Am I the only one who thinks of the childhood bullies that chased me
home after school, or blocked my way and laughed as they poked and
shoved me until I blubbered like...like...like I was scared out of my
mind? Fear and bullying go hand in dirty hand. And like perverts of
other sub human behavior, they smell out one another. And then they
smell out their victims. For much of my young life I was a victim.
My life has been so much more relaxing and pleasant since I quit
playing that role. But some folks have no choice. It's up to the
rest of us to join together and give them the support they need.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/1/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sean Spicer said the president wanted to 'take the shackles off' Ice agents
so they could conduct more arrests.' (photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
Ice Agents Are out of Control. And They Are Only Getting Worse
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
01 June 17
The agency is so harmful to civil rights, there's a good argument it should
be disbanded altogether. Unfortunately they are only becoming more
emboldened
With arrests of non-violent undocumented immigrants exploding across the
country, it's almost as if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents
are having an internal contest to see who can participate in the most cruel
and inhumane arrest possible. The agency, emboldened by Trump's xenophobic
rhetoric, is out of control - and Congress is doing little to stop them.
Last week, Ice agents ate breakfast at a Michigan restaurant, complimented
the chef on their meal and then proceeded to arrest three members of the
restaurants kitchen staff, according to the owner.
Depraved stories like this are now almost too prevalent to comprehensively
count: Ice has arrested undocumented immigrants showing up for scheduled
green card appointments at a US Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS)
office. They've arrested a father after dropping his daughter off at
school.
An Ice detainee was even removed forcefully against her will from a
hospital
where she was receiving treatment for a brain tumor.
In a particularly dangerous policy, Ice been arresting people inside US
courthouses around the country. "Attorneys and prosecutors in California,
Arizona, Texas and Colorado have all reported teams of Ice agents - some in
uniform, some not - sweeping into courtrooms or lurking outside court
complexes, waiting to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally,"
reported the LA Times in March.
It apparently doesn't matter that the agency has faced stiff resistance
from
judges and prosecutors over this policy, who have both claimed that it will
mean people won't show up to court. And fears are not just conjecture: a
Denver city attorney was recently forced to drop four domestic violence
cases because the witnesses were too afraid to come into court for fear of
being deported.
Many groups, including the ACLU, have also accused Ice of targeting
non-violent activists who protest the Trump administration's increasingly
draconian immigration policy with arrest.
While the anecdotes are horrifying, the numbers tell a similar story.
Arrests of undocumented immigrants have increased substantially over
Trump's
first few months in office. According to numbers released by the
government,
over Trump's first 100 days, Ice arrested over 41,000 individuals - a 37.6%
increase over a year earlier, which they openly bragged about on the Ice
website.
Worse, the arrests of non-violent immigrants with no criminal record
whatsoever has exploded, more than doubling from 4,242 people to 10,845
over
the same period from 2016 to 2017. And as the Daily Beast reported on
Tuesday: "Men and women held by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are on
pace to die at double the rate of those who died in Ice custody last year."
It's not just the fear of arrest that is gripping immigrant communities. In
addition to the Trump administration stripping away due process protections
for arrested immigrants via executive order, the US justice department has
even attempted to cut off legal representation for some immigrants - a
horrific move by anyone's standards.
Last month, the justice department tried to prevent an immigrant
not-for-profit group in Seattle from giving immigrants legal assistance
like
filling out paperwork, unless they offer them full representation in court.
Thankfully, a judge temporarily blocked the move, but it's just one more
example of the Trump administration almost unbelievably cruel policy
towards
the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Early in his presidency, Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the
president wanted to "take the shackles off" Ice agents so they could
conduct
more arrests, eerily echoing the CIA's comments post-9/11 that they would
"take the gloves off" in response to the terrorist attack.
The CIA followed that statement with a years-long, worldwide torture
program
that violated domestic and international law for which they still have not
been held accountable, and it's increasingly clear Ice is following a
similar path.
While some Democrats have introduced bills to curtail some of Ice's most
egregious transgressions, Republicans, who control both houses of Congress,
have shown little if any interest in reining in Ice. The agency is so
harmful to civil rights, there's a good argument it should be disbanded
altogether, but unfortunately it seems they are only becoming more
emboldened with each passing week.
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
