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community weblog

ICE has caught the attention of the United Nations

The UN's top human rights official has raised alarm over what he described as the growing dehumanisation of migrants in the United States, warning that current immigration enforcement practices are undermining due process, family unity and basic human dignity. Meanwhile, ICE has stopped funding medical treatment for detainees held at their camps. Yet another autopsy at an ICE camp finds detainee was "suffocated" to death. ICE camps detail inhuman conditions. Meanwhile, the German media comment on US Border Guard's "Nazi look". And the White House faked photographs of woman arrested for protesting ICE.
The stream of lies by the Trump administration over their deployment of ICE has reached epic proportions. What are they hiding? Kansas City bans the Trump regime from establishing an ICE camp for 5 years. Talking about 5 year olds. The world is watching closely.
posted by infini on Jan 23, 2026 at 6:04 PM

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Could the UN just kick America out for not playing right? Trump is currently trying to start his Peace Bros club or whatever, which as far as I can tell is just a protection racket.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:12 PM

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I will say, I'd be more impressed with Greg Bovine's "fascist aesthetics" if he didn't look like a kid playing dress-up in his dad's uniform coat.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:16 PM

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Could the UN just kick America out for not playing right?

Assuming your question was not tongue-in-cheek, then no, not really. No permanent member of the UN security council (US, China, France, Russia, and UK) can have their membership in the UN revoked without their own consent, as any of these five nations can veto a UN resolution. Of course, nothing stops every other nation from forming a new organization, say UN2, and not inviting the US to join.
posted by RichardP at 6:53 PM

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its all so depraved
posted by H. Roark at 6:55 PM

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Good for the United Nations I guess, but they aren't about to come to Minneapolis, and Trump doesn't care what they say. He isn't bound by the disapproval of "the international community."

I think their language also doesn't go far enough. ICE is dehumanizing migrants, yes, but let's not mince words. They are beating people up. They are using chemical weapons. They are zip-tying children. They are kidnapping people.
posted by mai at 6:59 PM

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> as any of these five nations can veto a UN resolution

Not true. They can veto certain kinds of resolutions.

As demonstrated by Taiwan being replaced with PRC while a member of the security council, they cannot veto all resolutions.

But that is pretending the rules based international order is in play. It isn't: the UN can violate its own rules freely. Doing so while the headquarters is in Manhatten is tricky, however.
posted by NotAYakk at 7:37 PM

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In my town they are terrorizing entire schools of children and teachers. Heinous and inexcusable. It's very dark but I wonder how long until there is one of these lockdowns and then a fire in the building.
posted by Mizu at 7:42 PM

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what would it take to move the hq?
posted by Clowder of bats at 8:09 PM

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Fuck these Republicans/Nazis.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:46 PM

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You are correct NotAYakk. The UN general assembly determines on a straight country-by-country vote the recognition of the credentials of representatives to the UN, so while they could not remove China from the security council in 1971, they could determine that China's seat would be held by a representative chosen by the PRC instead of one chosen by the ROC. So, similarly, instead of trying to revoke the US seat on the security council, one can imagine the UN choosing to have the US seat held by a representative chosen by a US-government-in-exile instead of a representative chosen by the Trump administration.

what would it take to move the hq?
In theory, yes, the HQ could be moved over the objection of the US, since as NotAYakk clarified, the UN general assembly has authority over the UN's administrative and budgetary functions and as such could choose to fund a new site for the HQ (assuming the members were willing to pay for this). However, in practice, the location of the UN headquarters is not determined solely by the UN. The location of the UN HQ is also specified in various multilateral treaties between the US and various countries, so these treaties would also have to be undone or updated.

But as NotAYakk mentioned, this all relies on the rules actually mattering and this tangent is leading far astray from ICE.
posted by RichardP at 8:46 PM

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However, in practice, the location of the UN headquarters is not determined solely by the UN. The location of the UN HQ is also specified in various multilateral treaties between the US and various countries, so these treaties would also have to be undone or updated.

Lots of ways to work this if desired of course. Setup a shadow headquarters where all the actual work gets done. Just break the treaty, seems weird they would have mutual agreement language for a movement of headquarters. Or tweak TFG the right way and he would kick the UN out. One of his old hobby horses was the UN not paying its way.
posted by Mitheral at 9:13 PM

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It drives me mad that our strategy thus far has been to stand up and dare them to break the laws that they wrote in the first place and that have never bound them. I suppose the theory is that this must happen enough times that the spell is broken and the law ceases to be law.

