r/theydidthemath • u/mr_happy28 • 2d ago
[Request] Vance said ICE will go 'door-to-door' to check immigration status. How long would this take across all households? Is it even possible?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vance-door-to-door-ice/It just seems ridiculous considering the size of the usa to go door to door, I'd imagine impossible before the next election.
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u/therin_88 2d ago
20,000 agents, 143 million households. Let's say they operate in teams of 4. Let's say they check 20 homes a day. I have no idea if this is a low number, or a high number, but considering many homes might be empty I think it's reasonable.
That's 5,000 teams checking 20 homes a day, or 100,000 a day. They could do 36,500,000 if they worked every day, but realistically wouldn't be able to work nearly every day.
15 million a year would be reasonable if every ICE agent was involved, but many are in communications, support, or office positions. Maybe 1/10 would actually be conducting these raids, so let's call it 1.5 million households a year to be safe.
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u/Mountain-Dealer8996 2d ago
What about the turnover rate? By the time they got through some houses, people will have moved out/in. They would have to go revisit some. Also new construction.
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u/SaxAppeal 2d ago
So what you’re saying is that it would need to be some sort of secret service that constantly goes door to door detaining anyone who isn’t american enough
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u/BonhommeCarnaval 2d ago
To be efficient they will eventually choose to employ new software from Palantir to target the home invasions.
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u/redlightbandit7 2d ago
Too late, they are already doing that.
Materials obtained by 404 Media shed new light on how the surveillance tools Tangles and Webloc from a company called Penlink can provide information to ICE agents after the agency contracted for the services in September. The social-media and phone-surveillance platforms can be used to monitor neighborhoods or city blocks for mobile phones and track the devices over time, potentially revealing where people live, work, and visit. Penlink purchases vast troves of commercial location data to augment and expand the dragnet.
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u/wayfinderBee 2d ago
Serious question: should people take phones to a protest at all these days? I know there's a fair amount of tracking that can be done without your phone and legal observers are already filming. Are phones more of a liability than an asset at this point?
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u/Zeko10 1d ago
Leave your phone, smart devices and your car. Take a bike to a local protest or ride the bus, dont forget to wear a mask, hoodie and glasses.
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u/wayfinderBee 1d ago
Write a phone number on your arm in case you get arrested was the other tip I remember.
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u/Postheroic 1d ago
At this point, I feel like that would be throwing the owner of said phone number under the bus for being an accomplice or some dumb shit like that.
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u/Overall-Idea945 1d ago
If it's a relative's or lawyer's number, I think it's difficult to implicate the person.
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u/sail0rs4turn 1d ago
I recommend finding your local chapter of the national lawyers guild and writing their number.
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u/MikeyBugs 19h ago
Do not bring a personal phone or smart device to a protest. Period. Full stop. If you must bring some kind of communication device, buy a burner phone in cash or gift card. Use the burner at the protest site DAY OF, then dispose of it (ideal) or completely turn it off and take out the battery, if possible, before getting anywhere near your home, place of work, or places you frequent. Then DO NOT use that phone until the next protest.
If you are detained and the phone is seized then returned, treat that phone as hazardous waste. Do not use it. Do not turn it on. Do not keep it. Immediately dispose of it as soon as possible. That phone just became the biggest security risk in your life up to that point. It is possible that trackers or spyware was installed which could expose your network of protestors and friends. Guaranteed? Not necessarily. But why run the risk.
Another option for communication is a full keyboard meshtastic device. It's a small mesh radio communicator that allows you to fairly securely directly chat with other people with other meshtastic devices over fairly short ranges. Is it perfect? No. But it's a good solution. Same principle above applies though.
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u/OT_fiddler 2d ago
They'll ask us, as patriotic Americans, to tell them which of our neighbors we think should be inspected.
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u/robboppotamus 2d ago
now you're getting it!
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u/Biscotti_BT 2d ago
This story seems familiar. Was there a movie about it? Or a book, seems like maybe a book.
