EDITOR’S NOTE: There are many photos of masked ICE agents lining hallways of courts, where people are following the law by reporting, and being met with “lawless enforcement.”
By Michael Randall
Recently, I saw a published photograph taken in the hallway outside an immigration court hearing room where migrants were appearing as part of their legal process to seek political asylum in the USA. Both sides of the hallway were lined with armed men wearing bulletproof vests (most of them white, but a few black or brown). They wore camo clothing or other random attire (jeans, tee shirts, sweat shirts, tennis shoes, etc.) All but one of them had their faces covered and none seemed to have a name plate that identified them as federal agents.
A couple did have discernible “ICE” decals or the word “POLICE” imprinted on their shirts. Of course, anybody can find and wear such attire. ICE agents have been impersonated several times recently, and people have been assaulted by these impersonators.
Nearest to the photographer’s camera stood an unmasked black man who wore a holstered side arm and bullet proof vest, apparently an ICE agent, but not fully identifiable as such. A young Hispanic woman threaded her way past him and the other armed agents. She held the hand of a small child who walked with her. Presumably, she was attending a required court hearing to present her case for political asylum, and was trying to meet her legal obligation to appear at that time and place. Her face was full of fear, for no doubt she had heard about others who had done the same, but had been detained and deported anyway. Still, there she was, trying to meet her responsibilities.
The unmasked agent looked down at the floor, his eyes averted from the lady and child. I wondered why he did not look at them, for they were potential targets to help him meet his daily arrest quota. Was he feeling uncertain about himself, questioning if he really wanted to be employed in thuggery work? No doubt he had experienced white racism in his life, and now he was acting as an agent to inflict that same pain on others far more defenseless than he.
Trump and his loyalists claim that only those with criminal convictions are being deported, which is a widely verified lie that they continue to repeat. At this writing, nearly one thousand people with brown skin who speak Hispanic-inflected English or other languages, and who are going about their business, are confronted each day and snatched off the streets of American cities, often by non-uniformed men in masks, many of whom reportedly refuse to identify themselves properly. Some of the detainees are US citizens or are otherwise here legally and have never committed crimes. But quotas must be met, even lawlessly.
Bystander witnesses should assume these masked men are thugs and robbers until they lawfully identify themselves, or if they refuse to do so. Of course, each bystander witness who asks or demands that those men identify themselves risks detention or arrest, and potential criminal charges and physical abuse, or (as Trump policies continue to evolve) imprisonment or even “disappearance.” Many people think it inconceivable that such things could take place here in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
As Hitler began to tighten his grip in 1933 and ‘34, millions of German citizens and German media ridiculed him, were confident of their republic’s strength, believed a terrible dictator could never take power in their country. They had faith in their nation’s constitution and courts. At first, Hitler built detention camps and imprisoned ever greater numbers of his political enemies. But then his camps evolved to include Jews, Poles, Romanis, Catholics, Russians, and others on their way to his gas chambers. His agents and soldiers also killed others in large scale executions and buried them in mass graves.
The Trump administration has been struggling to hire (even with a new, lowered set of hiring standards) 10,000 more ICE agents during the current fiscal year, and they are building a network of new immigration detention facilities, many in rural areas or small towns (such as Newport on the Oregon coast) to minimize oversight and interference by Congress or the public.
What will be the long-term results of Trump’s new detention facilities and the hiring of many underqualified ICE agents? How will all those resources evolve? As time passes, the local economies of detention center communities will become dependent on those centers for jobs and the survival of local businesses.
Possibly, as in Nazi Germany, ICE agents’ missions will also evolve from immigration enforcement to include imprisoning Trump’s enemies, other categories of people, and miscellaneous less prominent citizens who oppose his policies or inspire his wrath. Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo started in the same way, but evolved. Like many Germans in the mid-1930s, many Americans feel the USA is so “exceptional” that such devastation cannot happen here. But in some measure it has already started.