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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   28885 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Every White Male In Minnesota is now ICE

First I saw the video of a MSM Cameraman who was accused by a crowd of being ICE due to the car he drove. He himeslf was Anti-ICE and fine with opening his vehicle up and showing that all he had inside was camera equipment. The crowd was not mollified by this, their demands just grew more ridiculous. "Get another car! Rent a car!" They learned no lessons about stereotyping people based on their race and vehicle. It was the victim's fault for looking like the wrong type of person.

Then I saw the video of the tech workers sitting down for lunch together. One of the gentlemen was on an Anti-ICE Signal chat and saw a notification that was accusing him and his friends of being ICE. At first it seemed funny, but then the mob descended. And of course, despite this mob not having any badges, several of them covering up their faces, generally being a threatening bunch, these tech workers were expected to give out details about where they work, where they live, what their occupation is, their politics, etc. lest they face the wrath of the mob.

The videos are abundant once you start looking. The Tree Trimmer who has a caravan of Anti-ICE cars following them around, honking, for the crime of driving a work van with tinted windows. The tall white guy just walking by himself with a warm jacket.

The irony of it all is that this is what anti ICE groups are accusing ICE of doing. Going to places and harassing people based off of stereotypes without any legal authority to do so. Demanding evidence to prove that someone belongs here.

However, that's just not true. ICE goes after specific people who have a final order of dismissal from an Immigration judge. When they do so, they often find other illegal immigrants living in the same area or working at the same business, as that is the nature of these things. Oftentimes these people also have final orders of removal. And so it goes.

From January to October of last year, only 170 US citizens were detained by ICE as reported by ProPublica. Of those 170, many were arrested for interfering with ICE operations. Compare this with 234,211 removals (I don't have data on arrests or detentions, but I can assume the number of arrests/detentions is greater than removals. The "US Citizen arrest rate" is at most 0.07% of the ICE arrestees, probably much smaller due to fact that there are more detentions than removals.

In July 2025, during street arrests and similar activities, ICE arrested some 4,494 persons who had no criminal record and no final order of deportation. If ICE were just arresting people who looked different, this is the statistic that would show it. The vast majority of Black people (96%) and Hispanic people (79%) in this country are citizens, so, if a government dragnet arrests a bunch of Hispanic people just for their skin color, we would expect about four out of five of them to turn out to be U.S. citizens. The ratio would be even higher in this dataset, because we’re already excluding people with final orders of deportation.


Of the 4,494 immigration suspects arrested in July, 209 have been released (<5%). 30 won their cases and received some form of formal relief. The others were released without much detail, but it seems safe to assume that ICE realized that they were likely to win relief in some form and pre-emptively granted it themselves. Zero—I repeat, zero—of those arrested were U.S. citizens.

The narrative of, "ICE is just going to immigrant communities and asking to see papers and then arresting anyone who can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're here legally," does not hold up to scrutiny. But it seems like Anti-ICE people are assuming this is their playbook because it's what they would do, and are now doing.

The current atrocity going around X is that a mob stormed a church because the pastor had the same name as one of the higher-ups at ICE. They are not the same person.

Storming a church is a federal crime under the FACE act, a law passed in the mid-90s to protect abortion clinics from right wing activists, but which also protects religious services. If the disruption is forcible (as this was), it's a felony.

So to recap, these people are all catching felonies because they didn't bother to double check that the guy they were looking for didn't have the same name as somebody else.

Among the people in the group which stormed the church was Don Lemon, who was following them around to document their exploits.

Don Lemon getting sent to PMITA prison for breaking a law signed by Bill Clinton to protect abortion clinics wasn't on my 2026 bingo card but I'll take it.

The current atrocity going around X is that a mob stormed a church because the pastor had the same name as one of the higher-ups at ICE. They are not the same person.

This random site has pictures seeming to show that they are.

That makes prosecution more likely, I suppose.

Everyone in the justice system knows the FACE act was about abortion and the church part was a sop thrown to the right that was never intended to be used. I believe prior to Trump II it was never used for that. I don't think judges are going to be willing to apply the dead half of the law.

I (European) googled who Don Lemon is and conveniently a news article from the Hindustan Time had a short paragraph about Lemon, the FACE Act and a link to the video. The American soap opera truly has global appeal.

Will Don Lemon have 34 FELONIES!!!! on his record? 🤣

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