A protest in Minneapolis after the ICE agent shooting of observer Renée Good. Photo: Fibonacci Blue. CC BY 4.0
ICE is being chased out of Minneapolis. Hurray! Congratulations to the homegrown resistance, which rose up against an armed invasion of their city like the people of Stalingrad against the Wehrmacht, stood their ground in Arctic weather and clouds of tear gas drove the masked intruders away.
But hold on. Is ICE really leaving Minneapolis?
Yes, Gregory Bovino, that scarf-adorned brand ambassador for fascist couture, was abruptly yanked out of town and sent back to Southern California after his Border Patrol shock troops executed Alex Pretti in broad daylight and their feeble justifications for killing him crumbled from 12 different camera angles. Truth at 24-frames a second. Good riddance, Gregory.
But Bovino was swiftly replaced by Trump’s “Border (though he spends most of his time far from any border, including that of sanity) Czar” Tom Homan, the man whose cruel policies propelled Barack Obama to the heavyweight title of “Deporter-in-Chief.” It was Homan who advocated the caging of children as a tactic to deter border crossings. It didn’t work to keep desperate poor people from seeking a better life in the States. But it did serve to titillate the xenophobes of MAGA, where Homan became a minor celebrity on the rightwing creepshow circuit, a status he swiftly exploited to secure lucrative contracts for his expertise at making life even harder on brown-skinned people of any gender or age, from infants to geriatrics, than it already is here “Under the Red-White-and-Blue (Fitzgerald’s ungainly original title for The Great Gatsby). He eventually grew so full of himself that he walked right into an FBI sting operation, allegedly offering two undercover agents his services to secure them DHS contracts in the new Trump administration in exchange for a grocery bag full of cash.
After Trump was elected and took power, the FBI investigation into Homan’s contracts-for-cash influence peddling was quashed and Homan rose to new heights of power and arrogance, even lecturing two popes on matters of morality and the social teachings of the Catholic Church.
So, I ask again, who would believe Tom Homan, who was one of the key architects of what the twisted PR flacks at DHS dubbed Operation Metro Surge (All domestic invasions now have names like wars), which the department claims is “the largest immigration enforcement action ever.” Enforcement is another bit of misdirection. There’s been very little targeting of actual criminals. Instead, the “surge” has been characterized by a wave of unconstitutional searches, arrests and detentions. In the last three months, ICE and Border Patrol have arrested more than 4,000 people, shot at least three people (none of whom posed a threat to the agents who shot them), killed two people, injured and tear-gassed thousands and repeatedly tried to provoke confrontations with peaceful protesters, conflicts which they could use to escalate the violence of the crackdown.
The targeting of the Twin Cities came from the White House, which had habitually smeared the city’s Somali population as human “garbage,” who, according to Trump, Miller, Noem and Homan, were somehow plotting the “takeover” of the entire state of Minnesota. (In fact, the 87,000 Somalis who live in the Twin Cities make up less than 3 percent of the population of the metro area and the vast majority of them are American citizens.)
The resistance to ICE’s paramilitary-style raids in the city began only days after the operation was announced. Locally organized citizen networks began monitoring ICE’s movements and sending out alerts when ICE and Border Patrol units arrived in neighborhoods. Photographers, lawyers, and activists showed up to witness and document ICE’s raids. Soon, nearly every ICE raid was greeted by demonstrators. The Trump administration responded by targeting the protesters, calling them paid agents of George Soros and domestic terrorists.
Border Patrol’s roving commander, Gregory Bovino, an impresario of chaos and violence, was summoned to Minneapolis, less for his skills at tracking down wanted criminals–for which he has shown little talent–than his penchant for bombastic media appearances, made-for-TV raids and roughing up protesters. Soon, the inevitable happened. Renée Good was in the face and called a “fuckin’ bitch” by her killer as she bled to death in her car.
Three days later, Victor Manuel Diaz, a Nicaraguan immigrant who had been seized by immigration and quickly sent to an ICE prison in Texas, was found dead in his cell. DHS claimed he committed suicide. But offered no proof.
On January 18, ICE raided a house in Minneapolis without a warrant and seized a grandfather, and perp walked him out of his house in his underwear in freezing weather. The man was a US citizen and was later released.
Two days later, a five-year-old boy was seized by federal agents on his way home from pre-school and used as bait to arrest his father. Both father and son were shipped to an ICE detention prison in Texas, despite a court order and a pending asylum claim.
A civil rights lawyer and reporters were arrested and charged with federal felonies for observing protests. There was barely a provision of the Bill of Rights that the Feds didn’t almost gleefully traduce in Minneapolis. Then they killed Alex Pretti and most of the country (and the world) turned against them in horror.
Bovino was exiled, like some domestic William Calley, fingered as the scapegoat and now shunned even by bartenders in Vegas. And Homan was brought in to declare the end of Operation Metro Surge, the only time ICE has publicly announced the conclusion of an operation, which is in itself suspicious.
But again, why would anyone believe Tom Homan? This administration lies more frequently than it tells anything resembling the truth. It lies to the press. It lies to Congress. It lies to federal judges. It probably lies to itself.
During his press conference announcing the end of the surge, and in later appearances, Homan lied repeatedly. He lied about protester violence. He lied about paid protesters. He lied about ICE primarily targeting “criminal aliens.” He lied about ICE not engaging in racial profiling.
The “surge” has ended. But there are still two thousand immigration agents in the Twin Cities (nearly three times the number of local police), still doing what they’d been doing: making warrantless arrests, detaining US citizens, smashing car windows, seizing or breaking phones and cameras, harassing, recording, identifying and compiling biometric data on protesters and observers (nearly all of them American citizens). Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Yes, let’s venerate the brave souls of the Twin Cities, who came together to protect their neighbors from an invading force of masked paramilitaries. Let’s study and replicate their strategies, but be wary that the “great blonde beast” of ICE still lurks, its coffers swollen with taxpayer loot, wounded and chastened, but not slain, and, like many wounded creatures, is perhaps now even more unpredictable and dangerous.
So constant, if not eternal, vigilance remains the order of the day.