I'm not sure if this will work. I think we're rapidly approaching the point where dying on the moral high ground is less preferable to surviving in the trench.
posted by jy4m at 11:04 PM

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er... we're staring at death camps
posted by infini at 1:06 AM

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I don't know how much play this is getting in US media, but Trump's baseless assertion that Nato troops from Europe stayed "a little back from the frontline" in Afghanistan is causing serious outrage in Britain, Denmark and other member countries on this side of the pond. Canada too, I gather.

UK Politicians, veterans, families who lost a loved one serving in Afghanistan and newspapers from all across the political spectrum have been expressing a genuine sense of national anger about this. The general tone has been, "Fuck you, Captain Bonespurs".
posted by Paul Slade at 1:23 AM

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If America ever recovers, one of the first things it needs to do is Nuremburg 2.0. Throw every single ICE terrorist into the cages they built for minorities, and let them rot. Either that, or turn them all over to The Hague. Whatever happens, none of these disgusting nazi scum can ever be allowed to rejoin society. There need to be consequences.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:38 AM

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I am frankly amazed Needy Amin hasn't pulled the US out of the UN yet. Doubly so following the escalator incident.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:15 AM

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Give him a few days. You lot are already out of WHO (unless you live in California).
posted by Mogur at 5:56 AM

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what would it take to move the hq?

No, no, no. It needs to stay there until it's raided or torched. If anything, the UN needs to provoke them even more. We need the neo-fascists angry and cracking down irrationally.

Moving it now is obeying in advance.
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:16 AM

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They just murdered someone else in Minneapolis. We can't go on like this.
posted by jy4m at 7:44 AM

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It drives me mad that our strategy thus far has been to stand up and dare them to break the laws that they wrote in the first place and that have never bound them. I suppose the theory is that this must happen enough times that the spell is broken and the law ceases to be law.


Whose strategy is this? The strategies I see playing out are forming and strengthening local bonds, protecting our communities as we are able to, and getting the word out to like-minded people who aren't engaged yet. Billionaire-owned media is not inclined to cover "small" local protests, but they get visibility from passers-by who may be emboldened to get involved.

I don't think the UN or foreign nations have the ability to stop ICE. The administration doesn't care about their opinions, Trump is self-imposing "sanctions" with his tariffs already, and it's not like they're going to invade to put an end to Alligator Auschwitz.

But there are lots of reports of people with whistles and cameras prompting ICE to retreat. And of mutual aid networks helping to feed people who're forced to shelter in place during surges.
posted by aneel at 8:04 AM

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Another murder by ICE.
posted by Token Meme at 8:06 AM

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No, no, no. It needs to stay there until it's raided or torched. If anything, the UN needs to provoke them even more. We need the neo-fascists angry and cracking down irrationally.

Isn't cracking down irrationally what they're already doing? Are you seriously suggesting that they aren't yet being bad enough and we need to get them to be worse?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:07 AM

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As far as I can see, there are no details yet of this new shooting, or of whether the victim is dead.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:36 AM

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Oh, they're dead [CW: MURDER]. Brazen daylight executions in the street. They put ten shots in him at close range. Shit is fucked.
posted by Acey at 8:43 AM

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Maybe they'll try the "Whoops, thought it was my tazer, tee hee!" defense from summary executions of prior years/decades.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:58 AM

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Another angle. No visual but you can count ten or more shots.

This powder keg is about to explode.
posted by Acey at 9:18 AM

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Headline snippet from Token Meme's link

"A 2-year-old detained by federal agents in Minneapolis"

WTF is wrong ????
posted by infini at 9:24 AM

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This community theater production of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom is just terrible.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:29 AM

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting that witnesses of the murder have been "been transported to the Whipple building. ICE attempted to order local police from the scene, but O'Hara refused."
posted by coffeecat at 9:49 AM

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"Needless to say, she has no criminal history," the judge wrote, of the toddler.
posted by infini at 10:10 AM

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Many minors may spend several days detained in places that aren't equipped to care for children, said Sergio Perez, the executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.


