A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent warned a legal observer on Tuesday in Minnesota, saying that if “you raise your voice, I will erase your voice.”
“Are you serious? You said if I raise my voice, you will erase my voice?” the observer asked incredulously.
“Yes, exactly,” the agent responded.
Within the last three weeks, agents with ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shot and killed two US citizens: Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good.
The agencies also deported people from the US without due process, ripped children from their parents, and ushered thousands of untrained agents into cities and neighbourhoods where they were not wanted.
A CBS News poll published days before Pretti’s killing on Saturday in Minneapolis found that 61 percent of surveyed Americans felt that ICE agents were “too tough” when stopping and detaining people.
In response, thousands of Minnesotans rose up in protest, creating a call for change that reached Washington.
By Monday, Donald Trump unveiled a new plan for Minnesota. In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that border czar Tom Homan would be sent to Minnesota to run ICE and CBP. CBP boss Greg Bovino, on the other hand, was removed.
Meanwhile, the president almost immediately blamed the de facto leaders of his deportation scheme, namely DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller, seeking to present himself to reporters as a level-headed witness to the ICE killings rather than the primary and active architect of the agency’s recent overreach.
