I want to address four points pertaining to ongoing ICE and Border Patrol discourse surrounding the state-enacted murders of multiple U.S. citizens and disappearances of undocumented civilians.
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1. This is exactly what they were created and trained to do. No amount of training or reform will fix militarized police forces designed to protect settler colonial racial capitalist hegemony.
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2. The Border Patrol was created out of the original Texas Rangers, one of the most violent militarized forces in U.S. history, not the heroes of Chuck Norris’s TV show. TR specialized in sexual violence, mass murder, and property destruction. Look up the Porvenir massacre and La Matanza.
Under Obama, BP was granted a massive increase in their jurisdiction that encompasses 100 miles within the border-inland known as The Border Zone. This is why so many new checkpoints, centers, and offices were created across both borders and within metro areas–each installation extends that 100 mile radius. By the Biden administration, the BP jurisdiction included most of the contiguous United States.
So how can BP legally take action within the Twin Cities? Because Minnesota is a border state with land and water areas within 100 miles of the border, and at least eight official facilities in the Twin Cities metro area alone. That means each installation or office extends their jurisdiction by an additional 100 miles. It is a common misconception that the 100-mile radius is static and applies solely to the U.S./Canadian territorial border.
I applied for BP once around 2014 to better understand the process and placed 2nd overall on the state qualifications exam, but was blacklisted during the interview process due to my “radical beliefs” that immigrants are people who deserve due process. The white interviewer was hostile and spoke bad québécois; the Black and Indigenous interviewers wouldn’t look me in the eyes and stared at the table the entire time.
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3. ICE was created by the Bush Jr. administration after 9-11 by merging the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) and U.S. Custom Service (USCS). INS was originally responsible for all aspects of border security pertaining to immigration, detainment, asylum, and border security. The consolidation of agencies was promoted as increasing efficiency in operations and communications, but the real benefit was reduction in federal and judicial oversight.
ICE was adapted from the framework used to create the both the Bureau of Indian Affairs with their Indian Agents and “off-the-reservation” laws (sometimes known as The Pass System), and the Jim Crow laws that codified and reorganized slave patrols into municipal police. However, the BIA and Jim Crow first inspired Göring, Himmler, et al. to create the Geheime Staatspolizei, or secret state police, commonly known as Gestapo (which later provided the model for the US Central Intelligence Agency). This is why I posted, “ICE is Gestapo” a year ago; however, white neoliberals started using this phrase to erase domestic settler violence and systemic racism, so I no longer use or support the use of the phrase.
“Deporter in Chief” Obama beefed ICE (and BP) up more than any other administration resulting in the deportation of more than 3.5 million people. We have no idea how many children were separated from their families and lost or adopted out unlawfully to white settlers under his “prolonged and indefinite separation” policy. Propaganda from the era focused on immigration reform and Obama “protecting” Dreamers, but more sexual violence incidents were reported under his administration than any other.
Within the first month of Biden’s administration, his operations led to the arrest of more than 500,000 people who weren’t recent immigrants; they had been living within communities for years or their entire lives. The rhetoric, as always, was they were protecting the U.S. from criminals. His own people criticized him for only deporting two-thirds as many people as ICE/BP arrested.
There is no real difference between the presidents who have thus-far overseen ICE. The Trump administration actually detained and deported fewer people during his first term than Obama or Biden. He simply said out loud what the other presidents tried to disguise with protectionist rhetoric and fearmongering: target everyone, but especially the “others.”
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4. The Trump administration is detaining and deporting white people (see: “Irish Detentions Up 300 Percent,” Purple Heart-recipient William Vermie, graphic artist Rebecca Burke, and Johnny Noviello, a Canadian man who died in custody. Neoliberal media narratives focus on Black and Brown bodies as a form of colonial or cultural voyeurism, not as a way to amplify calls for abolition or means of support. We should not prioritize stories about white detainees, but it is important to understand the Trump administration is targeting everyone.
We are no longer at-risk or heading toward fascism: this is it. No one is safe. Protect the most vulnerable among your community and quit the magical thinking. No amount of peace, protest, calling elected officials, voting, or reform will fix a system working as-designed.
What are you willing to fight for? What will you die for?