Trump, ICE Have Earned Every Bit Of The Hatred They’re Now Facing

Legal Issues

from the mask-up-motherfuckers dept

Trump is setting the stage for martial law. Again. The reasons for his latest move are directly tied to the actions of his administration and, more specifically, the most visible arm of his anti-migrant policies.

ICE has been problematic for years, but it took two non-consecutive Trump administrations to turn it into the cartoonish supervillain it is now. Even during his first term, no one really believed Trump only wanted to rid the country of the “worst of the worst.” When he disparaged entire countries as “shitholes,” it was clear he just wanted to rid the country of non-white people. When he granted white South Africans an exception to his “no antisemites need apply” immigration policies during his second term, he made it explicitly clear his anti-migrant stance only applied to people less (naturally) white than the badly spray-bronzed Boss Of The US.

ICE raids are now being greeted by massive protests, some of those impromptu gatherings generated by the sudden and unwelcome appearance of unmarked cars (and unmarked people) in mostly non-white neighborhoods. ICE agents — and the federal agency conglomerate currently forced to help Trump stroke one out on main — are being chased out of neighborhoods and businesses by people who wish to protect their friends, neighbors, and families from a government determined to disregard their rights and remand anyone rounded up to the custody of the most accommodating foreign gulag.

It’s not just the big stuff — you know, the casual disregard of rights and deliberate refusal to abide by federal court orders. It’s also the small stuff — the insidious destruction of societal and governmental norms for the sole purpose of pumping up deportation stats.

There’s been a lot of attention paid to Los Angeles, California recently due to ongoing anti-ICE protests and the president’s promise to lay the groundwork for martial law in response. Down in the trenches is where some of the shittiest stuff is happening, which tends to get ignored because of what’s happening out in broad daylight.

Many undocumented immigrants who went to their Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in appointments at a federal building in Los Angeles this week were taken into custody and brought to the basement and held there, some overnight, according to immigration lawyers and family members.

It was unclear how many people were affected, but the attorneys told CBS News hundreds of immigrants were detained — dozens in the basement in rooms that could fit up to 30 at a time.

Oh, just going after the criminals? I mean, that’s the narrative Trump clings to even as he undercuts it with each subsequent statement or action. People just trying to comply with the law to further their attempt at citizenship or long-term residency are being scooped up solely because ICE knows a great place to find migrants to arrest is in courthouses where they’re scheduled to attend hearings.

It’s not just check-ins. It’s pretty much any legal proceeding that might involve an undocumented migrant. Here’s something that hits more close to (my) home in a state that, fortunately, has only been subjected to two retaliatory raids by ICE agents.

According to an emailed statement to KELOLAND News, Traci Smith with the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office said, “The ICE agents’ presence coincided with the presence of witnesses who had been subpoenaed to testify on behalf of the Defendant.” 

Smith said jurors were on a break and many of them saw the ICE arrest, which happened in front of both the witnesses’ wife and infant daughter.

“Because of the scene it caused, the Judge declared a mistrial,” Smith said. “The witness had been lawfully subpoenaed to appear and testify. The actions of the prosecutor and ICE not only disrupted the trial but directly undermined the Defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial and caused irreparable harm to the judicial process.” 

Smith said the person on trial is a U.S. citizen. 

Yep, ICE hung out in a courthouse so they could ambush a migrant who was on a witness list in a criminal trial. The person on trial was an accused criminal. The person they arrested was doing their duty and responding to a subpoena. Even doing the right thing won’t save you from Trump’s antipathy towards migrants. (For that matter, neither will obtaining a REAL ID, which has been something millions of whiter Americans have been putting off for years because… well… the federal government has been putting it off for years.)

Then there’s the process that has nothing to do with due process: ICE agents show up to arrest people and then tell them their green cards or visas have been revoked. Any government not clearly enamored with its own cruelty would immediately know it’s unfair (and unconstitutional) to revoke immigration status without giving prior notice and allowing those affected to either arrange for legal representation or leave the country on their own terms. But that’s not how it works now under Trump 2.0. Instead, the notification and arrest are simultaneous. And those arrested are sent to detainment centers in judicially-friendly districts to short-circuit legal challenges.

Somehow, it gets even shittier than everything listed above. Here’s how government prosecutors are helping ICE inflate its deportation stats, something undoubtedly encouraged by their ultimate employer: Donald J. Trump.

The Trump administration has launched an operation to terminate the immigration court cases of certain migrants, in order to arrest them and place them in a fast-tracked deportation process instead, government officials and attorneys told CBS News.

Lawyers and advocates this week reported arrests of migrants outside of immigration courthouses across the U.S., saying teams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had detained individuals whose cases in front of immigration judges had just been terminated at the request of the government. 

Two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News that ICE is conducting an operation to expedite the deportation of migrants with court hearings scheduled in the near future. It’s the latest step taken by the Trump administration to dramatically ramp up immigration arrests across the country and fulfill what the president has promised will be the largest deportation campaign in American history.

Allowing charges to remain in place means allowing the court system to function properly and give those charged a chance to argue to defend themselves against these allegations. Dismissing the charges doesn’t give migrants freedom they haven’t earned yet, however. Instead, it reverts control of the case to immigration officials, who start expedited removal proceedings, which generally bypass courts entirely. Now, migrants utilizing the court system to make use of the rights extended to them by the US Constitution are finding those rights being unceremoniously stripped by prosecutors who, despite their oath, aren’t actually serving the interest of justice, but rather the belabored brain bleed of a monstrous aspiring autocrat who believes the country serves him, rather than the other way around.

So, when you see ICE agents fleeing extended middle fingers and the occasional thrown object, never forget they chose to be a part of this. And when Trump threatens to bring the military into the war on migrants, always remember he picked this fight and now wants a bunch of other people to fight it for him. Finally, never forgive the people who say “I didn’t vote for this” when they so very clearly did. If you want fascism that might temporarily benefit you, own it. When it finally comes back to destroy the people and rights you actually care for, remember you were the one in the voting booth that day. Or, more likely, weren’t anywhere near a voting booth when it mattered most.

Filed Under: 14th amendment, 1st amendment, 4th amendment, 5th amendment, 6th amendment, dhs, donald trump, ice, mass deporation