I am going to make another run at a topic I raised a while ago, but it’s important enough to repeat.
What’s more, I have found some help in a high place to further the argument I want to make … which is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs need to get rid of the masks and start enforcing immigration laws with humanity, not brutality.
Gordon Sondlund was U.S. ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2020. He supports Donald Trump’s view that immigration laws need to be enforced vigorously. Frankly — and don’t be surprised — so do I. However, the implementation of that policy has gone far into the weeds, off the rails. ICE agents have gone too damn far in enforcing the law.
They are hiding behind masks. “A confident nation does not hide its face when it enforces its laws,” Sondlund writes in an essay published today by the Dallas Morning News. “It does so openly and stands behind what it does.”
ICE goons are deployed in Democratically controlled cities by Trump to ferret out what Trump says are criminals who are here illegally, preying on innocent victims. They have beaten U.S. citizens, arrested them, separated children from their parents. They have shot at least two Americans to death. They are donning flak vests, camo outfits, all the equipment they need to restrain individuals. They are behaving like bullies.
Homeland security officials say the agents are covering their faces to protect them from reprisals. What an utter case of bullsh**!
Sondlund writes, “If officer safety is the concern, the solution is professionalism, not concealment. ICE agents should display their names or badge numbers clearly. All operations should include body cameras with audio, activated as a matter of policy. Local police … operate under these standards every day. Federal immigration enforcement should do no less.”
U.S. law enforcement operates in the open, Sondlund writes. “Authority is not hidden,” he states. An open approach to law enforcement “is not a concession to critics; it is a core feature of legitimate governance,” he declares.
He said, though, that “masks erode that legitimacy. They transform lawful enforcement into something that appears secretive and militarized. They invite comparisons the administration does not want and does not deserve.”
There you have it. Just lose the damn masks, ICE, and treat the people you serve with humanity. I could bet real American money such a change would bring far more cooperation than condemnation.