Unbadged, Unaccountable, and Armed: Who Are These ‘ICE’ Officers?
Trump has seized control of the California National Guard and deployed them into Los Angeles to confront protestors angry about the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Unsurprisingly, the crackdown has only inflamed tensions. Violence has escalated. Journalists covering the protests have been shot with rubber bullets. Trump is threatening to arrest the Governor of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles. A prominent Union leader is already in custody.
Trump’s executive order federalising the national guard is written in broad enough to allow the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, to deploy National Guard and regular Army anywhere in the country he sees fit. Even into areas where no protests have yet taken place. Marine’s are on their way.
This looks less like crowd control and more like a deliberate provocation—an excuse to impose martial law on LA and potentially other Democrat-run cities.
The protests erupted because ICE agents are detaining and deporting American citizens—without trial, without charges. In many cases, the only “evidence” is that someone has a tattoo. Although the U.S. is home to immigrants of all races and religions, ICE appears to be almost exclusively targeting Hispanic Americans, many of whom were born in the U.S.
And yet, there are two questions that continue to bother me.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist—but something about ICE doesn’t add up.
- Who are these people?
They don’t look like law enforcement. Their faces are covered. Their flak jackets say “law enforcement” but lack badges or identification numbers. Their uniforms—and in some cases, their tattoos—look disturbingly like those worn by far-right militias. - Where are the women and children?
We’ve seen footage of men being detained. But ICE is also rounding up women and children, and they’re vanishing from public view. Where are they being held? Why aren’t they being shown? What’s happening to them?
So far, over 100,000 people have been detained without trial, without due process. The overwhelming majority are non-white.
Let’s be blunt: this looks like ethnic cleansing. Armed right-wing paramilitaries appear to be carrying it out under the banner of federal authority. After Kyle Rittenhouse acquital Republican law makers have made it clear that murder of minorities by white nationalist militias is legal.
This isn’t Germany in the 1930s. Paramilitary militias, citizens disappearing into camps, ethnic cleansing. This is Yugoslavia in the 90s.
These are the same far right groups that have long fantasised about a race war. It looks like Trump just gave them permission to start one.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/washington-dc-role-play-second-trump-term