Shucking Oysters: Thugs Need Only Apply
By Alex Allen
Have you been watching the footage of ICE agents in Minneapolis? Women violently dragged out of their cars. Children pepper sprayed. Innocents shackled. I have never been so disgusted in my life. The only other time I have felt such visceral emotion was in reaction to the poaching industry in Africa and the shark fin market in Asia. Oh, and factory farms. Immoral. Beyond fathoming. Is this where we are headed? No conscience? Immune to all forms of cruelty?
Actually yes, we’ve been fast-tracking in this direction since we first emerged from the sea. Greed and deceit is another unfortunate result of our evolution.
The city of Minneapolis. What did they do wrong? Blue state, Governor Tim Walz, and then the embarrassment of the senseless assassination of Renee Nicole Good? No, all this bravado started because of child care funding fraud, after a Republican YouTuber alleged that several centres run by Somali immigrants were taking public money without providing care. False. What is true, is that Minneapolis has the largest Somali population in the US.
In early December, Trump said that Somali immigrants should “go back to where they came from.” In March Trump will be ending their Temporary Protected Status which means they can now be sent back to Somali. Meanwhile, the US government website warns: “Do not travel to Somalia due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health, kidnapping, piracy, and lack of availability of routine consular services.” Africans, Mexicans, Haitians, “garbage” from “shit hole countries” and anyone else who messes with the Trump administration, be very afraid.
Now he’s declaring war on peaceful protesters. Deadly domestic terrorists. Don’t fuck with an unpredictable dickhead. The footage of what’s going on in Minneapolis is surreal. Thousands of masked armed thugs let loose to do what they please with no impunity. Many are saying that Minneapolis is the testing ground for all Blue states in the United States of Fuck-You-America. Portland, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Los Angeles, be very afraid.
Before the weekend a judge ruled that federal agents cannot arrest, pepper spray peaceful demonstrators or stop people in their cars without cause. With no surprise the justice department are appealing the ruling.
Trump has 1,500 active-duty soldiers poised for deployment to Minneapolis. That’s over and above the 3,000 ICE agents already fomenting fear and outrage. And the justice department just announced that it is investigating Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over alleged “illegal interference with immigration law enforcement.”
The administration’s war on Minneapolis continued over the weekend with the Department of Housing and Urban Development investigating alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act. Attorney General Pam Bondi ominously posted: “reminder to all those in Minnesota: No one is above the law.” Trump’s creepy aide, Stephen Miller, just ordered the Minnesota local and state law enforcement to “stand down and surrender” after the weekend.
“Donald Trump is weaponizing the federal government in order to harm poor people and exert dominance over his foes,” said Mike Shimpock, a LA-based consultant. “The debate isn’t: ‘Is there fraud in social services?’ The debate is: Are you creating a government that’s run for billionaires and corporations?” What he is doing is seeking revenge in Blue states at the cost of America’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable.
Who are these armed thugs hiding behind masks? For one, they all seem to have the same personality type of the guy who got kicked out of the military or the guy who didn’t get hired by the police department. He usually ends up as a passive-aggressive security guard or an asshole tow truck driver – still having a bit of power to mess with people’s lives but never enough. Now he can work for ICE with a lot more power. Way more.
So you wanna be an ICE deportation officer? It’s kind of like when I applied to be a BC Transit bus driver years and years ago. I shared that I liked driving and was a people person. Wrong. If I had said I find most people irritating and driving in traffic is a pain in the ass, I probably would have got the job. And that’s how the hiring process works with ICE. Anger issues? Hired!
Journalist and war vet Laura Jedeed went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last summer to find out what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. The answer? On-the-spot hiring with a sweet $50,000 signing bonus, a generous benefits package, and as Jedeed wrote, “a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence – all while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.”
After receiving over 220,000 applications to join ICE, the Trump administration has doubled the amount of agents to 22,000 and growing. That’s the kind of growth that changes the culture of an agency. There were more than 170 incidents during the first nine months of Trump’s presidency in which federal agents held US citizens against their will. As of the end of the year, over 68,000 people are being held in detention – 75% with no criminal convictions.
ICE Princess Kristi Noem and others have repeatedly said that being an ICE agent is a dangerous job. Only two ICE agents have been killed in the line of duty since 2003, neither in immigration enforcement. In fact, the chance of an ICE or Border Patrol agent being murdered in the line of duty is about one in 94,549 per year, five times less than a civilian being murdered.
The truth, Jedeed suggested, is even scarier: “ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks. We’re all, collectively, in the dark about whom the state is arming, tasking with the most sensitive of law enforcement work, and then sending into America’s streets.” An ad for ICE says it all: “America Needs You. America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”
One recruit had been charged with “strong-arm robbery and battery” stemming from a domestic violence incident. Some hadn’t submitted fingerprints for background checks. Half of the new recruits who arrived for training in the summer were sent home because they couldn’t pass an open-book exam on when officers can and can’t conduct searches and seizures. Another group were dismissed because they failed the physical fitness test or had “medical challenges.” But that’s OK they were sent to ICE training camp anyway.
ICE is the largest federal law enforcement agency, with a budget 62% larger than the entire federal prison system. The “beautiful” bill includes an unprecedented $45 billion to build new immigration detention centres and $29.9 billion toward deportation enforcement.
It gets uglier everyday. Trump – a maniac gifted with two peace prizes – is declaring war on free speech. It’s not the State of Minnesota it’s a State of War. Take it from US border czar, Tom Homan: “There will be more bloodshed unless we decrease the hateful rhetoric.”