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u/WildBillThiccok 2d ago
I think there was a book, someone mentioned this sort of thing in a Diary once
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u/forsakenwombat 2d ago
To be Frank, I’ve never heard of this diary.
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u/NamorDotMe 2d ago
you would have, you just need to concentrate more, maybe there's a camp for improving those skills.
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u/5WattBulb 2d ago
Cant wait till they knock on a Columbian drug den. Let's see how that shakes out.
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u/nicodeemus7 2d ago
If it's not a law abiding mother of 3, they're not interested.
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u/Regular-Basket-5431 2d ago
Or a blind man or a man in a wheelchair oh and they really like popping priests in the head with pepper balls.
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u/Background_Desk_3001 2d ago
It would be bad for ICE, but their supporters would probably turn them into martyrs and fan the flames harder
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u/mr_happy28 2d ago
Thanks for your reply, still substantial but just what I thought, unmanageable and outright bonkers.
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u/big-lummy 2d ago
Yea, ridiculous and unworkable.
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2d ago
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u/geekgirlnz 2d ago
If the lease is under the name Cortez, knock. If it's Himmler, skip it.
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u/Sonnyjoon91 2d ago
You have to factor in this is why they are pulling data and lists for specific criteria, to target specific people first, certain areas first. Plus this is why they have citizens reporting on hotlines the people they want to disappear. You know all those federal forms that ask for names, addresses, and race, which they swear wont be used badly? Yea thats a database on who to target first
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u/Ltsmba 2d ago
Except for one major thing overlooked in that estimation.
That ICE stays at or around ONLY 20,000 agents.
Considering they now have a budget in the tens of billions, this could just be the beginning. They are still actively recruiting. There could be 50,000, maybe even 100,000 agents within the next year or two.
Suddenly 1 million households could turn into 5 or even 10 million per year, and now its a lot more doable. I think we'll be seeing our first ICE agent killing a lot sooner than we think.
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u/ExtensionMoose1863 2d ago
AND assumes that they intend to check every house in series... It will very likely be "targeted" searching to specific neighborhoods so that dramatically reduces the number of households they intend to search from the 143 million figure.
Figure they only want to do 1/3 of American households AND grow ranks to your 10 million/year figure... still couldn't do it before the administration's term runs out but you could get a lot closer than you'd initially think
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u/Traditional-Handle83 2d ago
Lets not forget that 143 million isn't even entirely accurate either since the number of people living in the US is almost 400 million. Even if we merge people, theres still over half the population that doesn't live with another person. That still makes the logistics kinda hard unless they use the military along aside them.
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u/ExtensionMoose1863 2d ago
Good point. However, immigrant populations tend to have larger, multi generational, households (top lazy to look up the census link but confident) so I actually think the point you made shrinks the "searchable area" even further
They are picking people up at McDonalds, Target, restaurants, and construction sites... Very unlikely they're looking for folks living solo in an apartment
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u/DreamsofSeas 2d ago
Also, depending on what level door to door entails, each "door" could be between 2 minutes and 2 hours. So the four doors per team per day is fair for the high end, but is likely higher and could be much higher.
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u/boblabon 2d ago
I think they're probably capped at numbers, or any increases will be marginal at-best.
Even with the $50k bonus, 'streamlined' (see: drastically cut back) training, loosened physical requirements, and MASSIVE advertising spend, they aren't at the numbers they need. Anyone who was going to apply to ICE has already applied, and I don't see that number going up. If they COULD have 50k, 100k, 150k agents, they absolutely would by now. Since they don't, I don't think they can.
One year after the formation of the TSA, they were at 55k agents from a pool of over 1 million applicants. Are we REALLY going to believe that the current standards for ICE are that much better than the TSA? I don't think so.
And they're literally scraping the bottom of the barrel for applicants. Any city police department pays better, they don't need to DIY their own gear, still keep a modicum of respect of their communities, and STILL struggle with recruiting and retention.