"What you're seeing is places with no medical care, places where the lights never go out, places where the children are not allowed to go outside, places where the food is abhorrent and places where people are not treated with the dignity required by the law," Perez said. "We're seeing more imprisonment of families and children for longer periods of time and under more and more deplorable conditions."


"These are just families," Wolozin said. "They're not dangerous. They are really trying, by and large, to follow the ever-changing rules. This is totally, 100% unnecessary and 100% designed to hurt kids."
posted by infini at 10:14 AM

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Widely seen video recorded at the Santa Ana protest showed a homeland security agent shoot Kaden Rummler, 21, in the face with a less-lethal munition at a distance of only a few feet. Doctors found glass shards and plastic fragments in his skull and a fragment of metal lodged just shy of his carotid artery.

Video also showed the federal officer drag Rummler several yards across the pavement and into a federal building after shooting him. The shooting left him blind in his left eye
posted by infini at 10:20 AM

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Targeting protesters' eyes may be a tactic inspired by Iran.
posted by Paul Slade at 10:29 AM

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And targeting toddlers inspired by Israel?
posted by infini at 10:35 AM

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ICE is pursuing a "wartime" recruitment strategy to rapidly expand the agency, using aggressive messaging that draws inspiration from memes and video games.
Internal documents show the agency is targeting specific audiences through geofenced ads, framing immigration enforcement as a patriotic, combat-like mission.
Current and former officials warn the campaign's emphasis on aggression risks attracting poorly vetted recruits and flattening a complex policy issue into a good vs. evil narrative
posted by infini at 10:35 AM

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Someone I know well has an acquaintance at work (I am keeping details vague for a variety of reasons) whose husband, currently in law enforcement, decided to apply for a job with ICE. He was tempted by the $50,000 signing bonus, which would pay of some debts and generally put them in a more comfortable place financially. The wife was dead set against it, but he applied anyway and went the 4 hours away to FLTEC for his training. 4 weeks (or however long the training is) he returned to his unhappy wife and told her he just couldn't do it. He had changed his mind at the very lasts minute. Apparently the training was so bad and focused on shooting first and asking questions later and just generally disregarding any rights of the people they interact with that as a professional law enforcement officer he just couldn't do it. Now this is very much a FOAF situation, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt. But this series of articles from Slate shows just how dysfunctional the recruitment process is. (Original article linked in this comment by Mitheral)
posted by TedW at 11:19 AM

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the campaign's emphasis on aggression risks attracting poorly vetted recruits

That is a feature, not a flaw. They need violent people to do violent things, and if public opinion shifts far enough away from "ICE are heroes" to "ICE are murders", they can just do a Night of the Long Knives 2.0 and Trump's approval rating will double..
posted by CynicalKnight at 11:21 AM

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From this outsider's perspective, and I would be very happy to be wrong about it, it does look like parts of the US are at war with itself.

People being shot, arrested (or just picked up), families being split up, the rule of law apparently not applying to either "perpetrators" (in reality the victims) nor "victims" (people employed by the government to stand next to moving cars and shoot the drivers), people needing to carry their passports or papers with them, communities facing off against masked men carrying government issued weaponry - it's just ... surreal.

I know nothing, obviously, but if there was a legal justification for detaining and deporting criminals who were in the country illegally, then that has surely long since been buried under the swathe of wrongful actions that have been done to Americans by other Americans to fulfil some sort of morally bankrupt orthodoxy or otherwise as an excuse to get rid of the "wrong" sort of people.

Liam Conejo Ramos doesn't look like a wrong sort of person to me.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 11:38 AM

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They need violent people to do violent things

Suddenly reminded of IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:31 PM

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ICE is an attempt to make a brown-shirt cadre. The fascists are doing a pretty good job.

They secured funding before they had a para military force to seize it using the established power structure. They have made a force willing to treat their targets as subhuman and without rights. They are far from home and demonized so any empathy is lacking. They are given absolute immunity so long as they follow the will of the fuhrer, encouraging more and more extreme acts. Blatant lies about events are waved around and a loyalty test is declaring it the truth; disloyal people and organizations are marked for punishment. Blatant murder of political opposition is encouraged and rewarded.

