By Greg Oxley
Wherever ICE has been sent into a US city or an area, its agents are conducting racial profiling on a massive scale. They are given quotas to attain. They must make 2000, 3000 or 5000 arrests. This has nothing to do with fighting crime. ICE agents burst into workplaces and stores, sweep into local schools, comb through local neighbourhoods, going from door to door, looking for residents that they “suspect” might be illegal.
Forewarned by the whistles of “observers”, people have taken to hiding in attics, cellars or sheds, or seeking refuge with neighbours, to avoid being beaten to the floor and hauled off into custody. Parents are seized in front of their children, by masked and unidentifiable agents, often in unmarked cars.
In Minnesota, Somalians are especially targeted, whatever their legal status. As Jaylani Hussein, a Somali American, and director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for the state, put it: “My community, we are health workers, drivers, teachers, labourers, entrepreneurs, engineers, public servants. We belong here because we are Americans.”
This matters not to Trump. His masked thugs are on a racist rampage, jumping on people in the street, in local stores, dragging them from their cars. It seems that Trump has picked out Minnesota for special attention by his ICE thugs because the presidential election went badly for him there, all three times he was a candidate. Trump claims, of course, that he won all three times, moreover, by a huge majority, but that election fraud by “corrupt officials” deprived him of his victory.
Other states and cities targeted
However, Minnesota is not the only state targeted by Trump. Cities like Chicago and Portland have also been hit. In a number of states, the violent methods of ICE have provoked a strong rebuke from local law enforcement. Speaking at an official press conference in Philadelphia, Sheriff Bilal called federal ICE agents “Trump’s army” and “fake law enforcement” and threatened them with arrest if they come into the city or the county wearing masks and committing crimes.
She assured them that “the criminal in the White House” would not be able to protect them from arrest. Press conferences along similar lines have been held by officials in San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere.
There are literally hundreds – possibly thousands – of videos online showing how ICE agents use threats and often violence against people. Just to take one example, from the “Pod Save America” podcast hosted by Jon Favreau, we see agents, one of them with a gun drawn, telling a driver to go home – which is exactly what the driver is attempting to – and saying, “This is your last warning!” and then “You are not going to like the outcome” adding ominously, “Have you not learned from what just happened?”, which was an obvious reference to the murder of Renee Nicole Good.
Renee Good was shot three times in the face at point-blank range at the wheel of her car by agent Jonathan Ross, just a few days earlier. Immediately afterwards, Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described Renee, a mother to three children, as a “domestic terrorist”.
Like the ‘slave’ patrols of the nineteenth century
Other murders by ICE agents are likely to occur if only because of the extreme violence of their methods. Dogs, firehoses, tear gas and percussion grenades are used on peaceful demonstrators. Individuals who look “foreign” or whose accent does not seem “American” are chased down as if they were runaway slaves in bygone times.
Representative Jasmine Crocket, speaking in Minneapolis/St Paul to denounce these horrific tactics, said they recalled the dreaded “slave patrols” of the nineteenth century.
While deliberately trying to provoke the local population and create an increasingly tense situation, Trump has said he could well make use of the special powers given to the Executive by invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow the deployment of US troops to Minnesota.
Recruitment to ICE is being done in a hurry, skimping training, especially in relation to citizen’s rights. On the website of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), we read, “ICE announces most successful federal law enforcement agency recruitment campaign in American history”.
In fact, this recruitment campaign is geared towards recruiting racist bullies. Just think of it. If you join ICE, you get a uniform, guns, and the right to chase down and beat up real or suspected “foreigners”. You get a cash bonus of up to 50,000 dollars just for signing on, and high-level pay and benefits.
And if ever you break the law or go a little too far – like murdering someone – the government has got you covered, and you will not be prosecuted. Vice President JD Vance literally promised what he called “absolute immunity” to ICE agents. No wonder ICE is attracting a swathe of nationalist, racist and fascist thugs, eager to persecute “aliens”.
These developments have shocked tens of millions of Americans. They have no desire for the United States to be subjected to an authoritarian regime. What we have seen over the last few weeks has been one of the biggest protest movements in recent history.
A thousand different demonstrations against ICE
Over the weekend of the January 10/11 there were a thousand different demonstrations against Trump and the ICE crackdown all over the United States. Since then, scores more have taken place. These mass mobilisations are a clear sign of rising opposition the reactionary “hawks” in and around the White House.
Besides the demonstrations, tens of thousands of people across the country have been taking local action to protect people from ICE, by following their patrols around and warning the local people of their presence. It has become increasingly difficult for ICE agents to avoid groups of people filming them, shouting at them and shaming them, and letting them know, often in very colourful language, that they are not welcome.
Throughout Europe, extreme right, nationalist and xenophobic movements have been gaining strength over many years. Just after the murder of Ms Good, Nigel Farage declared that something like ICE was needed in Britain. Such statements should not be taken lightly. Events in America must serve as a stark warning as to what people like Trump and racist demagogues like Farage can lead to.
The ICE rampage reflects the xenophobic rhetoric of Trump and the same language comes from his admirers in Europe. Racism starts with speeches and ends up like this.
When Trump said that the 84,000 US Somalians, most of whom are American citizens, were “garbage”, that they shouldn’t be in the USA, this was not just “sounding off”. Likewise, when he claimed that Haitians in Springfield were eating white peoples’ pets.
Many people, unfortunately, believe his disgusting, racist propaganda, but whether they do or not, his administration is now acting upon it, with the most vicious, cruel, humiliating manner, with total disregard for constitutional rights, the law and the most basic notions of human decency.
[Feature picture is from the poster mobilising support for one-day general strike in Minneapolis on January 23]
