On February 10th, the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, Customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, made their first appearance since the beginning of the deadly Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota at a hearing before the Congressional House Homeland Security Committee.
Lyons, Scott, and Edlow all vigorously defended the actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota, painting agents as the victims of violent attacks and threats by protesters, and doubled down on their commitment to the mass deportation machine’s brutal campaign against immigrants.
Puffing up their chests and putting on a show, Democratic lawmakers raised demands to lock up ICE agents, abolish ICE, and withhold votes for funding from DHS. But why all the tough talk now?
Since the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January, protests across the country have accelerated to turn up the heat on ICE. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, protesters have taken to the streets against ICE agents in the streets. There is an entire movement forming that is going on the offensive, and the rulers of this country are getting worried.
After brutally repressing protesters around the country, the Trump admin strategically removed Bovino from Minnesota and publicly declared a scale-back in their operations there. Democrats, on the other hand are taking the opportunity to score political points by taking shots at Trump and DHS and adopting popular slogans like locking up killer ICE agents.
All of this is done in the interest of de-escalating the growing movement against ICE terror and the entire deportation machine. But let’s be clear, it wasn’t the Democrats that forced the Trump admin to back down in Minneapolis, it was people resisting and confronting the deportation machine in the streets that achieved this win. Both Democrats and Republicans see mass protests and confrontations between people and immigration agents as a growing threat to the system, with the potential to break out and go further, and are now working overtime to stop it in their own respective ways. Trump is toning down the public fanfare of the deportation machine, while Democrats are seeking to co-opt the movement to restore faith in the nation’s system. They see the growing mass resistance and are trying to bring it to an end, all in the interest of maintaining order and keeping the mass deportation machine running smoothly.
Mass protests against ICE have exposed cracks in the system, the people in power are on the back foot, and have been forced to make changes because the streets stayed hot. When they say de-escalate, we say double down. We can’t allow ourselves to slip back into normalcy or allow progressive politicians to take the credit for what mass resistance achieved. If we want to stop the deportations, we need a sustained mass movement in the streets confronting the system head-on, not talk shops and political theater from politicians who sell us out time and time again. That’s why this spring, we are going on the offensive with the Spring Surge to Melt ICE campaign, to sustain this mass movement and fan the flames. When they say de-escalate, we say double down. Find out more at daretostruggle.org
Free our families. Stop the deportations. Jail the killer ICE thugs. Fuck ICE.
Dare to Struggle 