The ICE training is, as someone above noted, all about obedience and violence. People who reject this are not what they want. Violent radicals from Jan 6 are welcome, as they have already proven the only qualification (a willingness to do violence for the fuhrer). They wear masks so are individually cannot be held responsible for their actions, except by their compatriots.

ICE has the budget of the military of a small nation. They are mass constructing prison camps that are barring any oversight and whose residents are treated as if they have no human rights.

I'm betting ICE will be used as part of the midterm suppression project in blue states.

This can of course fail, but it is obvious where the fascists want it to go - Jan 6 was an attempt to overthrow the government and failed, for example. Fascism mainly brutal, and only accidentally competent.
posted by NotAYakk at 12:39 PM

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Anyone who refers to republicans as "colleagues" or uses the word "bipartisan" is an enemy at this juncture.

I don't know how we get out of this without a world war, honestly. That's what the right desire and what the right desires they get, apparently.
posted by maxwelton at 1:23 PM

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They're correct about one thing- ICE does need better training.

They're gonna need to learn what do to at wakeup and lights out, and how to line up for chow, and how to respond when the corrections officer calls out their number at roll call, and when to put their bedding out for laundry.

After that, we can get started on vocational programs.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:58 PM

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We're going to need Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the moon, eventually. Maybe even Mars. It would make the most sense for that apparatus to be set up before anyone else gets there, you know? As far as I'm concerned, we've got the crew for the first off-world colony locked down.
posted by emelenjr at 2:10 PM

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Paul Slade: "Targeting protesters' eyes may be a tactic inspired by Iran."

To quote an old viral tweet from a guy named hermit_hwarang:


american *sees something american happening americanly in america*:
what are we a bunch of ASIANS?!?


American cops have been targeting protestors' eyes for years. Linda Tirado nearly died in 2020, and nearly died again in 2024 from lingering brain damage caused by the 2020 attack on her.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:10 PM

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o quote an old viral tweet from a guy named hermit_hwarang:

american *sees something american happening americanly in america*:
what are we a bunch of ASIANS?!?

American cops have been targeting protestors' eyes for years

They more than likely learned it in Israel, where many US cops go for training and where the murderous IDF has had a longstanding practice of deliberately maiming peaceful protesters (with live ammunition, not with "less-lethal" rounds).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:27 PM

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jy4m: "An hour ago I got an actblue donation SMS for the Democrats that included Alex Pretti's name. He was murdered this morning. Words aren't sufficient for how much I loathe these people."

Seven of them in the House just voted to keep ICE funding intact, too, in the standard "rotating villain" move. (If all of them had voted against it, the bill would have failed 213-214.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:48 PM

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ICE is blatantly ignoring the law and murdering Americans in the streets.

Make sure when you talk to your friends and family, they hear that.

America is now a country where propaganda media rules the day. Your neighbors have no idea what ICE is doing because our media is lying to us all day every day: remember that.

While the average Republican voter is racist (there's no denying that: they have gleefully embraced Trump's racism) they would not be embracing Trump if they actually knew what the man was doing every day. They don't know what the man is doing. That's due to our media.

(Well, a big enough chunk of them would break off to significantly change things, if they knew what he was doing, but there would sadly still be tens of millions of Americans very much enjoying what the guy is doing as he shreds the constitution and murders Americans in the street.)

Check in on your Fox News neighbors (which is tens of millions of Americans). They have absolutely no clue what the reality in America is right now: that's how bad propaganda media has gotten here.
posted by teece303 at 3:52 PM

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ICE has the budget of the military of a small nation.

Not even a small nation. ICE has a budget roughly equal to Canada's military and would rank about 15th in the world.
posted by ssg at 3:57 PM

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Prepare for general strike. Stock nonperishible food, medicine, fuel and supplies. Get ready for mutual aid feeding yourself and your neighbors.
posted by loquacious at 4:38 PM

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This post from Andrea Pitzer, who wrote a book about concentration camps, is feeling almost-already outdated today: "Into the abyss: The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."
posted by girandole at 4:55 PM

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I've been deeply appreciating the daily posts from Heather Cox Richardson. Today she is filled with a cold rage, and I've never identified more strongly with the emotions of someone on a live stream. Here's her video from a couple hours ago, talking near the end about how it would only take a baker's dozen of republicans to stop this.
posted by Mizu at 5:06 PM

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Prepare for general strike. Stock nonperishible food, medicine, fuel and supplies. Get ready for mutual aid feeding yourself and your neighbors.

