidate Trump repeatedly denied knowing anything about Project 2025.

Critics responded by noting that publicly known contributors to the project had served in the first Trump presidential administration. Trump has since appointed several of those contributors to his current administration.

Furthermore, documents we have obtained demonstrate that about a third of the individuals involved in crafting these specific Project 2025 law enforcement and mass deportation plans had also served in some capacity under the first Trump administration. The identities of most of the individuals involved in the Border Security Workgroup have not been previously revealed and will be explored at length later in this investigative series.

According to metadata associated with the documents, they were crafted between May and September 2024 — all while Trump was denying any involvement with Project 2025."

The authors of these documents expected to work in tandem with the campaign and subsequent administration. They specifically discuss intentions to “receive guidance and input from the Presidential candidate and other key members of the executive team,” during his campaign, presidential transition period and well into the first year of his administration.

It is not clear from these documents whether the Border Security Workgroup policy proposals found purchase with Trump. But if there has been coordination between the administration and the authors, it would hardly be surprising. Trump has already implemented several of the policy proposals contained in the documents.

These have included the widespread revocation of immigrant parole programs and the revocation of status for many immigrants who are in the United States legally. The administration has sent immigrants to Guantanamo Bay and placed control of the U.S.-Mexico border in the hands of the military. And Trump has directed the Internal Revenue Service to help identify immigrants for deportation — breaking with long-held federal norms and clearly embracing the Border Security Workgroup’s draconian recommendations.

More disturbing, however, are those items the administration has not fully fleshed out. Yet.

Domestic law enforcement realignment and militarization

After 9/11, aspects of all levels of American law enforcement were integrated for the purpose of finding terrorists. Over time, that infrastructure was applied to a more inclusive “all hazards” detection and mitigation objective. This has had civil liberties consequences — for example, local police now sometimes assist federal authorities in monitoring and surveilling activist groups and critics of law enforcement.

One of the most concerning proposals in the Border Security Workgroup documents would create a similar structure, but ostensibly for identifying and deporting immigrants. This proposed system would be under the direct command of Donald Trump, and could — of course — lead to similar, or worse, consequences.

The Border Security Workgroup recommendations revolved around one central “line of operation” — to dramatically restructure and militarize domestic law enforcement through the course of this year.

If enacted, this proposal would constitute the most drastic restructuring of American law enforcement since 9/11.

The post-9/11 restructuring created a system of law enforcement and intelligence "fusion centers" nationwide. It also created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Department of Homeland Security, which assumed command of such entities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Fusion centers as they exist today integrate the efforts of state and local law enforcement with DHS and other federal agencies such as the FBI. While the current fusion center system does investigate and interdict crimes committed by transnational criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua, local law enforcement (for the most part) does not engage in matters of federal immigration law enforcement.

The internal Project 2025 documents obtained by CRN and New Times propose creating a wholly new fusion center-style system.

This new law enforcement infrastructure, they say, would incorporate four tiers of command:

• Regional Command, to integrate local sheriffs, municipal police, state troopers, game wardens, etc.;
• State Command, to oversee and support all regional command units within each state;
• District Command, to oversee, support, and coordinate actions of state command units within geographical districts throughout the nation;
• and Headquarters Command, to direct it all.
  

To facilitate the administration’s mass deportation goals, several proposals in the Border Security Workgroup materials would expand the use of programs that extend federal immigration enforcement powers to local law enforcement officers. For example, documents contemplate waiving 287(g) training requirements for sheriff’s deputies and municipal police working in “regional command” units. The 287(g) program allows local law enforcement to work in concert with ICE in such matters as immigration raids.

Per the internal Project 2025 documents, Headquarters Command is to be directed by a Commander of Domestic Security Operations, who will be "appointed by the President of the United States and take direction on how to conduct operations in a manner decided by the President."

Headquarters Command would also contain a "multi-jurisdictional law enforcement liaison group," which would consist of representatives from all levels of the integrated law enforcement command structure — from county sheriffs to the FBI, the DHS, the IRS and others.

Headquarters Command would also be the level at which the military melds with local law enforcement to provide operational support.

Documents we’ve obtained discuss potential workarounds to laws that prohibit most military engagement in matters of domestic law enforcement.

Furthermore, the documents recommended mobilization of up to 1 million troops to aid in proposed domestic security operations, and identified specific military air bases to be used for rapid deportation flights. Documents also show the group crafted presidential actions directing military support to civilian law enforcement — and contemplated invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow for active military participation in domestic law enforcement.

These recommendations were not made by your average wingnut; in fact, many of these wingnuts at one point likely held security clearance. CRN and New Times’ review of these documents and associated metadata shows that at least half of those involved in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup were career high-level military and intelligence personnel.

The documents lay out timelines and several “lines of operation” for accomplishing this domestic law enforcement restructuring by the end of this year.

Propaganda: Immigrants as ‘terrorists’

Already this year, Americans have watched the spectacle of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The administration has posted videos of shackled immigrants being loaded onto deportation flights and photo ops at El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison, where the Trump administration has sent supposed Venezuelan “gang members.”

These actions fit a proposed communications strategy contained in the Border Security Workgroup documents. The intent: to bolster political support and gain stakeholder buy-in for the central effort to overhaul and militarize domestic law enforcement.

