ICE agents needed; no empathy required.

There’s a Douglas Adams quote that says, “It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

This is true for those who want to be ICE agents. What's it say about a person that, out of all the professions possible, they'd choose the one where you spend your days abducting mothers, kids, and college students and disappearing them? Often without due process and warrants.

It's a poor life choice to smash car windows and drag people out of their cars, while similarly armed as Marines in Iraq. Or arresting mayors and then crying you were "bodyslammed" by him—a claim contradicted by video footage.

Out of the mayors in the country to arrest, and it's the one with a spine to stand up for his community.

Will there ever be a time when they say, “This is too far even for me.” Unlikely. Doubts about their job are absent during the slow process of putting on their tactical equipment. Every day, they have a choice, and every day they choose “foot soldier for an oppressive regime.”

Do they lack a conscience, a soul? Is part of the hiring process to be an ICE or Customs and Border Protection officer, cauterizing your capacity for empathy?

It’s not like they’re proud of what they do. Their concealed faces and the lack of names on their chest indicate they don't want to be associated with their work. They use "safety" as an excuse for wearing them, but in reality, it's an act of cowardice. A person armed and backed by a highly militarized police force is scared?

They’re scared to the point that in response to a small poster identifying federal agents, the government sent a multi-armored vehicle caravan, a drone, and an eager, slimy Fox News host to cut a propaganda segment for the person's arrest.

They called over a loudspeaker for the person to come outside their home with their hands up. The people who emerged were the person's startled older parents. 

It's a spectacle. Each video and social media post put out by the government is catnip for the administration's base. It's twofold: They get to watch police inflict their cruelty on people and take glee in seeing sensible people respond with outrage. It’s taunting, a “Look what we can do to these people. What are you gonna do about it?

People are starting to do something about it. A mass of community members turned out to stop ICE agents from abducting an older woman in Massachusetts. The charges were irrelevant. A warrant, not needed. Her daughter was arrested, screaming for the agents to let her mom go. Her child was not far off. Happy Mother's Day.

Bill Shaner, a writer who runs Worcester Sucks and I Love It, witnessed the abduction firsthand. His piece for Welcome to Hellworld tells what happened that day and will leave you (person with a soul) angry.

“As the car pulls away, nudging into the thick crowd, the daughter shrieks another horrible horrible horrible shriek, communicating the non-communicable as the disappearers take another step toward disappearing her mother. As the car breaks from the crowd she runs after it.  A Worcester police officer, his voice frothing with anger, shouts "Arrest her right now. You are under arrest." And then four cops swarm her, grab her, throw her to the ground. All the while she's crying crying crying. Her hair's caught in her mouth and matted to her face, wet with spit and tears. Four cops hold her pinned to the ground.”

Locally, Ben Camacho, a colleague and multi-lawsuit survivor, wrote about the Santa Ana Police Department’s awareness of DHS/ICE raids and their attempt to conceal it from the public. You can read more here.

Finally, here's a letter from Mahmoud Khalil, who is being held in a federal detention facility over his involvement in organizing pro-Palestinian actions at Columbia. He missed the birth of his child during his detention and wrote a letter to his son titled, "To my newborn son: I am absent not out of apathy, but conviction." Here's an excerpt published in The Guardian:

"During your first moments, I buried my face in my arms and kept my voice low so that the 70 other men sleeping in this concrete room would not see my cloudy eyes or hear my voice catch. I feel suffocated by my rage and the cruelty of a system that deprived your mother and me of sharing this experience. Why do faceless politicians have the power to strip human beings of their divine moments?"