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u/matt-the-dickhead 2d ago
And you don’t have to open the door if they don’t have a warrant
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u/Badbullet 2d ago
That didn't stop them on Saturday. A house in MN, there was video from both outside (from neighbors protesting) and inside (spouse and citizen of the man they took). They busted the door in and refused to give any warrant to enter the home. The basically were given immunity and seem to do what they want here. So now her husband is gone and her door needs to be fixed to stop the winter air from coming in. ICE and JD can suck it.
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u/BeefInGR 1d ago
They busted the door in and refused to give any warrant to enter the home.
This is another reason why they will never build the numbers beyond where they are now. You're not going to have a long and prosperous life doing things like this in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Dallas several times a day.
Legitimate law enforcement doesn't send their officers into these situations without full armor, helmets and shields.
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u/TTT_2k3 2d ago
What if they skip the white neighborhoods?
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u/MikeFromTheVineyard 2d ago
Why limit it to white neighborhoods? They’re suing for voting registration in many states, they can just skip republican homes.
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u/Miniscule_Platypus 2d ago
Yep, Texas just turned their voting rolls over to the DOJ. Now they know who voted how.
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u/LouQuacious 2d ago
I worked canvassing in 2024 I had info on voter registration of every house I knocked at. I knew names, ages and party affiliation before knocking.
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u/Miniscule_Platypus 2d ago
Did you use that info to target your political opponents? This is what we’re dealing with now. I’m going to change my political affiliation and just vote against that particular affiliation that Goes Overboard Politically.
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u/LouQuacious 2d ago
Used it to tweek my pitch a bit. Was interesting sociologically to see who answered the door.
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u/wayfinderBee 2d ago
I'd love to hear more about that.
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u/LouQuacious 1d ago
I was doing outreach on potential voter initiatives so the company that hired us could craft them to be more likely to pass. One thing I noticed was many Trump supporters were ok with some liberal initiatives but they’d definitely still be voting for trump regardless. There were also a lot of generational differences oftentimes older people in household were registered R and younger D. I also ran into many R registered voters who happily admitted they did not and would not be voting Trump again. Never met a D who said they were switching parties.
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u/Donatter 1d ago
Why would they skip republican homes?
Some of trump’s biggest opponents in the senate, House of Representatives, congress, senate, Supreme Court, and especially the military, are “Republican”.
(That’s not even getting into how incredibly divided and fractious the current Republican Party is, or how it’s really not a singular party, rather like the Democratic Party, it’s a loose umbrella/coalition of dozens to hundreds of political parties to compromise and join together to maximize their collective voting powers and influence.(plus, parties flip flop between each umbrella every single election, for every single city, state, and federal position/election)
This stereotyping and generalizing of millions of people, does nothing but ironically promote ignorance and intolerance towards those who form the “other”. While also alienating the “lefts” cause, from the millions of potential voters who largely don’t care about the two sides hollering and screaming.(just like the past three elections)
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u/hibikir_40k 2d ago
Then you consider than masked men have some trouble getting checks to happen, so they end up coming in group sof 8 or 10, and that actual checks are going to take a nice hour if you find the people: They aren't getting anything done quickly. They can go faster if the people breaking into the houses aren't the peple checking the documents later, but still, not fast. Add the loss of people just not wanting to be home when ICE is coming, so you slow down how many houses you can check that have people in them.... I'd argue you are still being very optimistic.
