Let me bring it home for y'all using a topical example: ICE.

ICE has always been bad, but recently it's ramped up. It doesn't matter if an *individual* ICE agent is a good person or a bad person. The *system* of ICE now requires them to hit a deportation quota, so they are all targeting civilians.

There are dangerous undocumented immigrants. Very dangerous. Consider the 100 most dangerous undocumented immigrants in a population of 12 million undocumented people. People like "Big Dragon."

But you cannot find them.

Suppose the ICE Dangerous Fugitive Apprehension Team is looking for Big Dragon

https://www.tiktok.com/@adrianembrey/video/7269578282482322731

Suppose the hypothetical Big Dragon threatened to shoot an undocumented taco cart vendor on Wilshire Blvd in LA, in front of over 100 people, 80 of whom were undocumented.

Then the ICE team shows up, looking for people to "come down to DHS and make a statement."

No one is talking. No one is going🙅🏽‍♀️

This is beyond "Stop snitching," and a cultural revulsion to cooperating with police.

This is beyond "Snitches get stitches," and fear of reprisal from the hypothetical Big Dragon or his associates.

This is a rational understanding that giving a statement holds a real risk of detention to CECOT.

Would the other taco vendors have been more likely to call Immigra on the hypothetical Big Dragon:

* In the 1990s, before the creation of ICE?

* In the 2000s, after ICE was created, but before this round of mass deportations?

* Now, in the full fascism and mass deportation era?

If ICE does an NYPD style "work stoppage" and doesn't deport a single person for a period of 6 months...

Do you think that would increase or decrease the likelihood that an undocumented person would be willing to help ICE find and arrest the hypothetical Big Dragon?

Consider a kind, undocumented taco stand vendor in LA. In 20 years he has never even thought of carrying a gun before. He had always assumed that if he ran into trouble, he would just call 911.

Now he realises that he can't call 911. ICE.

And he just saw hypothetical Big Dragon threaten a man...

2/3

If you understood this thread, then you will understand why due to ICE's recent actions:

*Arrests of violent criminals who are undocumented will go down🤡

*Violent crime by undocumented people will go up

*Unlicensed gun ownership among undocumented people will go up

So ICE is *creating* crime.

You can prioritize deporting the 100 most dangerous undocumented people, who commit the vast majority of the violent crimes.

Or you can prioritize deporting the 12 million other undocumented people.

But you can't prioritize both.

Again, to put the numbers in perspective:

Of ~12 million undocumented people, 50,000 are in ICE detention. That's bad.

Of ~20 million Black men, 4 million will be imprisoned at some point in their life. Not a typo. 1 in 5.

Those are horrific numbers.

3/3

@mekkaokereke I appreciate these posts a lot. You're absolutely right.

Since you're talking about numbers

Trump wants 3K people a day deported, and ICE is already running out of their whole budget for all of 2025 and failing to keep up with those numbers anyway.

So 3K a day x 365 = ~1.09 million. Trump decided he wanted 1 million people deported and worked back from there.

But horror aside, it's not a realistic plan. He's not even giving them the funding they need.

@sidereal @mekkaokereke in a way the numbers feel like they don't matter.

Blame poor brown people for systemic problems.
Ask for lots of taxpayer cash to combat said lies.
Fumble around a lot and generally sew terror as part of the fracas.
If you hit numbers, find a lie to ask for more funding.
If you don't hit numbers, find a lie to ask for more.
I tend to think the numbers don't matter to the forces at hand. The sewed terror is the end.