It’s not like I expected significant changes at DHS and ICE with Stephen Miller’s lust for rounding up and deporting people as strong as ever. Markwayen Mullen isn’t Kristi Noem and Tom Homan isn’t Greg Bovino but the culture they created and the practices they introduced continue. That includes arresting kids, even ones here legally and who’ve never been in trouble of any kind and whisking them away to a detention center. Oh, and making a big freaking show out of their arrest.
Yep, the old ways when a small and well-trained team of ERO agents quietly carried out their duties ain’t coming back if the current administration can help it. Making a big show of what they do is part of ICE and DHS culture now. As this article from CT Insider reports that includes sending four, FOUR freaking SUVs full of agents stopping a Connecticut high school honor student out of the vehicle he was riding in:
Four cars full of agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the Cheshire honor student while he was driving with his uncle about half a mile from the family’s Cheshire home, where an American flag hangs out front every day, said one of his attorneys, Lauren Petersen.
“This family did everything right,” Petersen said at Friday’s press conference. “It’s the government that’s not following its own rules.”
This teenager and his family have lived here and done all the things they were supposed to do. Even assimilated it seems into American culture. This young man’s father risked greatly to help us by working for our armed forces in Afghanistan. (more on that in a bit) In doing so he put his family at risk too. Being returned to that country would most likely lead to being put to death. Bad as it is that this young man in sitting in a detention center 135 miles from home, it’s not the first time ICE has gone after the family:
It’s the second time in less than a year ICE agents have arrested a member of Rihan’s family. Six masked ICE agents arrested his father, Zia, last July during a routine visit to a federal immigration office in East Hartford. Zia had worked as an interpreter for U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan, and his case quickly became national news, with Blumenthal in particular championing his cause.
ICE released Zia in October after a federal district judge ordered that he be granted a bond hearing and an immigration judge determined he was not a flight risk and did not pose a danger to the community.
FYI the family asked that only their first names be used for both their own safety and that of relatives still in Afghanistan. I hope Miller doesn’t get wind of that part. HE is such a vile, despicable excuse for a human being he’d call up the Taliban government over there and probably their propaganda news outlets and doxx the whole family! For the moment DHS issued a statement to CT Insider that said Rihan had been arrested for ‘federal immigration violations’, that there’s a notice for him to appear before a judge and that he’ll remain in ICE custody pending proceedings. They also claim ‘he will receive full due process.’ Sure. My response to that piece of bullshit is yank on my other leg – it’s got bells on it. Of course, DHS has NOT cited and specific violations. His lawyers maintain that he is fully compliant.
I said I’d get to this and there’s a point I want to make. This is all due to Trump administration (as in YOU Stephen Miller) bullshit about a whole bunch of Afghan people being given asylum in the United States (other countries granted it as well) – including those who specifically helped them. As you’d expect the justification DHS cites is a pack of effing LIES:
“Biden-era parole programs let in 190,000 Afghan nationals with a vetting process that was demonstrably inadequate,” DHS said in a statement to CT Insider. “No overseas criminal background checks were performed, social media accounts were not screened, and there was no systematic cross-referencing of information. In many cases, entry was granted on the basis of a single recommendation. Under Secretary Mullin, DHS has been going full throttle on vetting illegal aliens who came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs and working to get the criminals and public safety threats OUT of our country.
I’m outraged by all that unmitigated bullshit and you should be too. Of course people were vetted and those we got out are far less likely to commit crimes or cause trouble than the average MAGA. However the point I really want to make is that this young man’s father worked for our military as an interpreter. OF COURSE he was thoroughly checked out before being allowed to do so. Given the extended families in that culture it took a helluva lot of effort to ensure he (and his family) wasn’t a security risk! This guy had to pass a security investigation the equivalent of one of us obtaining a Top Secret Clearance. There are plenty (including Stephen Miller) in top positions surrounding Trump that for various reasons would be rejected if anyone else was President.
To argue that this young man’s father wasn’t properly vetted, or his family that’s lived here without incident is an insult. And an OUTRAGE. People from his school and school district have show up at the Connecticut state Capitol to protest this. And Senator Blumenthal is raising some hell about it. Like his father when he finally gets before a judge I’m sure he’ll be released. After what happened with the father let’s hope the judge is a hardass and rakes the U.S./ICE lawyers over the coals in a judicial language version of “WHAT THE F**k IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE! The way you act YOU are more of a threat to public safety than this kid or anyone in his family!”
Well, we can hope. Right now I’m just pissed that some honor student who like his father and family came here after serving our country (something no Trump or Stephen Miller has done) and is being treated this way. This young man should be with his family, or out with friends at some high school function or on a date. Anything but sitting in some sh*thole detention facility. If I were this family I’d explore whether Canada will take them in.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
so that would be the honors student criminal threat. so have they started properly vetting ice and cbp agents yet? my guess would be no.
I’m eagerly waiting for a judge to get so fed up with this that he or she orders the immediate appearance of the heads of DHS and ICE and Stephen Miller to demand full PUBLIC ON-THE-RECORD explanations of their policies and procedures for ALL their “round-up” orders with FULL DETAILS (at least for the judge’s perusal; what gets on the official printed record can be redacted as necessary) of those explanations. And any single one of them that attempts to blow off the mandated court appearance leads to said official’s IMMEDIATE arrest the moment they appear in the judge’s jurisdiction for whatever reason. Let the officials appeal their arrests AFTER the fact, even if it requires an emergency appeal to SCOTUS. SCOTUS only granted that “absolute immunity” to Drumpf; it said nothing about anyone in his orbit, not even Cabinet members.