Via Bill Kristol & Andrew Egger - The Bulwark \\\ The People Are Turning Against ICE. Will the Politicians Take Notice?
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The People Are Turning Against ICE. Will the Politicians Take Notice?
Strongly worded statements will not stop the terrorization of the country.
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Days after threatening military action against Iran over its brutal treatment of protesters, Donald Trump is stepping back from the brink. The Treasury Department is instead implementing new sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the crackdown, while Trump himself is suggesting Iran might be mending its ways:
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Which is a pretty remarkable way to gloss a mass protest that has already seen thousands of civilians butchered by their own government. Happy Friday.
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Fighting ICE’s Reign of Terror
by William Kristol
The unjustified and indefensible killing of an innocent woman, Renee Good, by U.S. government agents; the lack of any recognition or acknowledgement by those agents or their superiors that what they did was wrong; the intensification of the government’s reign of terror in the streets of our cities and towns; the unabashed defense of brutality by the administration in power, and their wholesale lying about it . . . it’s horrifying.
But the less dramatic stories emerging from our reign of terror are also horrifying.
At around 3 p.m. Wednesday, four Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up for lunch at a small, family-owned Mexican restaurant, El Tapatio, in Willmar, Minnesota. They took a booth and apparently enjoyed their meal—though staff at the restaurant appeared “frightened,” according to a witness who spoke to the Minnesota Star-Tribune.
When the restaurant closed that evening at 8:30 p.m., ICE agents followed departing workers and detained three of them.
The agents presumably had a good laugh about this. Perhaps they relished their meal even more because the staff that served them was frightened. Humiliation of their victims, a kind of relish in their fear and misery, a kind of—let’s call it what it is—sadism has become a dominant part of the culture of ICE.
It does not, thankfully, appear to be dominant in the culture of the country. At least not yet. A Quinnipiac poll shows only 40 percent of Americans approve of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws, while 57 percent disapprove. In a CNN survey, 51 percent of Americans say they believe ICE is making cities less safe, while only 31 percent say ICE is making cities safer.
Those numbers in support of ICE are higher than they should be in a healthy and humane society. But still, in today’s polarized politics, a 17–20 percent margin is substantial. If only Democrats could win the national vote this fall by that amount!
White House border czar Tom Homan admits the administration has a problem. Not with the policy, of course. It’s just, Homan said yesterday, that ICE needs “to be better at messaging at what we’re doing.” Still, it’s good to see Homan on the defensive.
The question is whether the Democratic party is going to go on the offensive.
Yesterday Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar put out a statement: “Our local law enforcement, mayors, and community leaders all agree: The best way to restore order and safety in Minnesota is for ICE to leave our streets. This Administration is escalating rather than de-escalating and it needs to stop.”
ICE of course could care less about local law enforcement, mayors, and community leaders, who can do little to stop ICE’s terror. But ICE is an agency of the federal government. It operates under authorities granted and defined by Congress. It uses funds appropriated by Congress.
So if ICE needs to stop what it is doing, it’s Democrats in Congress who need to try to do their best to stop it. Which does not mean offering a couple of pro forma amendments that will lose. It does not mean failing to excoriate Republican senators, by name, for refusing to stand up to their dear leaders. It does not mean going on to approve government funding as usual.
The government funding deadline is two weeks away. The Senate is on break for the next week. Democrats didn’t object to this recess. After all, it’s been scheduled for a while, airplane tickets were bought, plans were made—no one wants to inconvenience anyone much. Gotta go along to get along!
But if something needs to stop, and it’s not stopping, maybe it’s not the right time to go along or to get along? Maybe it’s time to stand and fight. For the memory of Renee Good. For everyone terrorized, in Minnesota and elsewhere, by ICE and other agencies of our government. For everyone who hasn’t yet been terrorized, but will be as long as the administration isn’t checked. For the workers at a family-owned restaurant in a small town in Minnesota.
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