ICE and Human Dignity

This morning, what I heard on War Room was that the only position of ICE protesters is that ICE needs to be abolished—not that ICE detainees need to be treated with human dignity. I think: (a) that’s not true, there’s a mixed bag of people and reasons why they’re protesting, and (b) I think there is something true about how most protesters feel that the way ICE is treating detainees is without human dignity.

A couple of things come to mind to support this train of thought. One is the way anti-immigration folks delighted in the footage of ICE prisoners being unloaded at the El Salvador CECOT prison. And the way anti-immigration folks delighted in the potentially terrible conditions in the Everglades, as well as the fact that some of the prisoners could get eaten by alligators. I mean, some of that was said publicly by the President.

And the trolling that’s done by DHS, which, you know, is “just joking” about deporting anyone who’s not in favor. This all creates an atmosphere, a feeling that if you get detained by ICE, you will not be treated with moral dignity. And it also feels like there doesn’t need to be a proper warrant. There doesn’t need to be any sort of proper legal warrant to be detained by ICE. ICE can just say “you better shut the fuck up and hand over your passport.” And even if you do that, you might get held for like three weeks, whether you’re a citizen or not. That’s what it feels like.

If I could think of what an ICE that I would be for would look like, it’s this: If someone’s following the laws and the rules and they’re not a criminal, I think you would make it very clear what they need to do to stay here, and provide the resources to do that for good people. And then for people that are criminals—obviously, I don’t think anyone’s for keeping criminals—but even if they are criminals and they’re detained, I think they’ve got to be treated humanely.

This speaks to a problem with the American mindset about prisons. I mean, I think we make prisons terrible places that we never interact with until you’re maybe a whistleblower or something like that, where you suddenly get an insight into the incredibly terrible conditions of prisons. I’m pretty sure there’s also a lack of human dignity there in the way people are treated.

Another aspect of being pro-ICE: if they were very clear about their moral authority, they didn’t have these various instances where people are fearing for their life if they get detained, and the instances of people rejoicing in their suffering… if it was very professional, you knew who to call, who to contact, they would be proactive in contacting families since they have all this data anyway, and you had clear statistics—both on immigration stats of detained, deported, and arrested, as well as US citizens who are detained, deported, and arrested with up-to-date numbers on a yearly basis—but that’s just not happening.

Then I think the debate gets muddled down into false equivalency again. Like, every single protester wants to abolish ICE, or that every single person delights in the suffering of the prisoners—neither is true. But it’s not very often that you hear some voice on the right saying, “Yeah, I don’t like how the folks are being treated that are detained.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​