America’s white supremacist split screen continues. The Trump Regime is deporting Haitian refugees who came here legally, including children, against their will. This week, the Regime turned its racist cruelty into content, with the Department of Homeland Security releasing a horrific video of a deportation flight, with men in chains boarding a plane in the rain. Meanwhile, white South Africans remain the only people who can enter the US as refugees and receive taxpayer-funded aid when they arrive, which the Trump Regime plans to increase.
The video is shot after shot of Black men in chains. The kinds of atrocity that even totalitarian regimes generally don’t want visuals of. But America is a nation run by white supremacists who want us all to know who is in charge, and just how cruel they are. And they want us to fear them.
Covering propaganda from the Trump Regime is always tricky. The content is meant to inflame, and inflaming those of us who don’t support these atrocities is a big part of why they do it. I don’t want to elevate that, and I don’t want to do their dirty work by amplifying it. Still, they’re doing all this in our name. We need to call it out and draw a moral line wherever we can.
ICE continues to operate as Trump’s personal police force, enforcing his whims against Immigrints and those who would stand with their neighbors to oppose the Regime. This week Texas Governor Greg Abbott delayed signing an extradition warrant that would send an agent to Minnesota, where charges have been filed against ICE agent Christian Castro, accused of shooting an innocent man, and a judge refused to intervene. Minnesota is unable to take Castro into custody, despite the concern that Castro is a flight risk.
It sets up an obvious constitutional crisis, one that we’ve been dancing around for a while and will at some point have to come to a head. Pro-Trump states and government agents don’t feel beholden to the law of the land. Only to Donald Trump. Eventually, Democratic governors and the people they represent will get fed up. Because if ICE or the military can come tear apart our communities and harm people at will, and there’s no accountability for abuses of power, what exactly are we paying taxes for or pledging allegiance to?
We’re only as safe as our most vulnerable neighbors. As I’ve covered previously, ICE’s internal watchdog has been repurposed to investigate critics of the agency instead of checking it. ICE is also responsible for fatally shooting at least 10 people during the Trump Administration. ICE has also arrested a record number of people without criminal records this summer. It’s a danger to all of us, and that’s by design.
Case in point: today ICE detained Milo Yiannopoulos. The British far-right activist, formerly one of MAGA’s most prominent cheerleaders, is now on the outs with the Trump Regime. Apparently Milo’s arrest was at the behest of fellow MAGAlebrity, Laura Loomer, another MAGA-lebrity who is known to have Donald Trump’s ear. ICE doesn’t care that Milo spent years helping build the movement that gave ICE its current mandate. If they’ll detain Milo Yiannopoulos, they’ll detain anyone. Or as Onion CEO Ben Collins put it:
That’s why, as heinous as I find the video, and so much of the social media content that the Trump Regime creates and shares, it’s important not to look away. And to stand up against cruelty any way we can. To understand that while, yes, this is happening to immigrant communities, none of us is safe as long as ICE is allowed to exist and a President is allowed to turn any government agency into his personal Stasi.
You can help protect your community by joining existing community defense and mutual aid efforts, or starting one yourself if it doesn’t already exist. Taking a virtual training with States at the Core or connecting with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network is a great place to start.
The leopards ate Milo’s face, and had he read CARD he would have known it was coming. Because I’ve been watching those leopards for a decade, and I know who they truly are.
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ICYMI
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Data Center Discontent Drives State Legislation Surge (Tech Policy Press)
Coda
I’m off next week for Labor Day weekend. Then I’m not entirely sure of my schedule. My plan is to write two pieces a week between Labor Day and Election Day, but at some point I’ll have surgery and will obviously need some time off. More than likely, the next newsletter will go out on Sunday, September 13.
I’ll see you then!