If you’ve ever watched a western you’ve probably seen a pretty clear analogy for what ICE is doing on American streets.
There’s this really common trope in old cowboy movies and TV shows: A wealthy rancher (or sometimes a railroad company or a speculator), someone with a lot of money puts a gang of baddies together. Black hats. They’re destroying the town, shooting up the saloon, driving peaceful residents out of their homes. Terrorizing the population.
Usually it’s the sheriff’s job to stand up to this gang of outlaws and fill them full of lead or scare them off somehow.
Except in this case, the gang of outlaws are wearing badges, deputized by the state. I think I’ve seen that variation too. A bunch of rotten apples with badges running around like their own the place. Comply or die... which is another way of saying: Do what we say, or else.
President Trump has this hillbilly gestapo running around creating panic, murdering civilians on American streets. Streets that were a lot more peaceful until ICE and Border Patrol showed up. These jerks answer to no one and our taxes are paying their salaries.
Vice President J.D. Vance defended the murder of Renee Good, claiming that ICE agents were protected by “absolute immunity,” saying “The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action – that’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.” Vance has since backed away from this language, but these shameless power grabs are happening right in front of our eyes.
“Absolute immunity” means that a government official cannot be prosecuted for any crime as long as they do it within the scope of their duties. It is absolute immunity that typically protects heads of state from being prosecuted in foreign courts, unless you’re Nicholas Maduro apparently. In the US law enforcement is protected by a different shield known as “qualified immunity,” which does not protect them from prosecution if they violate your constitutional rights. Asserting that ICE has absolute immunity is new and a total stretch. ICE officers should not be given blanket protection to violate anyone’s rights. There is a truism that authority without accountability is tyranny. And this is precisely what they are telling us they want. The more Trump administration works to protect federal agents from liability for their crimes, the more brutal and oppressive they will get.
Trump’s Big Disgusting Bill allocated $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, an exponential increase. Just for comparison, the U.S. Army got $165 billion, about 20 percent of the total defense budget, in 2024. ICE alone got $75 billion over four years, tripling their budget. Border enforcement is now budgeted like a military force. And don’t forget these massive increases are financed by slashing Medicaid and SNAP or other things that actually help the public.
Meanwhile ICE has slashed training by two-thirds. What used to be a five month training program is now just 47 days. The Atlantic confirmed that this arbitrary number was chosen because Trump is the 47th president. ICE has committed $100 million to recruiting new agents, specifically targeting Fox News viewers, fans of UFC, and gun enthusiasts.
Oh and who’s helping get these cowboys ready to hit the streets? None other than the Israeli Defense Forces. Retired Green Beret Anthony Aguilar blew the whistle, saying “ICE trains in Israel — then brings those same apartheid tactics back home.” The Palestine Chronicle confirms that this relationship goes back “decades,” which is pretty impressive considering ICE was only created in 2003. The “world’s most moral army” (a thing only a thoroughly brainwashed person could ever call the IDF with a straight face) trains agents in “crowd control, surveillance, protest suppression, and population-monitoring tactics used by Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.” ICE even used a special list targeting pro-Palestine activists for deportation and harassment (this list was submitted by a far right Zionist organization, Betar US, recently investigated and shut down in New York by Attorney General Letitia James).
Did anyone ask to have an occupying army start terrorizing people on American streets? ICE’s approval ratings have tanked since President Trump took office. Whereas only 19 percent of those polled strongly disapproved of ICE at this time last year, that number has doubled to 40%. A majority, 52 percent, hold an unfavorable view of ICE today. The number of Americans who want to abolish ICE is at an all-time high, 42%.
And ICE agents are pissing their pants in fear. As one Homeland Security honcho told Ken Klippenstein, “There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around.” Pay attention to this. ICE agents are scared. Resistance tactics are working. Dont’ stop now.
Letting ICE and Border Patrol agents know how unwelcome they are is working. Showing up and harassing them as they terrorize and arrest random members of the public is making their lives harder. Don’t stop.
Let’s face it, ICE agents suck. They are a bleeding lesion on the American body politic. The American public never agreed to have an unaccountable army of violent, armed psychopaths roaming our streets and killing people. It is well within our rights to let them know how unwanted and unnecessary they are. We should continue making it clear to each and every one of them that taking blood money from the government to work for ICE is morally repugnant.
The entire point of what ICE is doing is to scare the American public away from dissent. Don’t fall for it. Don’t let them take away our freedom.
ICE isn’t even 25 years old yet. It is perfectly reasonable in light of current events to demand that ICE be abolished. And unsurprisingly the Democratic Party is slinking away from that position. Cowards. Melt ICE, melt the entire Homeland Security apparatus down to nothing. They are making our country worse.
And one last thing... if you think you’re safe because your “side” is winning right now, owning the libs, the joke’s on you. No one is safe under fascism. If you learn anything from the Holocaust, let it be Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous poem, First They Came.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
That poem is famous for a reason... because it illustrates the point that no one is safe under fascism. Don’t forget it.
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Let’s make them pay.
