The ICE Is Cracking
Spending your days as a masked secret-police thug persecuting law-abiding poor people turns out to be less fun than advertised
Aug. 27: ICE officials report agents crossing the border into sadness … Trump-appointed judge dismisses Trump’s lawsuit, reasoning, presidenting, extremism … Trump says he’s not a dictator and also that he can do whatever he wants … Democrats are picking up Trump districts — in Iofuckingwa …
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The men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are struggling, current and former officials tell the Reuters news agency. The cause? Nostalgia for the administration of Pres. Joe Biden.
Pres. Donald Trump’s demand for vast increases in arrest numbers — and lack of interest in pursuing actual criminals — has agents longing for 2024.
Among the issues, hundreds of seasoned investigators have been pulled from cases targeting career criminals in order to join indiscriminate sweeps discriminating against brown people. Trump’s arrest quotas have led to sloppy work, overwork, and sloppy overwork. He wants 3,000 people arrested every day, ten times the rate under Biden.
“The demands they placed on us were unrealistic,” said one current ICE official given anonymity to share no-shit observations. “It was not done in a safe manner or the manner to make us most successful.”
Several ICE veterans told Reuters that stresses include long hours, the threat of not meeting arrest quotas, and fear of being pulled from their home or workplace and exiled to Uganda.
Plus, it’s not fun to show up for work and be greeted by dozens of protesters screaming that you’re a Nazi when all you wanted to do that day was destroy a few law-abiding families.
One senior Department of Homeland (sic) Security official tried to convince Reuters that everything’s cool and ICE officers are “excited to be able to do their jobs again.”
But hilariously and contradictorily, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told Reuters just the opposite. Homan said, “There's some staff that would rather be doing other types of investigations, I get that,” although he apparently didn’t get the memo that ICE officers are excited to do their jobs again.
Homan said things will get better when that $170 billion in new funding brings in 10,000 new recruits. Because nothing improves a complicated, legally fraught, politically unpopular law-enforcement operation like an absolute deluge of ignorant, bloodthirsty noobs who couldn’t get jobs fighting real crime and whose field experience ranges from videogames to movies based on videogames. (A similar surge at Customs and Border Protection 20 years ago led to reports of corruption and misconduct.)
According to Reuters, one former ICE official said that when Trump took office, their stupid, stupid friends still at ICE who watch and believe Fox rejoiced that “the cuffs are off.”
Well, they’re not the first folks who thought they were doms to find out they were subs all along and miss the cuffs when they’re off.
Fasc-forward to today and that former ICE official’s same dumb, uncuffed, Fox-watching friends are now “overwhelmed” (although not as overwhelmed as law-abiding day laborers snatched off the street and sent to an El Salvador prison).
The former official reported that their overwhelmed, cuff-missing colleagues “used to be able to say: 'We are arresting criminals.'” Boo, as the kids say, hoo.
Of course, if ICE is really interested in criminals, TFN has a helluva tip for where they can find one.
NOT EASING THE PRESSURE As your repetitive, drum-beating, repetitive TFN has repeated before, one of the most powerful incentives against order-just-following is the prospect of accountability.
That was my point about Newark Mayor Ras Baraka suing a local DHS official. And that’s what a new investigation will bring to ICE abuses.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced Tuesday that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which he’s the ranking member, is now looking into ICE use of force and other issues. So now ICE rank and file have a new worry; that the Senate will, as Blumenthal said, “look into any reports of inhumane, unacceptable conditions.”
ABOUT THOSE PROTESTS It’s easy to condescend to protests as performative venting, but at the largest ICE detention center in the northeast, the invisible work of changing hearts and minds is starting to bear fruit.
Labor reporter Mike Elk writes for the American Prospect that protesters have descended on Philipsburg, PA, deep in the heart of heartless-president country. And it’s not so easy for the townfolk to dismiss these protesters as interlopers, when they learn that the protesters are there because that’s where their people have been taken to.
Now workers at the center are coming forward with stories of abuse. The local paper is printing them. County officials are on the defensive.
Change happens slowly, then all at once.
Trump Judge Judges Trump
Remember how the Trump administration sued all 15 federal district court judges in Maryland to prevent them from stopping unlawful deportations? No? (It’s okay. A lot’s been going on.)
