San Francisco (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Do Americans who engage in lawful and peaceful protest enjoy the protection of the United States Constitution? Not any more, the Trump regime says in authorizing the shameless misconduct and lethal violence ICE agents are perpetrating against citizens in Minnesota.
ICE has invaded the state of Minnesota to show America that nothing can restrain Trump’s army of thugs. Not the Constitution. Not the laws which make it a crime to commit assault and murder. Not public opinion. And not thousands of citizens exercising their rights.
Although far from the first instance of ICE brutality, the slaying of Renee Nicole Good shocked the nation as a clear case of murder in cold blood.
The killing was not in “self-defense” – if a car is really hurtling toward you, you don’t pause to take out your gun, aim and shoot, because you know shooting won’t stop the car. You run. Ms. Good’s autopsy confirms that it was murder: the fatal bullet was the one fired into the victim’s left temple, when the ICE agent shot through the driver’s side window from alongside the car.
In response to the homicide, President Trump false asserted the agent had been run over, and charged the victim with the “crime” of having been “very, very disrespectful to law enforcement”; the chief of Homeland Security called Ms. Good a “domestic terrorist,” supposedly “stalking” ICE (meaning she followed them to observe their conduct); and the Department of Justice launched an investigation, not of the killing, but of the victim’s widow.
Meanwhile, the Vice President proclaimed ICE impunity. Speaking of Renee Good’s killer, Vance stated, “That guy’s protected by absolute immunity.”
The claim is legally baseless, but ICE agents got the message they can brutalize and even summarily execute at will, without consequences. And now, within weeks, ICE agents have committed another murder, this time of Alex Pretti, a citizen who was an I.C.U. nurse, with a burst of bullets in the victim’s back while he lay defenseless on the ground.
New video angles appear to show Alex Pretti disarmed before being killed by federal forces
Since the Supreme Court approved of ICE stopping individuals based on racial profiling, ICE agents have seized and frequently assaulted individuals simply because they appeared to be Hispanic – or Hmong or Somali. They are freely employing the same tactics in Minnesota.
Do you carry proof of citizenship with you? Neither do I. But in an echo of Nazi Germany, ICE agents demand to “see your papers,” particularly if you are non-white.
Targeting journalists and citizen observers. An official policy of breaking into homes without a judicial warrant. Detaining children. Handcuffing individuals until they come up with proof of identity. Dragging people out of their cars without probable cause to think they committed a crime. Assault on suspected “illegals.” Attacking nonviolent, peaceful demonstrators with pepper balls, tear gas, rubber bullets. Threatening with guns, shooting at cars, and now, actual murders.
The Scream by Edvard Munch, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.
These are the abuses of a conquering army, inflicted upon an occupied nation.
ICE, the entity inflicting these wounds on our democracy, is no more a law enforcement agency than was Hitler’s Gestapo. ICE is an unrestrained, racist, violence-craving gang, trying to impose Trump’s will on a state. It should be disbanded.
Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans have taken to the streets to bravely defy ICE’s intimidation and violence, to insist on their rights under law, and to express solidarity with their neighbors who are ICE victims. And across the nation, many thousands came out in support.
In other places where liberty has been challenged, Americans and our leaders identified with a threatened people. “I am a Berliner,” President Kennedy affirmed at the Berlin Wall in 1963. “I am a Greenlander,” some now say in response to President Trump’s threats to invade an ally’s territory.
The threats and the invasion have come home. If our constitutional rights are not to be erased, we must act with the courage displayed by Minnesotans. “I am a Minnesotan.” So are we all.
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