“We have met the enemy and he is us” –Pogo by Walt Kelley

The head of ICE, Tom Homan, hates being accused of leading an American version of the Gestapo. However, if the jackboot fits, he must wear it. Tragically, for our nation, it fits. I’m using the singular because there’s a second major jackbooted thug, Todd Lyons, the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homan and Lyons exude the cool bureaucratic dispassionate air of Adolph Eichmann, just carrying out their duties without anger or animus. They’re only doing their jobs and following orders. These are the faces of evil who are treating human beings as mere things, objects and problems to be disposed of—whatever it takes and by any means necessary.

These two ruthless and brutal xenophobes are tasked with rounding up and deporting people who are here without papers and whose visas have lapsed or been revoked. These are necessary functions. We do need law and order regarding our borders and immigration. Lyons and Homan, however, have produced policies and employed tactics that are cruel and have been, up till now, unusual in our country.
They both have assured the American people that they were going after “the worst of the worst,” implying that their focus would be on criminals—serious criminals and not status offenses, parking tickets and broken headlights. They lied.

They are running sweeps to fulfill quotas for arrests and deportations—quotas that were doubled this week despite having no decent place to hold the detained. They are not focusing on the worst of the worst. This week in Los Angeles, they raided the parking lot at a Home Depot where Hispanic men were trying to find work as day laborers. Hardly the worst of the worst. They also raided a sweatshop in the “Garment District,” where immigrants were sewing clothing. These workers deserved rescue, not arrest. The worst of the worst? If Lyons and Homan are looking for the worst of the worst, they should look in the mirror

We have lost our moral compass and now send militarized forces to sweep our cities, our suburbs and our agricultural areas. Dressed in camo and bullet proof vests, faces covered by ski masks, toting automatic weapons and hurling flashbang grenades at protestors, they are bringing terror to our streets and into our immigrant community.

The terrorized immigrant community is made up of American citizens, Green Card holders, Dreamers and yes, people who have no legal right to be here and some criminals. How should enforcement agents tell the difference? What is the rubric of their triage? The short answer is: skin color. Brown and Black are “probable cause” for DHS and ICE to believe that they shouldn’t be here and can be stopped, interrogated, arrested and deported without any legal process. If they find supporting characteristics like tattoos, then it’s Game Set Match. They must be “bad dudes.”

They don’t believe they have to prove guilt in court or at a hearing, but they can cut to the chase and ship them out to El Salvador, Djibouti, South Sudan, Libya and Rwanda. They don’t believe in the rulings of our courts or the Constitution that they swore “to protect and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic.”

When looking for the worst of the worst they admit that if they find people whom they suspect are without legal status, they are bound by law to take them in. This is domestic terrorism. This brings fear into the hearts of all those, citizens and non-citizens alike, who feel vulnerable to these capricious, arbitrary and brutal round ups.

ICE and DHS thugs sweep schools, even elementary schools, churches, hospitals and court houses looking for people who just look like they don’t belong, that is people who aren’t White. They arrest and cuff people who are not being a threat and subject them to perp-walks to humiliate, intimidate and strike fear into the hearts of immigrants and their families.

Agents of “our” government have kidnapped people off our streets without identifying themselves, their agency or producing warrants. They have flown them out of the states of their arrests to separate them from family, friends and legal assistance.

The compelling irony in this horror is that this desperately cynical and xenophobic regime has deported fewer people than Biden did in the same period of time. But that’s seemingly ok, because the purpose is the cruelty, fear and terror they spread. At this, they are successful.
Flashbang grenades and protestors? This makes sense because the ultimate purpose is to chill our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly and frighten good people into cowed silence and passive acceptance of the unacceptable. The terror these thugs are spreading is meant for far more than undocumented immigrants. It’s aimed at us. Looking for domestic terrorists? Look at our government and the willing enablers who just follow orders without regard to decency, compassion or our Constitution which they dishonor with every grenade thrown and every baton swung. Convinced they are doing good—as most evil-doers sincerely believe—they perpetrate great violence against our nation, our people and our hopes for a better society.

The purpose of their noisy flashbang grenades is to assure our silence. They must not be successful. We must rise up and be seen, make noise and be heard.

Check out other posts by Jonathan Dobrer on his Substack