ICE Supervisor Thrown In His Own Jail After (Allegedly) Strangling His Girlfriend
It's almost as if being a violent psychopath is a prerequisite for the job.
Content note: Domestic Violence
It’s been almost a full year of Donald Trump’s second term, and it still doesn’t seem as though he or any of the MAGA faithful have really settled on a narrative about the horrific ICE raids that have given so many of our nation’s great cities that “B-movie dystopia” feel. They love to talk about how they are saving us all from scary violent criminals and makeup artists, we assume for fear that the latter might coat them in cakey foundation without doing any skin prep and then slather their injection-scarred lips in gloss for a profile in a major publication. But at the same time, whenever someone comes out with a “Wait a minute! I was promised that they were just going after the ‘worst of the worst,’ but they’re going after my husband instead!” …
Or a “they’re going after my wife instead!”
Or “they’re going after meeeee!” until it suddenly becomes “We never promised you that and also anyone who is undocumented here is technically a criminal anyway! Even though technically that would usually be a civil matter, not a criminal one!”
While it’s been more than clear that they’re not exclusively going after the “worst of the worst” when it comes to deporting immigrants, that’s definitely what they’re looking for when hiring ICE agents. After all, what kind of person can actually go around kidnapping people on the regular?
I will tell you what kind.
The kind who ends up in the very same jail he sent immigrants to after being arrested on charges of domestic violence.
Last week, Cincinnati ICE supervisor Samuel Saxon, 47, an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations official, was tossed into Hamilton County Jail and is being held on a $400,000 bond — or, rather, he was. Now he’s reportedly in DHS custody at Butler County Jail, widely regarded as “the most notorious ICE prison in Ohio” … with, we can assume, a whole lot of people he kidnapped.
Why did this happen to such a lovely human being?
Because, according to one witness cited in the police report, Saxon held his girlfriend — whom he had started dating when she was 18 and he was in his 40s — in a chokehold in the hallway of their building. Police, who had been called 22 other times to their apartment for domestic violence-related reasons in the last year and a half, said they saw bruises on her neck. Previously, she had a broken nose in 2018 and a broken pelvis in April of this year, and has repeatedly declined to prosecute Saxon. The only reason he was arrested was because a witness saw him do it this time.
He’s also facing federal charges of lying to investigators about the domestic violence incident, and, if convicted on that one could serve up to five years in prison.
Saxon has been with the department for two decades, back when the agency had strict background checks. Now, the standards are far lower, and they’ll pretty much take anyone. Many of today’s recruits are facing pending criminal charges, have failed drug tests, and the DHS does not seem to give a damn about that. Probably because they are actively looking for the kind of sadistic, conscience-free monsters (or those who are high enough to not realize they’re behaving like sadistic, conscience-free monsters) who would not be averse to raiding schools or tearing parents away from their crying children. While we are frequently sympathetic to those who don’t feel they have the economic ability to be choosy about what jobs they take … it’s pretty clear what kind of orders one is going to have to follow should they sign up for this particular career choice. It’s hardly as if it’s a situation wherein a decent person could think they might be able to change it from the inside — given how much of the rot is coming from without.
I am not scared of immigrants. I do not get anxious around people who speak a different language, or who have a different background than I do. I am, however, pretty darn scared of men like Samuel Saxon, who prey on teenage girls, choke them and break their bones. I am scared of men like that having the power to peel practically anyone off the street and send them to a detention center. I am scared of those who cheer and proudly say “This is what I voted for!” when they see videos of agents doing that. I’m scared that those same people are currently screaming and crying about how empathy is “toxic.”
I am not saying that all Republicans beat women, or even that all ICE agents do. I am not saying that they are all Ted Bundy, though he was known as “Mr. Up-and-Coming Republican” around Seattle before it was discovered that he’d been going around murdering over 30 women. I am merely pointing out that there is a reason that this man is the kind of person who signs up to join ICE in the first place, and it’s not just because they want to make new friends and earn a few bucks.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
It’s always the ones you most expect, huh
I hope he'll meet a lot of his...errr...clients.