It's only a matter of time before ICE seizures lead to violent clashes...

Get the Point!

We, the people, have learned little from recent U.S. history...

Each time I watch a video reel of masked ICE agents roughing up, cuffing up, or barking loud and profane orders at visibly frightened alleged illegal immigrants, some of whom actually are U.S. citizens but look (brown) and sound (Spanish accents) like alleged illegal targets, it literally boils my blood as the historian in me recognizes that this is a recrudescence of the shameful internment camps that held people of Japanese descent during World War II.

Japanese-American citizens were rounded up from their homes, schools, and jobs—at gunpoint—and placed into detention facilities across the U.S. during World War II…

Each time I watch these arrest videos, the advocate in me that tried over 200 cases in federal and state courts as a prosecutor or defense attorney recognizes that a mockery is being made of "due process of law," the literal foundation of America's justice system, as alleged illegals and citizens alike are being snatched from their jobs, schools, homes, and off the streets! These frightened souls are being thrown into detention facilities without access to legal counsel, hot showers, adequate food, and in Florida's already infamous "Alligator Alcatraz," facing exposure to raw heat, humidity, and those pesky disease bearing mosquitoes down in the Big Cypress Swamp.

How did America get here? Part of this question is easy to answer in that Donald Trump, the former president who stoked a mob to prevent the transition of presidential power in 2021 after being soundly defeated by Joe Biden, was charged for his seditious acts in 2023, and faced spending his remaining years on Earth in a federal prison or on home confinement, has returned to the White House with a grudge! In a desperate but fruitful effort to avoid facing the music for his crimes, Trump emerged victorious—narrowly—over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by hook (32 percent of eligible voters unwisely stayed home on Election Day or chose a lesser known fringe candidate), or by crook (evidence is slowly emerging that digitized election machines were rigged in Trump's favor in several ordinarily Democratic leaning enclaves).

What's difficult to answer is what happens next, meaning, with seemingly weekly incidents where congressional and state legislative leaders are being refused entry—or arrested for even seeking entry—into MAGA run detention camps across the country, how can the Trump administration be held accountable for its blatant breaking of well established laws if no one with credibility can observe and report their findings?

Above, Florida State Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-Miami) and several colleagues are suing MAGA Gov. Ron Desantis after their Florida statutory rights to enter and observe the “Alligator Alcatraz” were blocked last week…

To address some of these concerns, yesterday in California, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Biden appointee, ordered that the Department of Homeland Security must "develop guidance for officers to determine 'reasonable suspicion' outside of the apparent race or ethnicity of a person, the language they speak or their accent, presence at a particular location, such as a bus stop, or the type of work one does.”

Well, it's a damned shame that any sitting jurist has to write what every single lawyer, federal agent, and police officer has been drilled and taught to be true time and again, which is that law enforcement should be readily identifiable by their appearance or badges, and that arrests should be made if and only if said officer has a warrant that's been previously reviewed and authorized by a judge, or a good faith reasonable suspicion that a detainee has broken the law in plain view of the arresting officer, period—full stop!

But just as I predicted long ago, white supremacy will not die easily in America, which is why President Trump's agents aren't out in these streets rounding up alleged illegal immigrants from Russia, France, Great Britain, or his ancestral home in Germany; those immigrants have the complexion (white) for legal protection as the heart of the MAGA matter boils down to slowing the reality that before the 21st Century gives way to the 22nd, that whites will be a racial minority in the United States.

But no, just like Africans were enslaved in the American colonies in the 1600's, in part, because they were easily identifiable and less prone to escape and blend in like European indentured servants were doing at the time, ICE Agents couldn't care less about legally sufficient probable cause because in the minds of their bosses who have issued the orders, the perceived crime, if you will, is being born with darker skin and a native tongue that speaks Spanish, Creole, or Portuguese!

Not surprisingly, yesterday, one of Trump's propaganda ministers, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, condemned Judge Frimpong's injunction by declaring that, “A district judge is undermining the will of the American people.”

No, Missy McLaughlin, Judge Frimpong is merely upholding basic laws that the Trump administration is bound and determined to break in its sickening effort to declare the president's racially biased will as the will of the majority.

What's worse is that each time I witness a brutal round up, or the shielding of ICE targets by American citizens who are placing their bodies, sometimes en masse, between ICE Agents and their darker skinned targets, I am cautiously encouraged by this courageous form of civil disobedience that places the protectors in harm's way.

You see, what often isn't taught in American history, social studies, or civics courses these days is that historically and in some states, presently, we, the people, could and can resist an unlawful arrest and be legally justified by so doing! If you didn't know that please don't beat yourself up, because long before Trumpism and MAGA politics emerged on the scene, the political powers that be have always preferred a citizenry that fearfully bows down to any command from readily identifiable law enforcement officials.

But as we see time and again these days, most of these ICE Agents wear masks and look like they just stepped off of the set of "Duck Dynasty" or out of a militia bivouac in the woods, a reality that would make any intelligent target question whether they are, in fact, sworn officers—or some right wing, Proud Boys/Oathkeepers types who are "playing" cop to please their racist supreme leader, Donald Trump. Which is why I sincerely believe that if the masks don't come off and dictates are not given for each officer to wear a badge on their chests that identifies their home agency, the ensuing chaos, I fear, is eventually going to lead to some officer(s) being beaten, stabbed, or shot by a target claiming self defense in the resistance of an unlawful arrest.

While such would be horrific and regrettable, history shows that from the Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany, to on campus violence at Southern University, Jackson State University, Kent State University, and South Carolina State University during the turbulent civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests over fifty years ago, when due process of law is usurped by the supposed upholders of the law—and disorder ensues—it's only a matter of time before chaotic violence becomes the order of the day!