Oh, my. This is something. America fights back against ICE and CBP. This town is extremely unhappy, deservedly so. ICE is making a mess of their city when their brand of brutality is causing more trouble. But what can you expect from goons who hide behind masks, so they can do as they please? They are trying to normalize this behavior across the country. Well, there is at least one, probably many more (that don’t make the news or social media) cities that have had it. From Common Dreams via Raw Story:
Officials in Evanston, Illinois, are accusing federal immigration officials of “deliberately causing chaos” in their city during a Friday operation that led to angry protests from local residents. As reported by Fox 32 Chicago, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and other local leaders held a news conference on Friday afternoon to denounce actions earlier in the day by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. “Our message for ICE is simple: Get the hell out of Evanston,” Biss said during the conference.
Well, then! That’s about as straightforward as you can get. There’s no misinterpreting that ICE could do. Get the hell out. We don’t need you or want you here. It makes you wonder how ICE is going to react. We know they won’t leave gracefully – that’s certain. They might not even leave. Not sure what could be done about that, but we can be pretty certain Evanston will find a way to get them OUT.
But in the meantime, ICE might turn it up a notch in their “arrests” and the treatment of the people they’re after. They may become more brutal, make more arrests of citizens and immigrants, and do it so fast they won’t be able to stuff all of them in a van or some such to take them away. What the hell are they doing in Evanston, anyhow? Maybe they figured the town was “smaller” and they could work under the radar. Well, not anymore, they can’t. Nosiree!
In a social media post ahead of the press conference, Biss, who is currently a candidate for US Senate, described the agents’ actions as “monstrous” and vowed that he would “continue to track the movement of federal agents in and around Evanston and ensure that the Evanston Police Department is responding in the appropriate fashion.” As of this writing, it is unclear how the incident involving the immigration officials in Evanston began, although witness Jose Marin told local publication Evanston Now that agents on Friday morning had deliberately caused a car crash in the area near the Chute Elementary School, and then proceeded to detain the vehicle’s passengers. Videos taken after the crash show several people in the area angrily confronting law enforcement officials as they were in the process of detaining the passengers.
Y’know, angry might not really describe it. ICE *deliberately* caused a crash in front of an elementary school! Maybe they were trying to scare the kids, too, thinking they’ll go home and tell their families what they saw, and spreading more fear. It doesn’t matter that those kids will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. So they had to have been more than angry. The next level, well, not quite sure about that, but you get the point.
The operation in Evanston came on the same day that Bellingcat published a report documenting what has been described as “a pattern of extreme brutality” being carried out by immigration enforcement officials in Illinois. Specifically, the publication examined social media videos of immigration enforcement actions taken between October 9 to October 27, and found “multiple examples of force and riot control weapons being used” in apparent violation of a judge’s temporary restraining order that banned such weapons except in cases where federal officers are in immediate danger.
“In total, we found seven [instances] that appeared to show the use of riot control weapons when there was seemingly no apparent immediate threat by protesters and no audible warnings given,” Bellingcat reported. “Nineteen showed use of force, such as tackling people to the ground when they were not visibly resisting. Another seven showed agents ordering or threatening people to leave public places. Some of the events identified showed incidents that appeared to fall into more than one of these categories.”
WHAM. There ya go. Excessive force feels almost too clean a word for what ICE is doing. Brutality would be better. They feel free to do what they want since they are nominally federal law enforcement. Federal bullies are more like it. They are terrorizing the entire *state*. Where do they get all the people to handle an entire state? Last we heard, even though there were essentially no requirements to join ICE, but then the leaders found out there were things in their backgrounds that made them unsuitable for ICE. How many nasty people hid things just enough that when they became agents, they could let loose? And why are they ramping up in one state when they’re having trouble getting people? Could it be that ICE Barbie Kristi Gnome knows how mad Trump is at Governor Pritzker? That’s certainly possible. But they *won’t* find it easy in Illinois.
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