The Justice Department’s lawsuit had to be moved to another state because, well, they were suing all 15 federal district court judges in Maryland. And on Tuesday, Virginia District Judge Thomas Cullen, a multiple appointee of Pres. Donald Trump, threw Trump’s lawsuit in the trash and trashed the shit out of Trump.
As Cullen points out, the Trump administration could have simply appealed the Maryland order slowing down deportations for judicial review, but nooo. So Cullen took the Justice Department to school. Law school.
Cullen wrote that, instead of appealing, the unappealing administration “chose a different, and more confrontational, path entirely.” And then, Newsfuckers, this judge, this future Ugandan, wrote a footnote for the ages:
…over the past several months, principal officers of the Executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as “left-wing,” “liberal,” “activists,” “radical,” “politically minded,” “rogue,” “unhinged,” “outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional,” “[c]rooked,” and worse. … [T]his concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.
And then Cullen, after cullin’ all those Trump administration smears, spanked the lawsuit that had ended up on his desk where The Epstein Files™ were supposed to be, calling it “potentially calamitous.”
As Cullen points out, had the lawsuit proceeded, we’d be talking about depositions and discovery involving 15 separate judges. That would spin off claims and counter-claims of executive privilege, judicial privilege, and probably white privilege by the time it was done.
Twisting the knife, Cullen cited a recent judicial opinion holding that, “A reciprocal respect for the roles of the Executive and the Judiciary may be too much to hope for in this most fraught and polarized of times, but it remains the only way that our system of constitutional governance can ever hope to work.”
The case Cullen chose to quote? Abrego Garcia v. Noem.
American President Rejects Democracy
The president of the U.S., once considered the leader of the free world, on Tuesday announced that he had rejected the concept of democracy.
Discussing his legal power to send National Guard troops into Chicago illegally, Pres. Donald Trump said, “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States.”
It’s a claim both shocking and untrue (the structure of American government provides for three branches that are co-equal). It represents a stunning abandonment of principles that have inspired the country and the world for almost a quarter of a millennium.
For centuries, since the Revolutionary War, American troops have fought and died to oppose the concept of one-man rule that Trump championed Tuesday.
America’s constitutional system is intended to empower the majority, incentivizing political leaders to pursue the people’s approval, while simultaneously protecting minorities from oppression and the ambitions of political leaders who reject democracy.
Trump’s Republican Party has for decades moved away from democracy, supporting an increasingly powerful executive branch. The Democratic Party has been largely compliant and appears to believe that the American system is designed to foster compromise when in fact it’s designed to incentivize adversarial competition among states, localities, and branches of the federal government.
America’s founders believed that fostering competition prevents tyranny, ensures that rival interests and constituencies can make their case, and gives the people the power to choose best outcomes. (Unless, as we’ve seen, the people are howling, lab-grown clown-primate hybrids who choose presidents based on who they’d rather have a beer with.)
It’s not clear whether Trump’s assessment represented lack of impulse control or the results of rigorous analysis. The simplest theory appears to be that Trump is simply incapable of working within a system where other people get a say.
Trump also appeared confused about his own assessment. During the same appearance, he said, “A lot [sic] of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator. I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.” You let us know when you work it out, guy.
Four Quickies
If you think working for ICE is demoralizing, the National Guard members deployed to Washington are now literally picking up trash. Not the metaphorical dehumanizing trash of Trumpian rhetoric, but actual, literal rotten banana peels, empty packs of Kools™, and tons of napkins and food containers bearing the
oldnewold Cracker Barrel logo. Wait til the Dept. of Government Efficiency finds out Trump is using wildly expensive military deployments for this instead of hiring sanitation workers.Older Newsfuckers may recall back in the 1990s when the prevailing line of bullshit was that we couldn’t afford to fight climate change. It turns out, not fighting climate change is a lot more expensive. For instance, climate change shut down the city of Phoenix, AZ, on Monday. A powerful dust storm known as a haboob knocked out power, grounded air traffic, and with a touch of sophisticated irony stopped fossil-fuel road traffic in its tracks, too.
