ICE misconduct megathread (Immigration "enforcement" in the US)

[The Brain]

These are the dastardly bomb-throwing anarchists in top hats we're looking for?

[Tamas]

  OMG I know crying over this state of affairs is more appropriate but we have crossed so much into the absurd.

Respect for them and the others putting their safety and freedom on the line while most of their country continues to enjoy the comforts they are not aware are at grave risk.

[Jacob]

Indeed. Massive respect to these women and others like them.

[The Minsky Moment]

My God, not anarchists in pink heart shirts, the horror!
The poor Homeland Sec agents, they only have 2 officers to keep hold of the deadly giant in the white poofy coat.

It's almost like they are trying to parody themselves.

[The Minsky Moment]

Poofy jacket girl is a teaching assistant in a special education school.  Arrested in the school parking lot. 

"anarchist"  What a joke.

[Jacob]

I hope there's a mobilization of legal resources to support the people being arrested.

Do we know what happened to these women and others like them who've been detained for protesting against ICE?

[Oexmelin]

Just remember: the goal is much less to win an eventual case, and much more to convince people to remain home and be fearful about protests.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Pretty much.  This will be an effective cudgel until someone physically stops DHS from picking people up for bullshit reasons.  Obviously less effective than if charges stuck, but most people will be put off by the thought of the run-in itself.

[Sheilbh]

Just remember: the goal is much less to win an eventual case, and much more to convince people to remain home and be fearful about protests.

And justify the deployment of ICE etc on the streets of cities. Which would also convince pele to remain home and be (more justifiably) fearful of the ruling party's paramilitaries.

[Jacob]

Just remember: the goal is much less to win an eventual case, and much more to convince people to remain home and be fearful about protests.

Agreed. That's the administration's goals. Just like it's their goal to keep repercussions from reaching individual ICE agents.

Conversely, the goals for the resistance is to support these people as much as possible. If individual arrestees have their lives ruined and their fellow protestors, friends, and families turn their back on them then the arrests will have their intended effect.

If the arrestees are supported and celebrated - if their situations turn into embarrassing legal cases for the government, if it doesn't end up impacting their lives that much, and if supportive and celebratory narratives flourish on social and traditional media - then the policy of intimidation may end up being counter-productive for the regime.

Oex you've often talked about the necessities of civil organization and resisting where you can. One (possible) upside of these arrests is that they can (potentially) serve as locuses of further organization. If there are civil minded lawyers ready to fight the government on each of these cases that can become both a vector for actively fighting the regimes repression, and even for mobilizing further support.

So I'm hoping there are lawyers out there willing to help, which is why I'm asking.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I have seldom seem a less scary looking bunch of people than this bunch of "domestic terrorists" 

Couldn't ICE even be bothered to find some big tough guys to arrest?

[Norgy]

I thing they may have very sharp tongues that could hurt a male ego.

[crazy canuck]

I thing they may have very sharp tongues that could hurt a male ego.

 

Richard clearly lacks the necessary low level of self confidence required to see the real threat here.

[Oexmelin]

The transcript of the case is quite the read.

An ICE attorney who publicly expressed frustrations with her role and told a court "this job sucks" is no longer detailed to the US attorney's office for the district of Minnesota, according to NBC News.

"The system sucks. This job sucks," Julie Le, an attorney representing the US attorney's office in Minnesota, said in response to a federal judge's questions on why ICE has repeatedly failed to comply with court orders.

"I wish you would hold me in contempt so I would have a full 24 hours sleep," she added in comments that quickly went viral.

US district judge Jerry Blackwell had ordered Le, as well as assistant US attorney Ana Voss, to appear in his St Paul courtroom on Tuesday to explain why the DHS missed multiple deadlines to release five detainees who the judge said never should have been arrested in the first place.

A court order is not advisory, and it is not conditional," Blackwell said. "It is not something that any agency can treat as optional as it decides how or whether to comply."

During the hearing, Le acknowledged that many at the DHS did not understand the seriousness of an order from a federal judge.

"It took a long, long, long time, and many orders to show cause to explain and let them know that if you don't fix it, I'm going to quit and you're going to be dragging yourself into court," she said.

Le said that she moved from her job as an ICE lawyer to the Minnesota US attorney's office on 5 January to help it respond to an influx of civil filings of detainees, known as petitions of habeas corpus.

Le also told the court that she had previously submitted her resignation, after handling more than 88 immigration cases in less than a month. She ultimately ended up staying in the role because there was no one to replace her.

Le's testimony took place amid intense scrutiny of the ICE operations in Minnesota, which have resulted in the detention of adults and children without criminal records, including Liam Ramos, the five-year-old in the viral photograph being detained by ICE agents in his bunny hat.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, announced on Wednesday that about 700 federal agents would leave Minnesota, a large drop in agents on the ground but still leaving about 2,000 agents there, far above typical levels for the state.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/ice-attorney-minnesota-removed-after-court-statement

[The Minsky Moment]

Viewable here.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26871634-19-ts-of-020326-hearing-segundo-apg-v-bondi-26-cv-603/

This is another demonstration why, when I referred to the operation in Minnesota as a "shit show," it was a both a gross understatement, and an unfair aspersion cast on honest purveyors of feces-based entertainment.