This. The old reality of the USA is dead & buried. You all have a new reality to deal with.

Be prepared to bunker down, potentially for weeks at a time.

Forget everything else. Concentrate on stocking up on the basics listed above, plus make sure your critical infrastructure like home/transport/communications, etc, are working. Get any servicing & repairs done, backups in place, move critical data offshore from the USA (e.g. switch email providers to non-USA based), etc.

The best time to start doing all that was November 7 last year. Second best time is now.

I fully realise how difficult that is going to be for many, sometimes impossible. But that is what is needed now because this new ugly reality cannot be denied, is not going away anytime soon, and is only going to get worse, and quickly, before it gets better.
posted by Pouteria at 5:20 PM

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[An hour ago I got an actblue donation SMS for the Democrats that included Alex Pretti's name."

Got a note asking that this comment be deleted because after further investigation it looked like it might be a scam unaffiliated with the Democrats. ]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:48 PM

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I'm betting ICE will be used as part of the midterm suppression project in blue states.

Yes.

From Aaron Rupar on BSky:

Fox News: "I've gotten my hands that AG Bondi said she sent to Gov. Tim Walz. It is strongly worded. The AG calls for the governor to support the men and women of ICE, to repeal the state's sanctuary policies, and to allow the DOJ to access state voter rolls."
posted by oneirodynia at 6:24 PM

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teece303: Check in on your Fox News neighbors (which is tens of millions of Americans). They have absolutely no clue what the reality in America is right now: that's how bad propaganda media has gotten here.

And tell them what, exactly? That FOX News is wrong? That the White House is lying to them? That all of the people they believe to be sources of truth and integrity are actually straight-up bullshit artists? That our side has all of the trustworthy investigative and citizen journalists, and they should just believe us now because we say so?

We've been doing that for three decades, haven't we? Doesn't seem to work. And with AI, they can now smugly claim that any video evidence which contradicts the party line has been faked by Antifa.
posted by tzikeh at 8:04 PM

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They are far from home and demonized so any empathy is lacking.

Margaret Thatcher applied the same principle in policing the British miners' strike of the 1980s. Many of the police used were bussed in to mining communities from far away, contibuting to the same brutality and contempt for the locals we're seeing in Minneapolis today.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:36 PM

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Well this is horrifying. Apparently CHILDREN at a facility in Texas are protesting.

https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2026-01-24/protest-breaks-out-at-dilley-immigration-detention-facility-holding-5-year-old-liam-ramos

https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1qlyeef/children_screaming_and_crying_can_be_heard_as_a/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ICE_Watch/comments/1qlxj34/major_demonstration_underway_at_the_dilley_tx/
posted by loquacious at 2:18 AM

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> "We're seeing more imprisonment of families and children for longer periods of time and under more and more deplorable conditions."

> it does look like parts of the US are at war with itself.

fwiw...
MAGA Star Turns on Trump Over Killing of VA Nurse - "'Trump isn't Lincoln, he's Buchanan.' President James Buchanan is frequently cited as the worst leader in U.S. history. The 15th president, serving from 1857 to 1861, failed to stop the country from tearing itself apart, leading to the Civil War."

> ICE has the budget of the military of a small nation. They are mass constructing prison camps that are barring any oversight and whose residents are treated as if they have no human rights.

Deportations to Add Almost $1 Trillion in Costs to the 'Big Beautiful Bill' - "H.R. 1 immigration enforcement spending is unimaginable."[1,2,3,4]

I'm betting ICE will be used as part of the midterm suppression project in blue states.

@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz: "When one party sends ruthless masked men to attack and kidnap those who oppose it, and builds huge new prisons to hold everyone they capture, they are not planning to win the next election. They are planning to hold power by force."[5]
So don't be surprised by what happens on November 3rd. Don't say you didn't know!

One side has guns, thugs, troops, and the power of the federal government. The other side has only.... the people, and their dedication. We have to organize.

Voting is still important, but it won't be enough. Here are some things you can do today:

https://www.standwithminnesota.com/

This will happen in other cities too.

> it would only take a baker's dozen of republicans to stop this.

