Trump's Jackbooted Thugs

In the early morning around 1 a.m., a Blackhawk helicopter speeds through the darkness. The pilot spots his target and swoops down to just above roof level. Heavily armed men dressed in full combat gear quickly rappel down ropes. As they hit the roof, they rush to the residential floors of the building. There, they break down doors, toss flash grenades, drag residents out of beds, zip-tie them, and march them outside where they are forced to kneel on the ground for hours. Is this a scene from "Black Hawk Down" or "Zero Dark Thirty"? Or could it be the description of an American military operation in Iraq or Afghanistan? No, this was a recent raid led by Customs and Border Protection in Chicago. Full military-style raids are now being carried out in American cities.

The details of this raid have been fairly well reported. The Department of Homeland Security wanted the action publicized, even inviting NewsNation to come along to observe the raid firsthand. After the fact, DHS produced a glitzy video that looks like a movie trailer. CBP commander-at-large Gregory Bovino even made a brief cameo in the video, looking like a Seal Team Six commander about to take down Osama Bin Laden.

While a small number of federal agents arrived by helicopter, most arrived more conventionally, in a combination of armored military-style vehicles and rental trucks. All told, there were about 300 federal agents involved, including officers from the CBP, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Doors were broken down, the residents were restrained with zip ties, and taken outside. People Magazine reported how Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the South Shore neighborhood building, described the scene:

She said she witnessed agents dragging residents, including children — some naked or improperly clothed — out of the building and into U-Haul vans. Children were separated from their mothers, she said.

The magazine also noted that:

Four children who are U.S. citizens were taken into custody amid the operation at the apartment complex on Tuesday until they could be placed in the care of guardians or the state, the DHS spokesperson said.

The federal agents detained American citizens as well as those thought to be undocumented:

Rodrick Johnson, 67, was among the U.S. residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid, he told the Sun-Times. He told the outlet agents broke through his door, dragged him out in zip ties and left him tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before he was released.

"I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer," he told the Sun-Times. "They never brought one."

Outside, children were separated from adults and citizens from non-citizens. One witness said that "They had the Black people in one van, and the immigrants in another van". Eventually, those detained were either taken away or released. Inside, the federal agents left behind broken and unlocked doors and ransacked apartments. One building resident who is a U.S. citizen described his experience:

When he got home from work, Jones said he entered his unit to find all of his electronics and furniture missing, and all of his clothes and shoes thrown on the floor. Jones said he had no idea who took his belongings and hadn’t received answers from Chicago police.

The building, which has 130 units, is situated in a predominantly Black community. However, in recent years, there has been an influx of asylum seekers from Latin America, many of whom were bused to Chicago by the Republican governors of Texas and Florida. Dan Jones, the U.S. citizen who had his belongings stolen as a result of the raid, said that:

most of his neighbors were Venezuelan and often took turns cleaning the hallway because the property owners did little to maintain it.

“They were cool people,” Jones said as he looked into his next-door neighbor’s unit. “They didn’t speak a lick of English, but we used translator apps to talk to each other.”

According to DHS, 37 people were arrested in the raid. That included a small number of American citizens who had outstanding warrants. While DHS made its usual insinuations that Tren de Aragua was involved, the Department has not yet confirmed that any members of the Venezuelan gang were arrested. Given the nonsensical methods that DHS has generally relied upon to determine gang membership, it is unlikely that any such claims could be trusted in any case.

The legality of this raid is very much in question. Everyone in this country, citizen or not, has 4th Amendment protections. Authorities would be required to obtain a warrant for each apartment that they raided, and it is doubtful that they had them. ICE and CBP have been stopping individuals based on factors such as their apparent ethnicity, place of work, and ability to speak English. Plaintiffs in Los Angeles won a class action suit to stop this practice. However, when the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, the Court stayed the lower court’s decision. This permitted the ethnic profiling to continue, at least until the underlying issue is adjudicated. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence supporting the stay. In that, he wrote:

reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.

Kavanaugh appears oblivious to the reality of these stops. The stops are almost never brief. Instead, those stopped are often taken to another location where they can be held for hours before they are given the opportunity to prove their legal status. In some cases, valid Real IDs have been ignored. Such stops have become known as “Kavanaugh Stops" in order to reflect Kavanaugh’s support for them. What occurred in Chicago might be termed a “Kavanaugh Raid". Nearly all the occupants of the building were detained and only released once they could prove their innocence. These "brief encounters" lasted hours.

This reflects a very troubling situation in which individuals are rounded up and forced to demonstrate their innocence. This is the opposite of how the American system of justice is supposed to work. This is the action of a tyrant. Americans once fought against a king to be free of such actions. For decades, right-wingers heavily armed themselves in order to be prepared to fight against just this sort of government authoritarianism. Now that such oppression is here, they are nowhere to be seen (other than, perhaps, hiding behind masks and wearing ICE uniforms).

It is notable that this military-style raid came just after cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump told America's military leaders that U.S. cities should be used for training the military. Instead of the military, federal agents are practicing military tactics.

The high level of publicity that DHS sought for this raid, along with the accompanying video, reveals the true goal of such activities. DHS is hoping to normalize the use of what are essentially military raids against U.S. citizens. The target that DHS chose was one which they would be aware housed many Americans. The fact that citizens were systematically rounded up suggests that this was part of the plan. DHS is hoping that its forces will be seen as intimidating, not just to undocumented residents, but to Americans as well. ICE and CBP are being transformed into Trump's private army that will carry out his bidding.

Stephen Miller and others in the administration whine and complain when they are called fascists. Yet, it is through actions like this that they have rightfully earned the moniker. Raids like this one are an ironic mixture of clear fascism and comical cosplaying by mall cops who want to be Delta Force. They promised to get rid of the worst of the worst. Instead, they are zip-tying partially dressed children dragged from their beds in the wee hours of the morning.