Boosted by $175 billion in new funding, ICE is now the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency. And Donald Trump is well on his way to creating an unaccountable police state befitting his totalitarian aspirations.

It’s bad enough that masked agents, often dressed in plain clothes, continue to snatch people up off the street without a warrant. But The Intercept has learned that ICE is now considering hiring private bounty hunters to locate immigrants across the country.

Meanwhile, ICE is building a sprawling network of privately operated detention camps and prisons — even as our reporting finds that their existing facilities offer life-threateningly little medical care for detainees.

You may have seen a handful of outrageous viral videos of ICE agents’ brutality. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The deeper scandal is what ICE is doing behind closed doors: methodically building out a lawless secret police force with tendrils that extend into every community in the country.

But the sad reality is that for-profit media outlets — beset by layoffs and desperate to generate a daily stream of superficial clickbait — simply aren’t going to devote enough investigative firepower to following this story through.

So the only way The Intercept will have the resources and independence to tackle this reporting over the coming weeks and months is with the support of readers like you.

We can’t let the rise of Trump’s police state go unreported. Will you donate $5 today to power The Intercept’s investigations into ICE?