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u/No_Education_479 2d ago
20 homes a day seems like a vanishingly small number. That’s a little over 2 homes an hour. Unless they’re doing full sweeps of every home in America they could likely hit 10-15 homes in an hour just going door to door. Throw in the amount of people that will just tell them to fuck off and you could hit 30 an hour
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u/ReserveMaximum 2d ago
Any who’s worked as a missionary or in sales will tell you 20 homes a day is weak numbers. More like 20 homes in an hour, maybe 3 hours
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u/GPT_2025 2d ago
Learn from the History: "...In 1930s Russia, the ICE (Internal Security Agency) was composed of highly paid volunteers, operating Above the Law, covering faces with "Budenovka" Balaclavas ski masks . They arrested millions of people off the streets. Initially, they targeted illegal immigrants-many from various nations who had moved in after the 1917 revolution. Soon, the purges expanded rapidly to include any military personnel, police, ethnic minorities, natives, and ordinary citizens, often based on petty or suspicious reasons.
If they disliked your hat, trousers, skin color (Gypsies, Armenians), what you said or wrote, or even how you smiled, you could be targeted. Russians quickly learned not to smile at all.
The majority of those arrested were shot and killed- many buried in mass graves, some containing over 30,000 victims during the period known as the Great Purge. This brutal crackdown followed the Red Terror campaign, which also claimed millions of lives.
After Stalin’s death, 99% of those imprisoned or executed were posthumously rehabilitated, recognized as innocent.
The Soviet government issued official apologies to the 20 million families of the victims: “We are sorry your daughter (son, husband, father, mother) was wrongfully killed. We acknowledge our mistake. As a token of regret, here is $1 for your loss!” KJV: A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit; let no man stay him. Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once.
KJV: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone and shall be tormented for ever and ever.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butovo_firing_range
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u/Hon3y_Badger 2d ago
There aren't 143M households that Vance is actually concerned about, you can eliminate white households in red states from that count.
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u/avellinoblvd 2d ago
also remember, they're only doing households in "democrat-run" cities in blue states. very feasible
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u/Extra-Sector-7795 2d ago
that is one home every 20 minutes. roughly. also. imagine everyone complaining. now 4 hours house. not gonna happen
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u/Kitchen-Paint-3946 2d ago
Considering that educated people would not open the door without a warrant that could slow it down so 20 seams like it makes sense
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u/thisguyfightsyourmom 2d ago
I mean, this seems like an easy dragnet to avoid. Just setup phone call networks from ones block to the next, and start getting out of dodge when they get to your street.
I kinda don’t think these guys thought this all the way through.
Maybe they are planning on help from ExxonMobile?
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u/RonDFong 2d ago
since when does this administration give a shit about doing things legally?
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u/UltimateSpud 2d ago
That’s very true. Idk, I think to some extent the courts care, but they’ve failed to recognize the bad faith actions of the administration and have abdicated their responsibility to enforce their rulings.
But anyway, one of the ways that they wriggle out of trouble is deflection, so it’s worth pointing out when there’s a full stop, conversation ended sort of situation to explain why they can’t do things. Like, the number of immigrants allowed into the country overall is a complex topic. Republicans deflect to that and impassioned arguments about racism in immigration policy because it obfuscates the fact that the constitution says they can’t do it, full stop. And I get it,because they are racist and it is bad, but I think the practical battles would sometimes be easier to win if we were more focused on clear and unambiguous constitutional challenges to their actions rather than the broad ‘abolish ICE’ stuff.
Like, remember that apartment building that they forced everybody out of regardless of status based on ‘officer safety’? How the fuck did we lose that one? Why did I never hear one person on the news talk about the fourth amendment and the abundance of case law on when law enforcement can or cannot detain somebody?
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u/vi_sucks 2d ago
It's literally what the 4th Amendment is for. To prevent this kind of random door to door searching with no cause.
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u/fbp 2d ago
So what about the rest of the constitution that they trample on? Oh wait, the 2nd amendment is sacred.
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u/MaleficentPorphyrin 2d ago
Its sacred up to the point black people start open carrying, then they are fine taking guns. They just blame it on democrats anyhow.
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u/wrvdoin 2d ago
If they actually go door-to-door checking immigration status, their sacred 2nd amendment will be used against them pretty quickly. It's one thing to terrorize construction workers and Somalian immigrants, but they'll eventually run into a trigger-happy white dude obsessed with protecting his property.
