ICE Just Stealing Citizens' Life Savings Now
These people are OUT OF CONTROL.
What happens when you let Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents turn off their cameras, and remove any accountability other than what a court can try to provide after the fact? You get a job that attracts the worst kinds of people, and you get atrocities, which seem to be getting more atrocious by the day. It’s upsetting stuff, but we can’t brush under the rug what these Nazi pukes are up to.
There’ve been deaths in custody, at least five that we know of since January 20: Maksym Chernyak, 44; Dejene Serawit Gezahegn, 45; Genry Ruiz Guillen, 29; Marie Ange Blaise, 44; and Brayan Garzón-Rayo, 27. Causes of death officially unknown, and all people seemingly way too young to just up and drop dead.
We’ve got children as young as three being forced to somehow defend themselves in court, because the administration has cut funding for their legal aid. A judge ordered it be restored, but CNN reports that hasn’t happened, and so organizations that work with migrant children in court are trying to explain to the children what’s happening to them with coloring books and a cartoon cat named Fulanito. “We’ll have toddlers running all over the place, and my staff is explaining to them, using toys, crayons, chalkboards, what their rights are in the immigration system,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense.
Of course we’re not mentioning the young US citizen children with cancer who were “deported” with their mothers, because we wrote about that on Monday.
WHAT THE DYSTOPIAN HELL IS THIS?!
More things that are simply outrageous and unacceptable: the family of American citizens who had their house raided in Oklahoma. ICE agents demanded the mother and her daughters change in front of them before ordering them out into the rain, and then after wrecking their house ICE stole their laptops, phones and all of their life savings, and refused to even leave a business card so they could call someone and try to get the money back. That could be anybody! Those agents were there for hours and still either did not figure out, or did not care, or maybe even enjoyed that they were terrorizing the wrong people. Her account is terrifying.
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And then there’s the students, tourists, and more than 200 people who accidentally made a wrong turn in Detroit and found themselves at the Canadian border, and then detained.
In mid-February ICE stopped using body cameras, because, they say, there is “the potential for bad actors to possibly rig bombs to explode when those cameras get too close.” Which is, of course, fucking insane, completely made up, and makes no sense. By that logic, they should not be busting into people’s houses either, because those can be even more rigged to explode when somebody opens the door.
And opening doors they are! The Justice Department has told immigration agents in a secret memo that they can bust into houses and arrest people under the Alien Enemies Act with no warrant, which seems like a very good way to get a bunch of ICE agents shot, in a country full of people armed to the teeth.
Under a settlement, ICE agents are supposed to adhere to strict guidelines to make warrantless arrests, including establishing that someone will attempt to flee, but they don’t appear to be bothering with that.
But, the ACLU and others are fighting! Yesterday a federal court issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting warrantless immigration stops in California just based on the fact that people looked Hispanic. Said the judge, “you just can’t walk up to people with brown skin,” because no shit.
And ICE agents were doing much more than just stopping and arresting them:
According to sworn declarations filed in court by those detained, Border Patrol agents slashed tires, yanked people out of trucks, threw people to the ground, and called farmworkers “Mexican bitches.”
Were these hardened criminals? Nope, they were picking oranges, and 77 of 78 of them had no criminal records. An injunction is now in effect in the jurisdiction of California’s Eastern District, in the Central Valley from Redding to Bakersfield, so that’s good.
It’s all part of the plan for as much cruelty as possible. According to the New York Times, wormy ghoul Stephen Miller told other presidential advisors to be bold, and not worry about any lawsuits. And they sure don’t seem one bit worried.
One nice thing, Columbia student Moshen Mahdawi, organizer of pro-Palestinian protests and a green card holder who has been in the country for 10 years, has been released on bail in Vermont after being in custody since April 14, picked up for no reason other than using his First Amendment right to protest. His attorneys said that he would be allowed to finish his academic program at Columbia, so that is nice. Mahdawi was arrested going to an immigration appointment, because ICE is going after the lowest-hanging fruit: people who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, are where they’re expected to be, and people literally picking fruit.
Remember when Trump vowed to go after the worst of the worst? Yeah, that’s not what’s happening. Even canned ham Tom Homan has given up the pretense of that, and vows more workplace raids.
Note that he is lying here, Trump has deported fewer people than Joe Biden, who even gave people due process too; Homan is pulling the “three times more” right out of his poop chute. And reminder that immigrants have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, and multiple studies have found that immigration is linked to lower crime rates, homicide rates, and drug-related deaths. Places with more immigrants are SAFER. This was never about safety, and has always been about angry people slobbering to unleash violence and consolidate their power.
Welcome to Donald Trump’s shithole America! Fuck off with all this.
PREVIOUSLY!
[Project on Government Oversight / CalMatters / ProPublica / New York Times archive link]
This has always been ICE. Trump hasn't corrupted the cops. He's turned them loose. And Scott Pelley and the media elite can troll Trump and all the corporate weasels they want but until we start seeing some real in depth reporting about the corruption that was in the system waiting for Trump's arrival we ain't getting nowhere. America has got to get past it's "most cops are good cops" reflex.
"These people are OUT OF CONTROL."
And will remain out of control until *W*E* stop them.