@jfallows.bsky.social‬: "Four GOP Senators. At most four Repubs in the House. Together they could stop nearly all the mad-king's rampages. They would be known to history as Profiles in Courage. They might/would lose the next election. But people have sacrificed a lot more, for a lot less."[6]

more from 'autocratic legalism'[7,8,9] Kim Lane Scheppele:
posted by kliuless at 2:34 AM

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Thank you kliuless... what a change this makes from the first half of this thread where discussing the UN itself seemed preferable to confronting these camps
posted by infini at 4:54 AM

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We've been doing that for three decades, haven't we? Doesn't seem to work.

Trump's approval rating is falling! All the time! Keep it up.

(Sadly the Democrats is too but really right now where are they.)
posted by warriorqueen at 5:15 AM

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(borrowed from elsewhere)

ICE is not the gestapo.
ICE is the descendant of slave patrols.
ICE is the descendant of the indigenous child abductors for boarding schools.
ICE is the descendant of the Jim Crow South law enforcement.
ICE is the descendent of night riders.

Before the U.S looks to anyone else's history to equate what ICE is like, the U.S. needs to remember its own history.

And remember that many modern day atrocities were inspired by how this country treated its marginalized.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:19 AM

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Many of the police used were bussed in to mining communities from far away

Would you go so far as to call them... paid agitators?
posted by Rykey at 8:21 AM

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Tell me no lies, kinda true but pedantic. You roll with the simplest explanation that fits, and the Gestapo comparaison works well, it communicates the horror and the abuse of power by the state, people instantly get it, no history lesson or self flagellation needed.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:55 PM

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no history lesson or self flagellation needed.

You needn't flagellate, but recognizing that ICE flows naturally from American culture is a pretty important step to finding solutions. Sending 30 million soldiers (as we did with the gestapo) is logistically difficult, but we've managed to address our worst behavior without that.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:10 PM

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> (borrowed from elsewhere)

@Ashleytheebarroness: ICE mirrors American slave patrols, not the Gestapo[1,2]

also btw...

guess what the founders also 'stole': The Native American Roots of the US Constitution
posted by kliuless at 2:46 PM

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ICE doesn't really need to be called anything other than what it is, and that is a group of random thugs paid by the government to terrorize and kill people.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:33 PM

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I think 'gestapo' and 'slave catcher' comparisons have different purposes?

To convey that ICE is fundamentally un-American, dangerous to American ideals, civil liberties, human rights, and life itself, "gestapo" - with its connotations of foreign and enemy and genocide (and also, losing side) - is a solid word choice.

ICE as the continuation of a long and terrible American tradition of kidnapping and imprisonment and terrorizing of people designated as not having or deserving of basic rights and equal rights is true and something that needs to be talked about at great length. And I agree, knowing that history will be key to actually abolishing ICE and not just replacing it with the next thing. But none of the American antecedents have the rhetorical weight of 'gestapo'. (If they did, maybe we would not be dealing with ICE now.)
posted by mersen at 5:30 PM

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To convey that ICE is fundamentally un-American, dangerous to American ideals, civil liberties, human rights, and life itself, "gestapo" - with its connotations of foreign and enemy and genocide (and also, losing side) - is a solid word choice.


ICE is as American as violence and apple pie, and the Nazis cribbed a lot of their playbook (laws enforcing racial segregation and banning "miscegenation", etc) from the USA. For most of American history, "American ideals" and civil liberties excluded a significant swath of the population on grounds of race and/or religion. A lot of the American soldiers who went to Europe to fight Nazis came home and put on white hoods and burned crosses, and it's only since 1965 (with the passage of the Voting Rights act, that the racist right has been doing their best to neuter ever since) that the US has any claim to being an actually representative democracy.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 5:42 PM

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Apologies - I was trying to unpack what makes the word "gestapo" useful to communicate that ICE is a bad organization that should not be operating in this country, particularly for some occasions and audiences. (But maybe I'm the only one with relatives who are pretty good at ignoring/downplaying US atrocities and real proud of winning WW2 even though they did not personally do that?)

I thought I was clear that I agree about the historical American origins of ICE, but apparently not, so: I agree about the history and about the importance of the history, and will stop talking now.
posted by mersen at 6:18 PM

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