ICE Capades: The Roundup
PWS weekly on the ghoulish acts, dastardly deeds, and unseemly actions of the country's now-biggest LEO
As ICE becomes one of the largest law enforcement organizations on the planet, it couldn’t be more crucial for real-time reporting by journalists with experience on both the migration and authoritarianism beats. As part of efforts to provide that coverage, PWS brings you the weekly “ICE roundup”
ICE tactics are inspiring terror, but it isn’t enough for the White House
ICE is flush with cash, on a hiring spree, buying security and surveillance equipment, and arresting over 1000 migrants a day. The reign of terror by the now-largest law enforcement agency in the world has inspired panic in migrant neighborhoods and scathing criticism from critics. But Donald Trump still thinks ICE is too soft.
A leadership shake-up this week replaced half of ICE’s regional heads, installing dozens of senior Border Patrol officials in their positions instead. Although the mission parameters from both organizations have grown increasingly blurred since Trump took office in January, with CBP agents conducting migration sweeps in major cities, CBP leadership has historically been more in line with Trump’s hardline migration rhetoric.
While ICE generally targets individual migrants, CBP has engaged in large, arbitrary migration sweeps in cities like L.A., New York, and Chicago. According to a story first broken by the New York Times, Trump isn’t satisfied with current detention numbers. He is demanding over 3000 a day, and he thinks CBP leadership can get it done.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may soon be incorporating corporate bounty hunters in its search for migrants with informal status in the United States.
ICE is awash in information obtained from its massive surveillance capabilities as well as data looted from other agencies like the IRS, so much so that its analysts can’t effectively comb through it all.
According to documents leaked to the Intercept, they may be leaning into the private sector to sort through it. Companies hired by ICE would receive 10,000 pages of data and receive a “bounty” for each migrant captured.
Both developments likely mean that ICE tactics in the coming weeks and months are likely to get more aggressive and more abusive as well.
ICE keeps shooting people: increased tension is putting communities at risk
ICE agents were involved in two shootings in 9 days in California, including an officer who accidentally shot a suspect at a traffic stop, as well as the US Marshal who was accompanying him on patrol.
A second shooting at a traffic stop wounded a 23-year-old US citizen, Carlos Jimenez, who fled the scene. ICE claimed he interfered with an ongoing operation and “tried to ram officers” with his car. Jimenez’s family denies the accusation by ICE.
Also last week, a man was hospitalized after a shooting in Phoenix involving an ICE agent. According to local media reports, ICE officers conducted a traffic stop. But when the driver began speeding away, an officer in the vehicle’s path feared for his life and fired his weapon.
In September and October, there were two shootings by ICE and Border Patrol, into vehicles in Chicago, one fatal. And in August, federal agents shot into a car in San Bernardino during an immigration stop.
Lawmakers in California say ICE operations have raised tensions in communities, making even U.S citizens prone to fleeing the masked, armed agents, putting civilians and migrants alike in danger.
ICE Chilling photo of the week:
This week’s image is actually a video. IBorder Patrol officials beat a handcuffed man during an arrest in Evanston, Illinois this week.
DHS Assistant Secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, claimed in public statements that “As he was being arrested he aggressively grabbed the agent’s genitals and wouldn’t let go. The agent delivered several defensive strikes to free his genitals from the perp’s grasp.”
It’s difficult to see how a man in handcuffs was capable of what she claims, or why that necessitated beating him severely.
At PWS we think it has more to do with the fact that ICE is a violent terror organization.
The Roundup
ICE claims its agents are in extreme physical danger, but the data we have doesn’t support that claim: no field officer has ever died during an operation. Mother Jones breaks it down here.
DHS is keeping people for days, weeks, and even months in facilities designed to hold people only for a few hours, violating their own guidelines. Overcrowded and dangerous conditions are common at “holding facilities” that are in practice acting as detention centers.
ICE has detained more than 3,000 migrants as part of “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago. Many, however, have vanished from DHS systems, with no records on their whereabouts. Human Rights and Migration attorneys are trying to track them down, but are being stonewalled by the federal government.
DHS detained British citizen, Sam Hamdi, at an airport in California. The writer, who is an outspoken critic of Israel, has an active visa and was engaged in a speaking tour in the US. The U.S State department said in a social media post that “the United States has no obligation to host foreigners who support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans” and that it would “continue to revoke the visas of persons engaged in such activity”.
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