ICE is not law enforcement. When agents are masked, armed to the teeth, encouraged to be aggressive, smash down doors with no warrant, are guaranteed immunity by their bosses and told to cull specific numbers of people, regardless of their status – this is not law enforcement. When the President of the United States says that Somalis are “garbage”, suggests that immigrants are mostly thieves and murderers and rapists, calls them scum, says they’re not wanted here – is he speaking for you, too? He is certainly not speaking for me or the majority of Americans. His “othering” of immigrants and suggestion that they’re not really human and have no value, that they are somehow inferior - it is the oldest poison in human history and the source of genocides and massacres across the ages.
ICE is not engaged in law enforcement. The vast majority of “arrests” have been of people with no criminal record, many of whom have legal status as asylum seekers and have come to immigration centers to do their required checkins while waiting for the process to move along, many have “arrested” while leaving court during asylum hearings that the administration are denying without explanation or cause. Many are being “arrested” for being brown, or Spanish speaking and not even being allowed to show proof of status.
ICE is not engaged in law enforcement. They are hurriedly removing those they detain to prisons in other legal jurisdictions and are detaining them in facilities that time and again show gross deficiencies and inhumane conditions or they are removing them to third party countries where they face imminent threats to life and limb. They are often not allowed to make calls to family or lawyers. Family members often don’t know where they’ve been taken. There is no due process. All of this is done deliberately and at a speed that tries to outrun the slow process of civil rights litigation and appeal.
ICE is not engaged in law enforcement. They are engaged in violent, racist, unchecked lawlessness, at the direction of a president and those he has appointed (and you have approved) who have few credentials in the area they now lead and swear loyalty to the president above all else.
Stop funding ICE now! It has more funding the militaries of every county in the world except us, China and Russia. It is provoking violence in our cities, is being used to punish cities and states that voted against Trump and is undermining citizens’ belief in the rule of law. That should frighten every American. If the rule of law succumbs to blind power and tyranny, any nation is doomed.
Stop funding ICE now. Speak out against its incredible abuses and speak up on behalf of immigrants who form the backbone of working America and who all of us have been in our ancestral history.
Stop funding ICE now!
