ICE Racially Profiling Civilians And Off-Duty Cops Of Color

Here’s a simple truth: ICE and Border Patrol are engaging in racial profiling.

The Trump administration, specifically the Department of Homeland Security, continues to deny that immigration cops are stopping and detaining people based on their skin color and accent, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has even scolded reporters for suggesting that they do, despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken legal battles all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to give its agents the legal right to racially profile civilians. Noem also recently told immigrants to keep proof of citizenship on their person at all times, indicating that they might be subject to the profiling she claims is not happening. ICE Director Tom Homan said himself that “ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them,” and that “they just go through the observation…based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.” 

According to an ICE agent, White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller once demanded an increase in immigration arrests, asking, “Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” — a clear indication that he expected agents to go where Hispanic migrants typically work, and to identify people to detain based on their race, their occupation or the language they speak.

There’s also video footage of agents approaching people at their own homes and at random businesses, telling them flat-out that they need to see proof of citizenship just “because of your accent.” Countless lawsuits have been filed against DHS, accusing agents of targeting brown people who they catch speaking anything other than English, or speaking English in a foreign accent.

But fine, if bootlicker America still doesn’t believe the many plaintiffs filing many lawsuits, or the federal judges who have ruled the feds are racially profiling, or what agents say out of their own mouths, or what Trump administration officials are saying out of their own mouths, or the Supreme Court — maybe they’ll believe it if local cops say it’s true.

As the Washington Post reports, local law enforcement leaders in Minneapolis and St. Paul are publicly accusing federal immigration agents of violating U.S. citizens’ civil rights, citing incidents in which they have pulled guns on off-duty police officers of color, demanding that they show proof of citizenship.

From the Post:

Mark Bruley, police chief of the Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Park, said at a Tuesday news conference that an off-duty police officer had been “boxed … in” by vehicles driven by ICE agents, who demanded with guns drawn to see paperwork proving the officer hada right to be in the United States. “She’s a U.S. citizen, and clearly would not have any paperwork,” he said.

The officer attempted to begin filming the interaction and her phone was knocked out of her hand, Bruley said. When she identified herself as a police officer, the federal agents “immediately left,” he said.

All of the off-duty police officers who had been targeted by ICE in his city were people of color, Bruley said.

“I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident,” he said, adding, “if it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.”

Dawanna Witt, sheriff of Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, said that people were being “stopped, questioned and harassed solely because of the color of their skin” and that the behavior of federal agents was eroding trust in law enforcement.

“We demand lawful policing that respects human dignity,” she said, adding that the surge of ICE agents in Minneapolis was impacting local officers as well as the community. “We will all continue to show up, even though times are hard, even though our law enforcement is exhausted.”

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said that city employees had been subject to “traffic stops that were clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.”

These are the highest-ranking officers in multiple police departments, saying explicitly that the racial profiling is happening and it’s happening routinely.

Granted, one could argue that local cops are just salty because the feds are jacking their steez — like, “If anyone is going to racially profile my citizens, it’s going to be me” — but that’s another story for another day.

At this point, it’s not even clear why the Trump administration still denies that its agents are racially profiling, or that racism is at the heart of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, for that matter. As I wrote previously, “The president is outright casting aspersions on entire ethnic groups while making it explicitly clear he only wants white immigrants in the U.S.”

If this administration is going to continue to make it so painfully obvious that it is a white supremacist organization, why continue to be in denial when it’s being accused of doing white supremacist things?

Just be the loud and proud white nationalists that you demonstrably are. MAGA, amirite?

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Minnesota Police: ICE Is Racially Profiling Civilians And Off-Duty Cops Of Color was originally published on newsone.com