Note—I was asked to speak today at the Abolish ICE in
McHenry County Protest which will be held between 2 and 4 pm on
Woodstock Square. This is more or less
what the Old Man plans to say. Many more
cogent and compelling speakers will also be on hand to testify about the terror
and tragedy spread by ICE and abetted by McHenry County renting space in the
Jail as an immigrant detention center.
You
have and will hear a lot today about the fear that ICE strikes in immigrant
families and about the multiple tragedies and injustices born by those
incarcerated in the Federal unit at McHenry County Jail. Buy I am here today to talk even more reasons
to abolish ICE and the rogue agency of which it is a part—the Department of
Homeland Security. While either continues
to exist in their current forms, no resident or even citizen is safe.
ICE prisoners in McHenry County Jail receiving pastoral care through the Jail Ministry of the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants. |
The
Department of Homeland Security was hastily created in the panic following the
9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in
Washington. Everyone was imagining even
more and more grizzly attacks. Existing
agencies were put under its jurisdiction including the U.S. Customs Service
which was split up into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs
and Boarder Services (CBS); The Federal Protective Service; The Transportation
Security Administration (TSA); Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); the Coast
Guard; the Secret Service; and a dozen or so smaller and obscure security
agencies. The draconian Patriot Act gave
sweeping powers to component agencies as well as to the Justice Department,
FBI, and intelligence agencies, many of which are little known or understood by
the public.
No
agencies grew in numbers of agents or in power more than ICE and CBS. While Barack Obama was trying to push
comprehensive immigration reform including protection for Dreamers and a path
to citizenship for long-time undocumented residences, he beefed up boarder
enforcement including the first family separation and child internment to prove
that he was tough on border security.
Likewise he empowered ICE to make aggressive round-ups especially at
factories and work places.
Donald
Trump whipped anti-immigrant hysteria into a frenzy with his promises of a “Big
Beautiful Wall” and concentration camp
like detention centers. Both ICE and CBS
were frequently cited for brutality as well as often sweeping up legal
residents and citizens and detaining them for weeks or months until they could
prove their status. Some were deported.
Militarized Federal secret police including Homeland Security ICE and CBS agents in Portland |
Then
Trump turned them into a national Secret Police. They and officers of other agencies were
first unveiled in their heavily armed and armored military stile camo uniforms
with no identification of agencies or individuals guarding the completely unthreatened
Lincoln Memorial during Black Lives Matter protests. A couple of days later they attacked a
peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Park with tear gas, pepper spray, stun and
flash grenades, and allegedly “less than lethal” ammunition so that the Cheeto-in-Charge could
wave an upside down Bible in front of a church that had been giving support to
the demonstrators. It took the media a
couple of days to ferret out who the mystery troops were.
Then
they showed up uninvited in Portland where they kidnapped individuals away from
demonstrations around the Federal building, throwing them in unmarked vans, and
transporting them to secret locations which Homeland Security later defended as
justified “preventative detention.”
Abducting people off the streets is exactly what ICE is trained to do. |
Some
media dismissed the abductions as aberrations because the mystery police were
not properly trained. That is not
so. Any immigrant community will attest
that street abductions are exactly what ICE and CBS personnel are trained to
do.
And
night after night in Portland the Federal troops have escalate violence with
brutal attacks that have included assaults on medics, journalists, legal
observers, and even the Mayor. They did
not hesitate to attack the famous Wall of Moms formed to protect protesters.
Homeland Security troops attack protesters in Portland. |
Trump,
Attorney General Bill Barr, and Acting Homeland Security Secretary executives Chad
Wolf have all bragged about what a good job they were doing. Trump threatened to send more such troops to “Democratic
Cities” including New York, Chicago, and Detroit. That is made possible in part because ICE
jurisdiction includes everything within 100 miles of an international border
and the coasts—a band around the entire county that includes more than 80% of
the population. That includes us
gathered here in Woodstock. This
gathering could be declared a riot and insurrection and be targeted. Don’t think it could not happen as the
administration grows both more desperate to retain power and more emboldened to
go full fascist.
There
have long been calls to abolish ICE but Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and
others have also called to abolish the Department of Homeland Security. So has the Unitarian Universalist Association
and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee which declared:
For years,
immigrant activists have been saying that the violations of migrant rights are
the “canaries in the coalmine,” anticipating the erosion of the rights of all
Americans. For years, Black activists have pointed to the ways their
communities are criminalized by police: local, state, and federal. What’s
happening now in Portland is the logical extension of long-existing abuses.
When we tolerate the expansion of government power, allowing it to trample on
the rights of immigrants, Muslims, and Black and Indigenous people, the
inevitable result is not only grave injustice against some of us, but a steady
loss of legal protections for all of us. We are witnessing the consequences of
this failure of vigilance in the streets of Portland today.
While
many components of the Department do serve compelling purposes—The TSA, FEMA,
Coast Guard, and the Secret Service for example—they all were in existence
before the Department was created and could be transferred back to their
original organizational homes or reorganized in some other way.
Abolish
ICE! Abolish CBS! Abolish the Department of Homeland Security!
Great job, old man. How did it go?
ReplyDeleteVery well. lots of compelling first hand experience stories told. Motivated folks to come out in support of County Bord resolution to cancel the Jail contract.
ReplyDelete