A "strategic communications" timeline in the documents suggests propaganda for selling the country on the law enforcement restructuring and militarization plan. A section detailing “Pre-Election” communications strategy reads:

"Our law enforcement agencies can help save so many victims — Americans and the illegal aliens held captive, indentured, and trafficked here. We must find and capture any potential terrorists or malign actors as a priority.”

Documents explicitly state that the target “audience” for this messaging is the “American public.”

Recommended communications for the pre-inauguration period encouraged “interagency cooperation and assistance” among all levels of law enforcement and included the following messaging intended for the “American public” and “opposition politicians”:

“Our fine border patrol agents and immigration officials can do this job and we will be asking Congress to provide them with the necessary tools and resources. Together, we can stop the trafficking, the misery, and the murder.”

Last, the messaging strategy timeline carries us through the first 100 days of the Trump presidency by driving home the “terrorist threat”:

"Coordination, coordination, coordination. We ask all state and local authorities to help the U.S. find the dangerous terrorists and remove criminals from preying on the public. (Audience: American public, state, and local politicians)." (Parentheses in original.)

Counter-intelligence and the ‘insider threat’

Over time, the post-9/11 fusion center system turned on the American people in ways the general public did not anticipate. By contrast, the new militarized law enforcement structure contemplated in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents has civil rights ramifications built into its DNA.

A significant portion of the documents discuss domestic counter-intelligence. The draft proposals contain recommendations to investigate, prosecute and even seize the assets of non-governmental organizations, along with state, municipal and federal agencies that provide services to immigrants and refugees.

Documents describe some NGOs and specific government agencies as potential targets because they are perceived to oppose the priorities of the president, and because they are "accomplices to immigration crime."

"An insider threat to this strategy can be expected that works with nation-state, transnational and non-governmental entities to subvert the President's plan," the documents state further. "An active counter-intelligence effort must be organized, integrated across all levels, and actively conducted to identify and prosecute any individuals working for and providing classified or operationally sensitive information on border security plans and activities."

“Operationally sensitive information” might very well describe the contents of this reporting. Indeed, those directives could be used to target reporters, press outlets, lawyers, activists and concerned citizens who publish or post information relating to, say, immigration raids — or who are otherwise seen to be working to "subvert the President's plan."

Already, surrogates of the president have suggested prosecuting people — including lawmakers — who distribute “Know Your Rights” material or post about the whereabouts of ICE officers.

Laying the groundwork

Through the first 100 days of his term, Trump issued a number of executive orders that seem intent on bringing the Border Security Workgroup’s recommendations to fruition. That has caught the eye of Jessica Pishko, an attorney and journalist who has written a book on the far-right radicalization of American law enforcement. Though she is not privy to the documents obtained by CRN and New Times, she has noticed an emergent pattern in Trump’s executive orders.

That pattern is one in which a supreme leader works to curry favor and loyalty among law enforcement, while simultaneously positioning them as potential tools of authoritarianism.

"I think that what Trump and his administration imagine is something like the unitary executive all the way down — directing what the priorities are for all law enforcement personnel,” she told CRN and New Times. “It's not really about enforcing the 'law,' but ensuring that the specific directives of the president are carried out.”

Among other things, Trump’s executive orders have placed control of the southern border in the hands of the U.S. Department of Defense and called for "provision of military and national security assets" to assist local law enforcement agencies.

Trump has also used his executive orders to decry a "lawless insurrection against the supremacy of federal law," which he says is underway among state and local officials whom the administration views as being insufficiently compliant with its mass deportation plans. Furthermore, through executive order, Trump has called on the heads of DHS and DOD to craft recommendations on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act.

Other provisions of these executive orders have called for the unification of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies through the creation of "Homeland Security Task Forces" (HSTFs) in all states, unified under one "operational command center." Strongly echoing recommendations contained in the documents we’ve obtained, Trump has ordered these fusion-center-like HSTFs to pursue his immigrant mass deportation agenda, and to also engage in enforcement actions against state and local officials whom the administration views as working contrary to their objectives.

These executive orders have also granted greater immunities, legal protections, and resources (including military assets) to state and local law enforcement agencies and officers. The executive orders also called for enhanced sentences for those convicted of "crimes against law enforcement officers."

Broadly, the Trump administration’s immigration power grab has inspired protests and become the subject of ongoing lawsuits.

Taking a step back and looking at Trump’s executive orders, Pishko sees a troubling scenario emerging — namely, the creation of an apparatus that could be redirected to punish targets of Trump’s choosing.

"The biggest concern I have is that if (Trump) decides to bring all of local law enforcement under his purview and use it to conduct mass deportations and/or mass surveillance of certain groups of people, that it would be very easy to do that — he would have a lot of manpower," Pishko said. "Right now, it's immigrants. It could change (...) things could switch pretty quickly to other groups. It could switch to protesters. It could switch to academics. It could switch to journalists."

The Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN and New Times detail the creation of this new militarized law enforcement structure — nationwide — through the course of this year. They lay out many of the steps that so concern Pishko. Crafted in secret, their recommendations are seemingly becoming reality with every passing week.

And if the documents are to be believed, many more alarming developments are to come.

This article is the first in a planned Big Takeover investigative series exploring the contents, implications and authors of heretofore unreported Project 2025 documents obtained by CRN and New Times. You can subscribe to CRN here. This story is also a part of the Arizona Watchdog Project, a yearlong reporting effort led by New Times and supported by the Trace Foundation, in partnership with Deep South Today.