This this this this this from @andrewstroehlein.
Again and again and again, ICE starts gathering in a spot, maybe even starts targeting someone — only to disperse and flee as soon as they’re afraid too many observers with cameras are going to show up. They really, really, really do not want to be seen.
1/2 https://mastodon.social/@andrewstroehlein/115911388765815794
The videos you see online where ICE is responding with violence to a large group? Those are the rare cases where they didn’t back off, maybe got caught too far into an abduction to run as observers show up.
Early in the invasion of Minneapolis, ICE realized observers were showing up too fast for their previous methods. They now try to operate in one of two modes: grab somebody and flee in as little as 5 minutes, before there are camers, or if observers start showing up quickly disperse and come back later.
It’s exhausting for everyone — but it is most definitely sand in the gears of their operations. Nothing here is as easy as they thought it was going to be.
2/2
Paul’s Patented 3 out of 2 Post™:
This grab-and-run strategy explains a lot of the incidents you hear about. ICE’s targeting strategy here is mostly chaotic and opportunistic. They can’t actually try to identify an undocumented immigrant, or even an •immigrant• at all, based on any kind of real evidence. They are mostly just running around trying to catch a brown-enough-skinned person in a vulnerable moment. Bully cowards.
This is one reason why you hear about them grabbing random people out of cars, grabbing US citizens, leaving a car sitting in the middle of the street, leaving kids abandoned in the car, chasing down a random person and then suddenly dispersing. They •know• it’s all disorganized, but they’re desperate to get in and out fast — and they have to hit those quotas somehow.
3/2
@inthehands I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there is an actual bounty on brown people.
I wouldn’t put it past Trump or Miller to institute bonuses for each person snatched off the streets.
There is a reason that ICE’s budget is so large
@hasani This is already happening: word is that some of the people conducting abductions are straight-up bounty hunters, not even ICE / DHS at all. That’s one of the reasons they’re desperate to keep agents from being identifiable on-scene: some of them aren’t actually agents and don’t have ID.
I don’t know how many.
I’m not sure they’re paid on a per-person basis, but I would expect so.
I find it hard to imagine that they’re being paid for “correct” arrests, i.e. people who were actually undocumented, instead of of just being paid for getting any brown body in cuffs and to the federal building.
@hasani
Yes, exactly. I had the same thought. Both the roving vigilante part and the part where they capture people who were freed or never even enslaved in the first place.
Again, there’s a lot I don’t know about these bounty hunters. My impression is it’s contracts with companies, not open to any little self-volunteered fash who want to show up. Yet. But the trajectory is obvious if we don’t stop it.
@inthehands that sounds something an independent journalist outfit should be looking at.
This whole thing runs on cash, so follow the money
Totally. There was this, which is a start:
https://www.404media.co/ice-plans-to-spend-180-million-on-bounty-hunters-to-stalk-immigrants/
@inthehands @hasani All part of the authoritarian playbook, like the Texas bounty program for abortion. The idea is to turn the entire nation into a network of paid informers, as with the East German Stasi. When you can’t trust your neighbor to not betray you to the regime, it makes organizing very difficult.
Which has all been done in the good old U.S.A. before, too, under the last fascist wannabe Richard Nixon, with COINTELPRO.
Non-lawyer here, but it seems to me that if you are being kidnapped by a non badge wearer, you can legally use deadly force to defend yourself. Am I right?
@BabblingGeek @inthehands @hasani
I didn't get this old by being reckless.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to test this out on the street. Not me. I'm old and disabled. Different rules apply at home. Castle Doctrine applies. Anybody with a judicial warrant is welcome to come in our home. I'll hold the door open for them. Anybody with out a judicial warrant who breaks down our door is going to die on the spot. We'd both rather explain it to twelve than get carried by six.
@LevZadov @inthehands I do wonder if someone has challenged willful misidentification in court. I’m not talking about undercover, but straight up impersonation.
It’s one of common sense, everyone knows the roles and authority by visual identification.
We know a judge is a judge based on the black robe in the courtroom. On the street, if you have ICE, Border Patrol, Bounty Hunters and National Guard all wearing the same or similar uniform, then what?
@LevZadov @inthehands Having distinct differences between clothing is so basic and yet ICE is getting people to pause by associating themselves visually as “police”.
There was a podcast with a former army general that hinted at the possibility of DHS and National Guard shooting at each other because you can’t tell friend from foe (they have the same gear but act completely differently).
And he was concerned that the taint of ICE would come down to the military since they all look the same
@hasani @LevZadov
Uniforms and identification are a really good question. Thing is, ICE here •don’t• look like police; they look like chuds playing “tactical forces” dress-up. And they’re usually masked.
MN NG posted this fascinating message. High-vis vests on top of camo. And the purpose of camo is…what again? Not to camouflage the wearer, apparently. (Avery Trufelman went deep into this in the “Gear” season of Articles of Interest. Long listen but strong recommend.)
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