Tell Me Again

Do me a favor.

Go on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. Even better find your own source of real experiences of real people who have had encounters with ICE.

Watch and listen to stories of ICE enforcement that have not been filtered through what passes for Kristie Noem's brain.

Find and listen to actual stories.

Go to courthouses, schools, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, jobs. All of the places where people are living their lives and minding their own business. 

Watch and hear how people not committing violence are accosted by unknown, unidentified masked men committing violence against them and being told to just comply.

Watch footage of how law enforcement detains other people who are accused of being violent criminals. If the alleged perpetrators are not actually in the act of committing a violent crime at the time of their apprenhension how are they approached and detained.

Compare and contrast. (That's for you academics out there).

Go and see. Bear witness. 

Stoop to look an elementary age child in the eye and explain to them that this fear and pain they are experiencing is their mami's or papi's fault. Better yet explain their own guilt to them and tell them to stop screaming and crying and just comply.

Go to a detention center and ask to see people being held there. Go alone, I dare you. After all ICE is only doing their jobs. If you are denied entry ask them why. Unless asking a question is suddenly against the law and somebody forgot to tell me about it.

One of the most frequent arguments I hear when talking about ICE enforcement is that Obama deported more people than Trump. Let me be clear. I was not a fan of the Obama administration's immigration policy. But show me where his administration used masked goons with body armor, military gear and tanks. Show me where they deliberately went to places where people were just living their lives, targeted people already going through a legally established process and left maximum carnage in their wake. There were protests against Obama's immigration policies. Show me where the response to those protests was federal troops being dispatched to cities and states despite objections by duly elected mayors and governors.

 Tell me again why ICE tactics under the current regime are okay or necessary.

Tell me again why parents following a legally mandated process are at fault for their children's trauma.

Tell me again how if they weren't criminals this wouldn't be happening to them and their children. And be sure to show me what actual crime they have committed other than existing in their skin.

Tell me again why it's okay for US citizens to be stopped by masked people in military tactical gear and roughed up or even detained just because they are speaking a language other than English or speaking with an "accent". And remind me again when an accent or a different language became probable cause for being stopped or evidence of a crime.

Tell me again why it's not as bad as I think because it's only been a few actual citizens and mistakes happen. And then tell me how many "mistakes" are finally too many.

Maybe if you say it often enough and loudly enough, I'll forget that these are vulnerable human beings worthy of dignity and respect and start to believe you.

So go ahead Tell Me Again.