ICE (et al.) do not currently have any credibility that they would act moderately and reasonably.
This is merely a function of what gets reported on. The vast majority of arrests and deportations around the country are conducted peacefully, with fewer officers, and without any bright lights or fanfare. ICE are moderate and reasonable in all places except where they face immoderate and unreasonable opposition.
If the media would report on every altercation where ICE officers professionally deescalated a situation, every instance where they peacefully detained a convicted criminal, or reported all the successful operations conducted with the cooperation of local law enforcement, then ICE would have all the credibility.
There is really very little evidence that ICE is actually doing a bad job, but just that they make mistakes when repeatedly put in very difficult and dangerous scenarios, but would the local police, national guard, or any other law enforcement agency do better in the same circumstances? That is really not clear at all, but the media is making it seem so. The BLM riots killed more than 2 people, and yet very many good people kept supporting those. In fact, one might say they've only killed 2 protesters so far! Is that high or low relative to the circumstances they are working with? I don't really know, but I also know the truth doesn't matter to anyone. The question is just whether those deaths can be used to pursue political goals. ICE are just losing the propaganda war, because they're outmanned and outgunned.
This and the refusal of local authorities to cooperate with ICE has been the main problem all along. Likely that Good and Pretti would both be alive otherwise. This is all about trying to obstruct Federal law enforcement but done in a way with some legal plausible deniability. We all know what they are doing, and they know that we know what they are doing, but all the while they repeat "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" Meanwhile, the media has leaned heavily into the hysterical propaganda, because they've finally seen their opportunity to hurt Trump and are going hard.
They're successfully distracting from the fraud scandal, which is likely to lead to a more general government corruption scandal down the line. There are strong incentives to create as many dangerous situations as possible and blame ICE for whatever happens. It's working very well so far, but I suspect it doesn't have the legs to keep going in the long run. Question is who will blink first--it'll be Trump
When you have lax immigration enforcement for decades, the whole structure of the economy rearranges around the presumption that illegal labor will be available. You can't just pull the rug out from under that in an afternoon. Those kind of structural changes take years to work out. The fault lies with the previous administrations, both red and blue, who intentionally allowed this to happen. Indeed, they were counting on it: "Oh well, I guess we can't deport now! Too costly, too unpleasant". And they are kind of right, because restructuring the economy is painful, and deporting millions is costly and often ugly. Unfortunately, it is necessary to pick and choose your priorities, where progress can be made quickly and where it must be made more slowly.
In principle, I'd like to do what you say, but I think it comes from a place of bad faith. The purpose of that suggestion is to maximize short-run economic pain and suffering, to maximize difficulties with politically influential businesses. The purpose is to make immigration enforcement so painful that it is essentially abandoned altogether, which is the same purpose that is driving things in Minnesota right now.
The pragmatic response is to acknowledge that immigration enforcement needs to proceed with some appreciation for the fact that we have dug ourselves into in a very deep hole. The laws weren't really written for a world where they would be neglected or subverted for decades before finally being enforced, and they would likely have been written quite differently had that circumstance been taken into account.
nomenym
2d ago
There is definitely an element of revenge and signaling. There is a lot of cruelty, neglect, and betrayal in enabling mass illegal immigration for decades. This is not counted, but it is felt by many. They are angry, and they want to see cold and harsh enforcement; they want no quarter to be given and if a few troublesome protestors die that is more than a price they're willing to pay. If they allow ICE to fail because it's hard and upsetting, then they lose their country.
nomenym
2d ago
Some bloodshed is priced into immigration law enforcement, especially after decades of intentionally lax enforcement. Of course, the alternative is not 'no bloodshed', but just different victims in different places and a net increase in bloodshed overall. The rest is propaganda.
nomenym
9d ago
I presume she fantasized about using lethal violence and ICE agents, and that she would realize those fantasies if given sufficient permission structure by society. She surely held a general malice towards ICE, as presumably most ICE agents do towards these types of protesters. I still think it unlikely that she meant to drive into him at that moment. I doubt she was capable of the 3d spatial awareness necessary to clip him just enough to hurt but not seriously injure. Mostly I think it was woman driver not correctly perceiving how big her vehicle was and how it would accelerate on a slippery road.
nomenym
10d ago
I guess this is precisely why the Trump admin is heavily discounting their importance. Many European allies are like a rapidly depreciating currency. By the time you try to cash them in, they're going to be worthless.
She was an agitator trying to cause trouble and he was a stressed out ICE agent dealing with a hostile crowd. When threatened with the possibility of arrest for obstructing law enforcement, she hit the gas. Why? Don't know, though someone (her wife?) yelled at her to drive, so maybe it was just that. She was not attempting to kill or assault the ICE agent and may not have even realized that she would hit him. The ICE agent, meanwhile, was not just idly standing in front of her vehicle, but rather walking around it when she started to move. He was likely especially concerned about being hit and dragged by the vehicle, since it had happened to him once already. She did strike him, but not in a manner which was seriously life threatening, but in that split second the ICE agent had the possibly unreasonable belief that his life was in danger and his reflexes did the rest.
