We’re simply alleged to assume that the masked particular person brandishing a gun and ordering us to get into an unmarked car is a federal agent, somewhat than a felony. We’re simply supposed to purchase into this new, hideous version of immigration enforcement that makes use of army gear, lengthy weapons, and a whole lack of identification as regular stuff People ought to simply put up with.
However varied gods forbid we truly count on public servants to be a bit extra forthcoming about their public duties. Utilizing apparently completely made-up stats about “increases” in “attacks” on ICE brokers, ICE’s enablers justify the whole erasure of public accountability — one thing that begins with informing individuals you’re truly a legislation enforcement officer by… you already know… behaving like a legislation enforcement officer. Your company needs to be named prominently. Your face — except you’re partaking in a really covert operation — needs to be seen.
Raiding properties and companies to spherical up anybody wanting sort of Hispanic in broad daylight isn’t a covert operation. Do your job proper or get the fuck out of the enterprise. When you’re in public, you assume the dangers. However numerous individuals in or orbiting the Trump administration appear to assume the federal government needs to be allowed to spend tax {dollars} with out feeling obligated in any approach to the individuals paying their salaries.
Enter someone who definitely hasn’t earned his publicly-funded paycheck, Senator Lindsey Graham.
When you can’t learn/see the embed, it’s a Xtwit from Lindsey Graham, which says he desires to make it unlawful for anybody to call/disgrace ICE brokers.
I’ll quickly introduce new laws that may enhance penalties for current statutes — or if obligatory create new statutes — designed to guard ICE brokers or different legislation enforcement officers concerned in covert operations.
[…]
Disclosing ICE brokers’ identities, as threatened, may put the brokers and their households at risk.
That is Senator Graham’s response to feedback made by Home minority chief Hakeem Jeffries during a press briefing last week.
Democrats and immigration rights advocates have criticized ICE brokers for carrying masks, likening them to enforcers from fascist and communist regimes.
“That is America. This isn’t the Soviet Union,” Democratic Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries mentioned at a press briefing on June 3.
“We’re not behind the Iron Curtain. This isn’t the Nineteen Thirties. And each single certainly one of them, it doesn’t matter what it takes, irrespective of how lengthy it takes, will after all be recognized.”
All the things Jeffries mentioned is true. We’re not behind the Iron Curtain. We’re not Hitler’s Germany. We should always not have secret police. So, it stands to cause, officers finishing up federal authorities applications needs to be instantly identifiable through identify tags, marked autos, and distinguished show of the federal company they’re working for. We count on this from common legislation enforcement. Federal legislation enforcement shouldn’t be given a particular exception to this assumption.
The one cause anybody would advocate for it is because they wish to distance their stormtroopers from any type of accountability. When rights are violated (and they’re… all the time) throughout migrant raids, masks and stripping of company emblems makes all of it however not possible to file complaints, a lot much less lawsuits, in opposition to authorities brokers who’ve violated rights. It additionally ensures officers received’t be named and shamed.
It additionally protects officers from any inside makes an attempt at accountability, nonetheless unlikely they is perhaps beneath this administration. Guaranteeing officers all the time stay unidentifiable hamstrings inside investigations by making any outdoors recordings of public interactions with officers utterly ineffective.
Any hypothesis in regards to the hazard posed to ICE brokers’ “households” is strictly that: hypothesis. There isn’t any proof suggesting this kind of threatening is so commonplace it justifies the continual hiding of brokers’ identities. If it was, you’d count on to see extra protesters or undocumented migrants dealing with felony prices for these threats.
That is Graham, as soon as once more, rolling over to point out Trump his uncovered stomach. And that may be high-quality if it solely ensured Graham was beholden to Trump so long as Trump stays in energy. However this transfer impacts everybody. And it’s onerous to imagine it will survive a assessment by the courts, regardless of the pre-loading of federal courts Trump carried out throughout his final time period.
That is cowardice in service of cowards who declare to worry for his or her security at the same time as they wage a struggle of terror on migrant-heavy neighborhoods and companies. If you wish to put on the jackboots, try to be prepared to take all the things that comes with it, together with the truth that you’re nonetheless a public servant finishing up your duties in public. When you don’t like that a part of the job or your obligations to the American public, you’re greater than welcome to go away the job. And the nation.
Lindsey Graham Thinks It Should Be Illegal To Identify ICE Agents
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