Fear and the Erosion of Civil Liberties: What the Milgram Experiment Can Teach Us About ICE

In a polarized political climate where civil liberties are increasingly tested, Americans face a sobering question: how far will we go in sacrificing personal freedoms in the name of security?

Recent immigration enforcement actions, particularly under the Trump administration, have reignited public concern about the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the consequences of executive orders that critics argue infringe upon basic rights. At the heart of the issue lies a deeper psychological question: why do people follow orders, even when they conflict with their moral values?

The Milgram Experiment and the Psychology of Obedience

In 1961, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a groundbreaking experiment to explore obedience to authority. Hoping to understand what led ordinary Germans to comply with Nazi directives during World War II, Milgram set out to test whether Americans would behave differently.

Participants were instructed to administer increasingly painful electric shocks to another person whenever they gave incorrect answers in a simulated learning test. Despite hearing screams of pain, many participants continued delivering shocks simply because an authority figure told them to.

In his 1974 article “The Perils of Obedience,” Milgram wrote:

“I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

Milgram’s findings revealed that people are far more likely to comply with authority even to the point of harming others, when certain psychological and situational conditions are met.

ICE, Executive Orders and Moral Dissonance

Today, Milgram’s work resonates powerfully in the context of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The question is not whether officers are following orders but why they do so? Even when those orders spark national protests, court challenges and ethical concerns they are doing what they are told.

Why are some ICE officers continuing to enforce controversial immigration policies, such as detaining visa holders or revoking status based on political expression? Experts point to several contributing factors, including fear of professional consequences, lack of access to alternative information, and a deep-rooted belief in the legitimacy of authority.

Without reliable outside sources, officers often rely solely on those giving the orders. That makes it easier for questionable directives to be seen as routine. There’s also a psychological shift at play. Some officers may feel they are surrendering moral responsibility by acting as agents of the state, believing the blame lies not with them, but with those issuing the commands. This mindset mirrors the defense used by Nazi officers during the Nuremberg Trials: “I was only following orders.”

Obedience vs. Conformity

While obedience involves compliance with direct orders, conformity arises from social pressures and shifting norms. Critics argue that the growing crackdown on dissent, especially involving those protesting U.S. policy in the Middle East reflects both dynamics.

Recent reports show visa revocations and detentions targeting individuals who have spoken out against U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding Israel. Some students have been detained or deported based on their political affiliations or participation in lawful protests.

“This isn’t just about obedience to authority,” says Sociology Professor Stephen Reicher of the University of St. Andrews. “It’s also about ideological alignment. Our research shows people are more likely to obey when they agree with the orders—or when those orders reflect an ideology they’ve come to accept.”

Essentially, these arrests and deportations wouldn’t be happening without the officers’ own personal beliefs that they should be happening.

Civil Liberties Under Threat

These actions raise serious constitutional concerns. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, yet exercising these rights increasingly seems to come with risk.

To label dissent or protest as terrorism is not only misleading—it’s deeply un-American. The legal definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in pursuit of political aims.” By that standard, ICE’s use of intimidation tactics and AI-driven surveillance may resemble state-sanctioned coercion more than lawful enforcement. Instead of border security, they are terrorizing the public, and at times arrests appear to be random and at their own discretion.

The message being sent is that political disagreement especially around foreign policy, is punishable by exile. That should terrify all citizens.

Dangerous Precedent

The erosion of civil liberties rarely announces itself with a grand entrance. Instead, it advances incrementally through executive orders quietly signed, through technologies deployed without oversight and through law enforcement actions justified as routine. Bit by bit, what once seemed unthinkable becomes normalized.

Today, officers in masks conduct raids at dawn. University students are detained for political speech. Protesters are surveilled and threatened with deportation. And millions look away, desensitized by repetition or paralyzed by fear.

History warns where unchecked obedience can lead. The silence of the majority has too often enabled repression from fascist regimes to modern authoritarian states. Democracies, as fragile as they are powerful, depend not only on institutions but on individual courage—the willingness to question, to resist, to uphold the ideals on which those institutions were built.

The Milgram experiment taught a painful truth: most people, under the right conditions, will follow orders even when they violate their conscience. But it also taught that some resist and that resistance is possible.

So people must ask themselves: Which kind of citizen will I be?

Will citizens comply in the face of injustice, believing it isn’t their place to speak up? Or will they recognize that what they tolerate today will shape the freedoms, or lack thereof, of tomorrow?

There is still time to draw a line. Still time to demand accountability, to protect dissent, to reassert that morality cannot be outsourced to authority, but that window is closing.

The danger is not in one sweeping act, but in the slow, quiet erosion of democratic rights. Surveillance, deportations, and suppression of dissent are being normalized under the banner of national security.

As masked officers raid homes, as students are targeted for their political views, and as technology tracks dissenters, Americans must ask themselves: Where do we draw the line?