Had the vehicle been moving a little faster or had made a more direct impact, then his life might really have been in danger. Had he been two more steps to the side then she would have missed him entirely and would not have been shot. These interactions presumably happen frequently for ICE, but the vast majority of the time people get lucky and nobody gets seriously hurt. Although she was violating the law and creating a dangerous situation, she obviously did not deserve to die and it's a genuine tragedy that she did. She should not have been there and the people who organize these "protests" need to be stopped. If the ICE agent could reload a previous save game and try again, then I'm pretty sure he would not to pull the trigger.
He was not a sadistic murderer and she was not a dangerous terrorist attempting to murder ICE agents. Both of them probably privately fantasized about lethal violence against the other side.
The broader issue is that many parts of the country appear to not want to be subject to immigration law and are in open defiance against it.
nomenym
19d ago
I kind of feel about this like I do about Ashley Babbit. It was a bad shoot, but she willfully created a situation that made a bad shoot highly likely. A tragedy, but not unlikely when you try to interfere with law enforcement activity. She was doing what she thought was right, and the officer was attempting to do his duty. Will she become a martyr? Frankly, if Minnesota thinks illegal immigrants should not be deported, then we need border controls around Minnesota.
Frankly, this is the kind of thing that would have resulted in pogroms at any other time in history. Same with the Pakistani rape gangs in the UK; the parallels are striking. Something very drastic needs to happen here, though Minnesotans are not capable of anything like an actual pogrom. Can there be some kind of polite and peaceful alternative that basically achieves the same goals without lots of violence? I can't really see a viable road back from here; the whole system is complicit, locked in, and ideologically committed to its own naivety because the alternative is too terrible to even contemplate.
nomenym
1mo ago
Or it could also just be to reduce suspicion that they were prostitutes, to not be so obvious about it. Seems likely that not everybody knew what was happening. A fig leaf of plausible deniability.
nomenym
1mo ago
The European elite has always despised you, and they barely even tolerate the Democrats. Trump is anathema to them. Musk, Trump, and the American right are clearly aligned with Europe's burgeoning counter-elite, so they're moving to punish that alliance.
Human beings start seriously malfunctioning if all their wants are satisfied immediately and with little effort. There are many things we need that we have no evolved drive to seek out, because those things simply were inevitable consequences of living in a world of danger and scarcity. We evolved drives to get the things that were scarce in the ancestral environment, not the things that just happened anyway. Modernity is more or less blind to those things we need but don't want, and so those things are sacrificed and destroyed to get more and more of what we want. This is not healthy. It's resulting in perhaps the most significant die off of bloodlines since the great plagues. Future humans will not be like past humans by the time it shakes out. The only way out is through.
nomenym
2mo ago
Russia's big mistake was attacking one of the few countries in Europe with a will to fight back.
nomenym
2mo ago
After the last few high profile violent crimes committed in the UK, there has been a curious rush to publicize that the offender was a second or third generation immigrant, usually a British citizen. This is apparently motivated from a desire to push back against anti-migrant sentiment: "See! He grew up in the UK. He wasn't an immigrant! You can't hold this terrible event against immigrants". It's one of those cases when the mainstream left demonstrates a complete failure to comprehend what their opposition actually believes and why.
It would be kind of like someone trying to publicize an instance of police brutality as proof of how bad black communities are: "Look! This is how brutal you have to deal with these people! This proves how irredeemably uncivilized they are". Of course, there are no doubt some people who actually do think like this, but even they would never try to use this argument against a left-winger because they understand how it would be interpreted in practically the opposite way.
nomenym
2mo ago
They would learn about it before the end of the day, they would not want to drown, and France is really not that terrible (despite all the French people).
nomenym
2mo ago
It's trivially true, even obvious. Sink a couple of boats and far fewer people die in the long run, nevermind the preventing other problems.
Restraining them from what? Were they unrestrained until they decided to go to Minnesota? Are they unrestrained in Mississippi where by most accounts they are going about their business without much incident? Where they have been unimpeded they don't seem to need much restraining. I have seen little convincing evidence that ICE has been operating particularly egregiously. There are many stories, but many are misleading when you look into the details. Some mistakes are inevitable, and the problem they are trying to put a dent in is very very big. If they didn't make some mistakes, then I'd know they weren't trying.
I don't like having federal agents out there asking people for their papers; I don't like the idea of having ICE run massive enforcement operations in American cities. I don't like any of it, and I am suspicious of all federal authority. I really would prefer a world where none of this was necessary. I probably would enjoy the company of the vigilantes more than the ICE agents. This is all a clusterfuck at least 30 years in the making, but we are where we are, and the Great Immigration Enforcement Defection cannot go unanswered, and it sucks. It risks major civil conflict that could, in the worst case scenario, spiral into the destruction of the entire union, but that risk is still better than the alternative.
Frankly, I am not sure ICE or the administration has anything to gain by admitting mistakes much less apologizing, because I don't think that would earn them any good faith or leniency. Both sides immediately stake out maximally extreme interpretations of events to see what they can get away with. When push back occurs, both sides quietly shift their arguments but never acknowledge changing their mind about anything. They're essentially bartering, trying to get the best "deal" that serves their interests and goals. Conceding ground on anything just gives your enemy an advantage. Reality is negotiable and truth is for dorks. The right has been learning from the left.
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