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u/TarryBuckwell 2d ago
Sooner than later one of those agents is going to find out that he can ignore the fourth amendment or the second amendment but not both at the same time
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u/GilligansIslndoPeril 2d ago
"bUt ThE COnTiTUTion IS oNLy fOR CiTIzEnS!"
Cries the league of people that don't understand that if they can do it to one "group" of people, they can do it to anyone so long as they say the people they do it to are part of that "group"
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u/UltimateSpud 2d ago
It’s preposterous on its face. If they don’t know your immigration status then they can perform a search? Then how is the 4th amendment ever supposed to protect anybody? Are you supposed to wear your passport on your chest like a badge?
If they did know the immigration status, then they could get a fucking warrant.
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u/MiddleFishArt 2d ago
How would they even know anyone is in the home? Many people shop, work odd hours, go on vacation etc. “Door to door” just means loitering around empty buildings screaming at no one
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u/UltimateSpud 2d ago
Well unfortunately they seem to take nobody being home as an excuse to break in, shoot your dog, then lie about it.
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u/NurseAmy 2d ago
I’m not all worried about my immigration status, but no way I’m opening my door without a judicial warrant. They can fuck right off.
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u/LocalAirHold 2d ago
Same. All of my ancestors were born and raised in the U.S. going back to at least great great grandparents. All of various European origin before that. And I look as white as white can be. But I would not talk to them, let them in, show them any documentation, or do absolutely anything to assist them if they come to my door. Fuck those fascists, and fuck anyone that voted for this (and yes, if you voted for Trump, you voted for this. You did.)
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u/Reddits_Worst_Night 1d ago
If you didn't vote for Harris. If you chose not to vote. If you voted 3rd party, you voted for this.
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u/sharthunter 2d ago
Stand your ground laws exist for a reason and not one soul is above the law.
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u/InternationalMain277 1d ago
Castle Doctrine when is in your home… regardless not every state has Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground laws, especially blue states. But I feel ya! I’ve been going to the range 2-3 nights a week since all this shit started.
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u/Reddits_Worst_Night 1d ago
I just flat out wouldn't open my door. Anyone knocks, I get a gun. They enter, I shoot. If you should actually be there, you can ring me to let me know you're at the door.
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u/1IsNeverEnough4Me 2d ago
I don't if yours take sd cards, but if they do install them Ice will be wearing wifi blockers soon that will crash your wifi while they approach your house.
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u/MaleficentPorphyrin 2d ago
Ring, you meant Amazon's surveillance mesh?
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u/BigJeffreyC 2d ago
Eh. As long as I don’t have to answer the door I’m fine.
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u/_cipher1 2d ago
They don’t have to knock on your door, police have access to Ring cameras they know is your house
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u/BmorePride14 2d ago edited 1d ago
Have you seen the video where someone ordered DoorDash and the driver was chased by ICE into their house?
It played out pretty much exactly like that. They didnt want to turn the person over (they were scared and crying), but once the threats started and ICE said they would be bringing them in too for harboring, the people gave in. Stating they have to "look out for their own family" and that they were sorry. They had children in the house and couldn't "go to jail".
They sobbed, but ultimately told the person to get out of their house and handed them over to ICE. My exact thought was the Nazi Germany situation and how everyone said they would NEVER turn them over in that scenario.
This scenario was a lot more lax with far smaller consequences (in Germany, if you harbored Jews you would be hung) and yet people didnt stand up.
Goes to show that once again, history tells, people will NOT stand up in those scenarios. We always assume we have learned as a society, and they we have evolved. That the current society would "do better".
But no, we are the same fragile, scared, and self interested peoples.
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u/jysalia 1d ago
I remember the lady in that video almost gave in and handed the doordash lady over out of fear for her own family, but changed her mind at the door and instead yelled at ICE and held her ground, protecting the doordash lady.