The ghost of failed climate-change-mitigation past lands at the Phoenix airport on Monday without even filing a flight plan. (Uncredited / City of Phoenix photo.) And “they” said New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wouldn’t be able to get stuff done if he’s elected! “They” said he’d never get other politicians to go along with his crazy, life-affirming schemes. And yet, without even winning yet, Mamdani’s already getting other politicians to go along with his crazy, life-affirming schemes. Including his rivals! As Mamdani just noted, even disgraced, nothing-affirming former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) is hopping on the (free) Mamdani policy bus:
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Iowa Democrats just ended the Republican supermajority in their state Senate. Democrat Catelin Drey won Tuesday’s election to fill an open seat. That district went for Donald Trump last year by an 11-point margin. Drey won it by 55.2% to 44.8%. This is the second state Senate seat in Iowa that Democrats have flipped since Trump’s victory, winning in January a district that gave Trump a 20-point margin. Drey’s election means Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) will now need at least some Democratic support to confirm her nominees. Apparently, Drey’s campaign was helped by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which activated 30,000 volunteers but also made it harder for me to hate and demonize the DNC, goddamit.
Recommended Reading
Yesterday’s TFN shared the top lines of a new report critiquing the so-called Abundance Agenda, in which government and big corporations are unbound from the cruel, Procrustean shackles preventing humanity from soaring into the sun like Icarus.
The report is now out online and you can check it out from The Revolving Door Project here.
CRACKER BARREL CRACKUPS Pres. Donald Trump has been so successful making America great again again that MAGA have nothing left to whine about except the triggering effects of corporate logo changes. So, award-winning former Daily Show and Air America Radio writer Jim Earl shares his obituary for Cracker Barrel founder Danny Evins. RIP.
Taking Action
All kinds of shit is going on for Labor Day. There will be Workers Over Billionaires rallies all over the place (find one here). On Saturday, Aug. 30, there’s an organizing call you can sign up for here. Remember, reading TFN might feel like doing something, but the goal is to inspire you to feel like doing something!
TCB
SWAG RESURGENT! The tech-genius overlords finally explained to us how they screwed up The Fucking News merch shop so that no one could order anything for several weeks. Did I mention genius?
Advised of how they screwed it up, we have unscrewed it down and the shop is working again. If you’re new to The Fucking News Shop, we’ve got a sick array of sick merch, ranging from overpriced caps to exorbitant beverage containers to E Pluribus Fuckem t-shirts for people with half a face…
To atone for depriving you Newsfuckers of TFN merch/swag for so long, and to honor the sacrifices of labor organizers past, through Labor Day we’re activating a codeword, FINGNEWSER, that can be used for one (1) purchase per person to get 10% off.
NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD The Meidas Touch News Corporation Conglomerate Inc. spotted TFN’s weekend reporting on the Trump administration handing kids over to an army of Jeffrey Epsteins by cutting funds for protecting victims of child sex abuse. Meidas mentions our reporting toward the end of this video, and if you missed it you can read TFN’s full report here.
Would this be a good time to remind you that your support made all of that happen?
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But if you’ve been considering upgrading, please know that summer is the toughest time for all news outlets, so right now is when your support will help TFN the most. As the t-shirt says, e pluribus fuckem.
Catch me every Monday (but not next Monday, Labor Day), at 3:30pm eastern on The Nicole Sandler Show for free, right here.
On Friday, Aug. 30, join me and Blue Amp mastermind and evil genius Cliff Schecter at noon, eastern time, for an all-out live-chat smackdown in which I civilly explain why he’s wrong about many things.
And superstar superhero writer Mark Waid joins me for a live chat on Monday, Sept. 15, at 4:30pm eastern time to talk about men and supermen and the Superman movie. Mark Waid your calendars!
RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! Remember, it’s hot out there. ICE melts…
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
"Well, they’re not the first folks who thought they were doms to find out they were subs all along and miss the cuffs when they’re off." Not only is that a hilarious sentence, but also it articulates THE lesson that humans fail repeatedly to learn: believing that you are part of some special, protected powerful group—until you're not. Once your use to target others is done, you become the target. The corrupt powerful always turn on their own.
Brilliant absolutely brilliant recapping of this foul regime..