Tag: ICE

the end of freedom of movement?

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

This is a follow-on to my earlier post xenophobia and retribution.

If you have followed any of the reports of ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) and other federal agencies taking Latinos and others off the street for immigration enforcement, you probably have noticed the same things I have:

  • ICE, and other federal agents, generally are in plain clothes, not wearing uniforms that identify their agency
  • they are not wearing name tags
  • they are wearing masks
  • they are using unmarked vehicles
  • it seems that there are only males working for ICE, I’ve not noticed any females in the videos
  • ICE and the administration continually claim that they are making if safer by removing criminals, but ICE is not looking for criminals, they are just looking for Latinos and other people of color

Some of the people taken have shown up at detention facilities, where they are housed under inhuman conditions, and generally denied access to lawyers. But the whereabouts of many is unknown. As far as ICE and the Trump administration are concerned, these people have already been found guilty, and are not deserving of due process. The Trump administration has been transporting many of these people out of the US, and then claiming that they have no rights under US law because they are not in the US.

The actions of ICE can fairly be called abductions or kidnappings, and the victims can be said to be disappeared. These are the actions of authoritarian regimes, not of a democracy. It is the method dictators use to remove, silence and kill dissidents. ICE has been likened to the German Gestapo, and that analogy is apt. Trump is implementing the methods of the dictators he so admires.

So why is ICE working in this way? You would think they would be proud of their actions, showing up in uniform, with nametags and without masks, and using official and identified government vehicles to transport people. But they are not.

I believe it is because ICE and the Trump administration are actually sending a message to all of us. That message is ‘we can disappear anyone we want, at any time and place we want, without consequences’. Going after undocumented immigrants (and permanent residents, and naturalized citizens, and born citizens) is not just about those people, but all people. Once they have established that they are immune to the laws of the US, they can do anything to anyone. That is the message.

Many people in this country (though not blacks) have always had freedom of movement, and even a choice about how to go places, despite the government spending nearly all of our transportation funds on those who drive. We assumed that was part of our freedom in a democracy. We are now a step closer, a big step closer, to government control of our movement. There will be checkpoints for ID. There will be tracking of the movements, and associations, of everyone. That is the purpose of the data being compiled by Palantir (see links below). We are on a slide into autocracy and oppression. We will have no freedom of movement.

All of this has been on my mind for weeks, but I recently started reading Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates. Every searing word emphasizes how blacks have never had freedom of movement in this country, from slavery to today, always under the control/oppression of the police and government. That is the fate that now awaits everyone, whether ‘white’ or not.