Walt Whitman once said: “Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul” and remember that “Whatever thoroughly satisfies the soul is truth.” We are in an age in which lies are promoted everywhere we look. It is possible to sort among them and determine what is true, but it requires considerable effort and even a bit of soul searching. We must today make that effort or perish.
Every day we are asked to listen to stories that challenge belief and threaten to break our hearts. Two young women in Charlotte, North Carolina see ICE agents on their street. So they hit their horn as they drive by in order to alert the neighbors. Immediately the agents follow them to their driveway and order them out of their car at gunpoint. When they refuse, an agent begins to smash the driver side window with the butt of his rifle.
The two young women then exit the car and are quickly knocked to the ground, handcuffed and led away. This is happening to hundreds of people all around the country. They are U.S. citizens who dare to act as observers to ICE operations. Many eventually reveal stories of vile prison conditions and of abusive agents. In order to distract attention from their abuse they often concoct preposterous stories about being attacked by some unarmed little woman or brown person.
Too many disturbing stories of ICE arrests involve people with U.S. citizenship or Native Americans with proof of tribal membership, and others with established legal asylum claims. These arrests are meant to sow fear and compel obedience in communities that have defied presidential orders. Blue state cities like Minneapolis.
Just as we are now expected to quietly accept the invasion of our neighborhoods by masked armed thugs, we are expected to accept U.S. military foreign interventions without complaint as well. Protestors in Minneapolis were also recently told to deny the evidence of their own eyes that an ICE agent killed a woman for what appears to be failure to show him the respect he thought was due. Failure to comply to ICE commands typically earns a shove, a jab with a rifle butt, an assault with pepper spray, arrest and detention. And in Renee Good’s case it cost her her life.
Despite growing fear many members of the public are fighting back. There are legal challenges that ICE agents remove their masks and identify themselves and show proper arrest warrants. Citizens have few illusions about ICE as public servants. There is no effort to win hearts and minds. Guns are brandished instead.
I called a good friend in Minneapolis the other day to find out whether ICE was subduing his community. Dave reported that he was too old to join the street protestors, but his elderly book reading circle was gathering food to deliver to immigrants in hiding. He also reported that a young friend who worked in a restaurant, in which some employees were afraid to show up to work, had decided to share part of his vacation pay with these fellow workers. Another friend who worked in a hotel was helping arrange rooms to hide families that were at risk.
This an old American story. The northern states, prior to the Civil War, were invaded by armed gangs that roamed the countryside in search of runaway slaves. Northerners caught aiding and abetting fugitive slaves were subject to arrest and imprisonment just as people are today. But it did not stop them then, and it won’t now, from taking risks to help people being victimized.
ICE agents ask protestors, “Didn’t you learn anything from the killing of Renee Good?” Yes, they learned something, but not the lesson ICE intended. Anger at their militarized federal forces invading communities is only growing by the day. They even briefly detained a professional baseball player returning home through LAX recently. No one is above suspicion as a possible unwanted alien.
Do they honestly believe that this is some winning strategy? I am reminded of the words of a prophetic Japanese military leader after their attack on Pearl Harbor, when he proclaimed: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.”
The U.S. government is projecting its power in ever widening circles. They stage raids on Minneapolis neighborhoods. Strike military targets in Venezuela, villages in Africa and the Middle East. Our nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, as well as nearby lands like Greenland have been warned that they could be next if they fail to agree to U.S. demands.
Waging war at home and abroad without Congressional debate or approval is unacceptable in a constitutional democracy. This president and those who carry out his orders must be removed by an active, engaged Congress. And they will act if enough of us insist on it. Anything less will only invite further lawlessness from U.S. federal authorities at home and abroad.
Dr. Michael Seraphinoff is a Whidbey Island resident, a former professor at Skagit Valley College and academic consultant to the International Baccalaureate Organization.
