Hiding in Plain Sight

Democrats push to unmask ICE

Credit: Getty Images

When United States law enforcement officers cover their faces, they send a clear message: We’re not accountable to anyone.

This tyrannical Donald Trump-Stephen Miller immigration tactic is working as planned. Terrifying Americans is the goal.

It wasn’t until March of last year that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began covering their faces, claiming they were being “doxed,” a practice of revealing personal information online. They claimed their families were endangered.

Somehow, local, state, and federal police have been able to perform their jobs, including arresting violent criminals, for decades without concealing their identities. Thanks to Trump, we now have a menacing secret police force in America. But the masks and the warrantless searches could soon end.

Democrats are demanding that those strategies be dropped if the administration wants the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, to be funded past Friday. Otherwise, the government will shut down.

Suddenly, the president has been backed into a corner.

Trump is a bully. What do bullies do when they are cornered? They turn tail. But Trump’s bullying is a unique sort, because he has the full force of a federal government he has fashioned into his own retribution machine at his disposal.

When things go south for him, as they have in Minneapolis, and even White House polling shows a significant further slide in support, he recalibrates and then retreats… sort of.

Trump’s first efforts to supposedly lower the temperature in Minneapolis involve personnel changes.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, whom lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called on to be fired, resign, or impeached, has been sidelined. She hasn’t been heard from since her disastrous, lie-strewn press conference after the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents. She claimed Pretti “violently resisted” and “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Border czar Tom Homan is now stepping in for Noem on issues of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. The president told ABC News that he believes Homan’s leadership will lead to a “maybe a little bit more relaxed” approach.

Gestapo cosplayer Gregory Bovino, the man initially in charge of the Minneapolis ICE deployment, has been reassigned to California and will be retiring. While the two agents who shot Pretti have been put on administrative leave. Initially, DHS said they had been reassigned to another city. We still don’t know their names.

At Homan’s first on-site news conference Thursday morning, he sounded, if not conciliatory, at least not as belligerent as his predecessor. “I come here looking for solutions. I do not want to hear that everything’s been done here has been perfect. Nothing’s ever perfect.”

But if you are expecting an immediate withdrawal of the 3,000 ICE agents from the city, don’t hold your breath. Homan said he is working on an eventual “drawdown plan,” but only with the cooperation (and capitulation) of state and local officials.

Reuters is reporting that ICE agents in Minnesota have been directed to target only immigrants with criminal records or pending charges and not to interact with “agitators,” which should be the bare minimum expected of any law enforcement agents.

Other than a personnel shuffle, nothing has substantively changed. Five days after a second American was gunned down in the street by agents of the federal government, heads should be rolling. People should be held to account and fired. Agents should have been marched out of the city. The Department of Justice and the FBI should have opened an investigation.

Instead, the president is still playing the bully. He labeled Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski “losers” for calling for Noem’s resignation. He threatened Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on social media, admonishing him for “PLAYING WITH FIRE.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted photos of “16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement—people who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents. We expect more arrests to come. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law.”

That doesn’t sound like a more “relaxed” approach.

It turns out Trump’s half-hearted de-escalation measures are simply an effort to placate congressional Democrats, according to Punchbowl News. Preserving the spending bills already passed in the House and avoiding another government shutdown is his actual motivation.

George Conway, the Republican-never-Trumper-turned-Democrat warned, “Don’t fall for it, Senate Democrats.”

Right now Democrats have a rare moment of leverage with public outrage at fever pitch. Last week, the House passed a handful of spending bills, including one that funds DHS.

The Senate must now pass them to keep the government open. Passage requires a supermajority (60 votes), which means seven Democrats would have to join Republicans. After the deadly events in Minnesota, Senate Democrats say they will not vote to fund DHS. A test vote failed late Thursday ahead of the Friday midnight deadline.

Unlike during the run-up to and through the last government shutdown, the White House and congressional Republicans are actually negotiating. Reportedly, Democrats have been offered executive action but no legislative options. Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, signaled that won’t fly. He is rightly distrustful of any promises Trump might make.

Democrats are demanding significant changes, changes that during any other administration would be unnecessary, because they are standard operating procedure. They are asking that agents wear body cameras, remove face masks, adhere to legal warrant procedures, and be limited by use-of-force standards.

Democrats are right to call for legislative action on these demands. But writing them into law would require the bill to return to the House. And House Republicans have warned that they don’t have the votes to pass a new version of the bill.

The best way to fight a bully is to stay calm but confidently assertive. To that end, rock legend Bruce Springsteen is lending his conscientious voice to the battle raging in Minnesota with a new anthem for these troubled times.

He wrote, recorded, and released “Streets of Minneapolis” in just three days, in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis,” Springsteen said.

We leave you with one of his poignant stanzas.

And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

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Dan