First Them, Then Us: America's Shift From Police State To Prison State

John and Nisha Whitehead, writing on September 29, 2026, argue that the U.S. administration’s focus on illegal immigration is a broader strategy to expand state power and weaken constitutional safeguards. They describe a recurring pattern—manufacturing a crisis, designating an enemy, declaring emergencies, then using public fear to justify greater government authority. Citing a 2026 Cato Institute analysis using Census data, they say undocumented immigrants were incarcerated at 674 per 100,000 in 2024, versus 1,195 for native-born Americans, and legal immigrants at 303 per 100,000. The authors say immigration is being used as the “testing ground” for a “prison state.”