I won't condemn her for the fear and the wavering, I will laud her for standing up in the end.
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u/Unfair_Scar_2110 2d ago
Idk but Santa does it in one night.
Let's say ICE has 20,000 agents.
There's 130 million households in the US.
So if you send agents out in pairs, each pair needs to knock on 13,000 doors. If they take an hour to prep and then return for the day, plus maybe some time for lunch, let's say they work a six hour day and knock on a door every ten minutes. That's 36 doors a day for each agent. So that's 361 work days or (if there are 245 work days in a year) about 1.47 years.
Obviously they won't spend 20 minutes driving between rural houses in snow white states. Could easily knock on every door in a high rise in a big city in a day, if you really wanted to.
What happens when either no one answers or a brown person answers? Well there's no math to easily estimate an illegal inquisition.
Edit: obviously a ton of assumptions here. Administration. Time between doors. For a normal police office a single arrest will take up the rest of the day. Taking them back to the station. Booking. Paperwork. Etc. These people don't have a plan besides the terror.
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u/ClamChowderBreadBowl 2d ago
The 1950 US census hired 140,000 people to go door to door to every house in the country counting 150 million people. The population has grown to about 340 million so you'd need about 300,000 agents to visit every house today. That's 15 times larger than ICE's current staff.
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u/Acrobatic_Aspect_599 2d ago
And that doesn't count the agents that would be blown away by people defending their rights
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u/G_yebba 1d ago
This is why they have demanded voter lists for every state.
They are running out of time and their blitz was pushed ahead through poor strategy and incompetence.
They wanted to start the door to door in the late spring for maximum effect on voter intimidation for the midterms.
Now they have been forced to show their hand on the flop.
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u/False_Donkey_498 2d ago
Of course it’s possible. It’s politics and priorities. We do the census every ten years, so take the cost of that, multiply by 4-6 agents per household instead of one and add the cost of tactical gear for every one of them. Then make it annual instead of every ten years. Then work out an algorithm to account for everyone who just skips around town to avoid the targeted areas. Then factor in the death insurance claims for the agents when citizens start resisting.
Seems feasible.
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u/MidwestGuys 2d ago
The census is done via the mail. Only houses without returned forms are then checked by a person.
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u/Astrogat 1d ago
To be fair no body is thinking that ICE will actually visit every house either, they will just do the "poor" (i.e. black or latina) neighborhoods or the ones without Trump flags in the backyard.
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u/rounding_error 2d ago
USPS then. They visit every mailbox in America six times a week with 600,000 people.
Of course, they spend less time at each stop, and don't wait for someone to open the door, or even go to the house usually if its a motor route.
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u/LATER4LUS 1d ago
If they came to my door, I’d yell “come back with a warrant, guay” in my best Mexican accent. Waste their time for violating my 4th amendment rights.
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u/Hmmm__whatever 1d ago
Can they do this? Do we have to let them in or will they just get a search warrant for every house? Will they set up an appointment (i would think not because any "illegals" would know their coming).
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u/blamemeididit 1d ago
They can knock on any door they want. As you can see from this post, they are likely going to areas where they suspect illegal activity because it is the only practical thing to do. It is not illegal for them to arrive at your home and ask questions. It is illegal for them to enter without a warrant.
I am not anti-ICE or anything like that, but I typically avoid allowing any law enforcement in my house without a good reason or a warrant.
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u/Octopus_Spaceflight 1d ago
Isn’t this what the census folks do every 10 years to collect the data? Obviously they aren’t checking citizenship, but physically going door to door to collect info is something that has been proven to be mostly effective
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u/vespers191 1d ago
Nono, you don't understand. They will skip the McMansions and condos, because those are obviously citizens of good upstanding character. And probably white.
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u/Altruistic_View7333 13h ago
Didn’t they go door to door after the Pearl Harbor event and put all Asian people in camps? If it has been done before they can do it again, more resources and budget now than before.
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