My beef with ICE is structural: they have all the power of other law enforcement agencies, including the right to use deadly force, but very few of the checks on abuse that you would see with other branches of law enforcement. It’s more like the military in a war setting than a domestic law enforcement setting, since the enforcers have all the power and privilege of the U.S. government, while the target population is definitionally disenfranchised and disempowered. There is no civilian complaint review board for noncitizens abused by ICE to bring attention to misuse of power. All the incentives are pointing towards abuse of a vulnerable population, and that is what we have seen.

ICE agents, in my experience, also love a good show of force to intimidate the already-cowed. For instance, I saw an ICE agent with a police dog at the Garden City immigration office a few weeks ago. Why a dog had to be paraded around in front of all the nervous people waiting to be interviewed for their green cards was unclear to me. It’s not like they were tracking someone across the sands of Southern Arizona–this was Long Island. Also, a client of mine who was wrongly detained by an ICE agent–clearly ignoring the relevant parts of the INA and lying to my face about a supposed nonexistent past criminal charge–told me that the ICE agent who “brought him in” not only had a sidearm in a holster, but a gun strapped to his ankle. Two guns! (And doubtful either one ever has or ever will be fired.) 007 and John McClane, you’ve met your match on the ninth floor of one of the most nondescript buildings of downtown Manhattan’s federal bureaucracy.

But ICE agents need the guns to instill an appropriate level of fear in the immigrants they are wrongfully detaining while they interrogate them outside the presence of counsel. That’s right, it’s a little slice of Guantanamo at your local immigration office. And you better not complain, or you’ll be sure to be locked up.

I heard ICE was in the house, so I took the time to air some grievances. Hope y’all were taking notes.

I don’t know why anyone is really shocked that ICE agents would tend to be closet Nazis. While here on the border our local agents are generally local people, the kind of people attracted to jobs as bureaucrats with guns (and a mission to root out the “alien”)are going to be of the
same mindset as Fritz, your friendly neighborhood Brownshirt ca. 1935.