****I have doctors today starting at 0800 until well after lunch so this will mostly likely be my only offering today.****
There has been much written about ICE especially it’s tactics when it rolls into cities and begins their brand of ‘enforcement’…..some even have compared them to the Brown Shirts or the Gestapo….but is that accurate?
As the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have intensified over the past year, politicians and journalists alike have begun referring to ICE as a “paramilitary force.”
Rep. John Mannion, a New York Democrat, called ICE “a personal paramilitary unit of the president.” Journalist Radley Balko, who wrote a book about how American police forces have been militarized, has argued that President Donald Trump was using the force “the way an authoritarian uses a paramilitary force, to carry out his own personal grudges, to inflict pain and violence, and discomfort on people that he sees as his political enemies.” And New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie characterized ICE as a “virtual secret police” and “paramilitary enforcer of despotic rule.”
All this raises a couple of questions: What are paramilitaries? And is ICE one?
As a government professor who studies policing and state security forces, I believe it’s clear that ICE meets many but not all of the most salient definitions. It’s worth exploring what those are and how the administration’s use of ICE compares with the ways paramilitaries have been deployed in other countries.
The term paramilitary is commonly used in two ways. The first refers to highly militarized police forces, which are an official part of a nation’s security forces. They typically have access to military-grade weaponry and equipment, are highly centralized with a hierarchical command structure, and deploy in large formed units to carry out domestic policing.
AS the old saying goes….”if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck”….
There are some that are comparing ICE to the Klan….
The country is witnessing the revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist, far-right hate group in the United States, through ICE and Border Patrol officers terrorizing our communities. The group is infamous for using terrorism, violence, and intimidation to promote white supremacy and oppress minority groups, particularly Black Americans.
The KKK has existed in three distinct iterations and time periods throughout U.S. history, each with similar core beliefs in white nationalism and racial subordination, but also with varying targets and political focuses.
First Klan (Reconstruction Era, (1865-1872): Founded by six Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a social club that quickly evolved into a paramilitary force. Its primary goals were to resist the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies and reestablish white control of Southern governments through violence, lynchings, and intimidation of Black Americans and their white allies.
Second Klan (1915-1944): Revived by William Joseph Simmons near Atlanta, Georgia, this iteration was inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation, which glorified the original Klan. It became a nationwide political force, expanding its hatred to include immigrants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and organized labor, in addition to Black people. The Klan introduced the burning cross as a symbol.
Third Klan (Mid-20th Century-Present): Resurging during the Civil Rights Movement, this iteration continued the use of violence, including bombings of Black churches and schools, to oppose desegregation and civil rights activism.
The archetype of the Third Klan is found in ICE and Border agents, primarily terrorizing and killing people of color with Hispanic-sounding names, immigrants of color, and their white allies.
That is an interesting take on the events of the past year.
Is all this chaos necessary?
I have said that I thought that this type of situations are what Donny had planned the whole time…..his actions and then the reactions make him look strong.
Can anyone doubt now that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want chaos in American streets? I submit to you that at this point, there is no other conclusion that may reasonably be drawn. Consider: It was less than three weeks ago that their thuggish agents executed a woman, a U.S. citizen, in cold blood. If for no other reason than the fact that it sparked international controversy, a normal democratically elected government that felt the normal degree of humility toward public and world opinion would have sent out a memo telling their armed agents to go easy for a little while until things cool down. The elected leader would issue the usual calls for calm.
Yet 17 days after the execution of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent, border patrol officers carried out another execution of an American citizen a mere two miles away. Trumpers can carry on all they want about Alex Pretti’s gun—which he was allowed to carry legally because the state’s Republicans decided back in 2003 that passing such a law was a grand idea—but the different videos make it obvious that at the time of his death, Pretti was on the ground, had been disarmed, and posed no mortal threat to anyone. That’s when they put 10 holes in him. With Good, I noted at the time, we could, maybe, bend over backward and grant a smidgen of ambiguity around the first bullet. But there was nothing ambiguous about the second and third ones, fired from point-blank range through an open car window. Likewise, about 10 shots, there is nothing ambiguous. This too was an execution.
https://newrepublic.com/article/205655/trump-ice-chaos-minneapolis-power
This chaos is the vehicle that Donny and his thugs are using to justify martial law….it is that simple.
With the shake up within the group there is new orders from the Biggies….
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minnesota have been ordered not to “COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE” with “AGITATORS” during future operations, according to new internal guidance from the agency’s top brass.
The new instructions, circulated on Wednesday and exclusively reviewed by Reuters, also limit ICE activity to immigrants with criminal charges or convictions in a departure from the broad sweeps that have sparked fierce backlash, legal challenges, and street protests.
The email, from a senior agency official, reads in part:
DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE WITH AGITATORS. It serves no purpose other than inflaming the situation. No one is going to convince the other. The only communication should be the officers issuing commands.
Under the new approach, Reuters reported that ICE officers will be equipped with megaphones and instructed to clearly announce each step of an arrest, an effort to impose order after the volatile scenes previously seen.
The guidance offers the clearest picture yet of how the Trump administration is recalibrating its immigration crackdown following intense political pressure in Minnesota, following the shooting death of two US citizens by federal officers.
The new order comes days after President Donald Trump handed control of Minnesota operations to border czar Tom Homan.
Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who had been leading the operation, has been demoted and is expected to retire.
ICE Agents Get Stunning New Order From Top Brass About Engaging Protesters, Internal Email Shows
Is this a softening of policy ir just another game being played?
Any thoughts?
I Read, I Write, You KNow
“lego ergo scribo”