Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, sent a statement to the Guardian, saying the officer’s actions were “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of Ice”.
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According to local news outlet AMNY, the agent was seen last month forcibly pulling a teenage girl from her father’s arms as she cried. The outlet also noted that several court observers have raised concerns for months about his physical conduct.
You sure that behavior isn’t acceptable, Tricia? Sounds like it was accepted for several months before now.
What’s different is huge power players folding on Jimmy Kimmel and reversing themselves, people getting unnerved that charging James Comey is going to backfire, people talking about might happen at that meeting of all the generals next week. Every crowd of people who gathered around to yell and insult the ICE agents without anything happening to them, grand juries not returning indictments on people who (supposedly) interfered with ICE arrests in some minor way, all these little indications that their shield of invincibility might be subject to a massive crowd of people outside the building at some point in the near future, and the leader they placed so much faith in might not protect them. Or it might be his supporters, and he might be egging them on to invade the building and kill them for some random reason they had nothing to do with. It happened before, they certainly remember that on some level if they’re in high level government service.
It’s not any one of those things, and it’s not a complete list, it’s just a nonstop series of events that create signals about the zeitgeist. And of course it’s not guaranteed that things won’t proceed regardless until you and I are having this conversation from the inside of an ICE facility a year from now. But every week that goes by, with people loudly resisting the bullshit, in public and unapologetic with nothing happening to them, I think a lot of people in position to make these decisions are getting the unnerving feeling that they might be on the wrong side. And it might be a really really bad idea to just keep escalating, secure in the knowledge that nothing will ever blow back on them in any fashion no matter what they do.
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You sure that behavior isn’t acceptable, Tricia? Sounds like it was accepted for several months before now.
What’s different is huge power players folding on Jimmy Kimmel and reversing themselves, people getting unnerved that charging James Comey is going to backfire, people talking about might happen at that meeting of all the generals next week. Every crowd of people who gathered around to yell and insult the ICE agents without anything happening to them, grand juries not returning indictments on people who (supposedly) interfered with ICE arrests in some minor way, all these little indications that their shield of invincibility might be subject to a massive crowd of people outside the building at some point in the near future, and the leader they placed so much faith in might not protect them. Or it might be his supporters, and he might be egging them on to invade the building and kill them for some random reason they had nothing to do with. It happened before, they certainly remember that on some level if they’re in high level government service.
It’s not any one of those things, and it’s not a complete list, it’s just a nonstop series of events that create signals about the zeitgeist. And of course it’s not guaranteed that things won’t proceed regardless until you and I are having this conversation from the inside of an ICE facility a year from now. But every week that goes by, with people loudly resisting the bullshit, in public and unapologetic with nothing happening to them, I think a lot of people in position to make these decisions are getting the unnerving feeling that they might be on the wrong side. And it might be a really really bad idea to just keep escalating, secure in the knowledge that nothing will ever blow back on them in any fashion no matter what they do.
You are absolutely right, and thank you for pointing that out and giving me a bit of legitimate hope for a better future. 🫶
Nothing is beneath them.
Yup. They wanted to send children to Guatemala in the dead of the night, likely into slavery. We must never forget that these people are evil.