At 81 years old, I was cruising Milpas looking for ICE. Shocked and riveted by Minneapolis, I wanted to see for myself what ICE was all about in our community. The name everyone gave me was 805 UndocuFund. I arrived at a parking lot in Santa Barbara at six in the morning with other newbies. Almost everyone was half my age and Anglo, our Latino neighbors afraid to go on the streets.
The first big disconnect: What does it mean that I cannot spot federal enforcement vehicles, why are they hiding?
I learned: If the windows are tinted, no morning condensation on the SUV, it might be ICE. If men wearing thrift-store camo, no IDs, carrying guns, masks, dark glasses are in the car, you have undoubtedly found ICE.
If ICE were found, the word would go out and a flash support team would appear to help. Drivers would confront the ICE agents and ask to see warrants for probable cause as demanded by the Fourth Amendment. Fifth Amendment rights demand due process. The community has been successful in many of these push-back efforts precisely because what ICE is doing is illegal and unconstitutional.
One of my companions was a man with two young girls at Harding School. An elementary school family had recently self-deported. His girls were frightened. Masked men had appeared at a K–2 Christmas concert. The girls understood only this: men with guns, faces covered, taking people away. They were too young to know their skin color might protect them.
Hospitals and schools have always been safe places for people, with law enforcement meticulously choosing locations that don’t cause community disruption. Not so ICE. It is as if fear and intimidation are their goal for the whole community as much as apprehending anyone Latino.
The Milpas patrol done, the second stop was the Sheriff’s department. There I saw them — young, husky men, wearing masks, guns, camo, no identification, there to pick people up. Clearly anyone could dress like these men. What If I were accosted by men who are imitating ICE? Would the police and sheriff deputies protect me?
Let me be clear I am completely on the side of our local police and due process, but this terrified me. For the first time in my life I was afraid of my own government because they were backing a lawless rogue agency. I sympathize with their problem, but the community trust is being eroded.
Our country was founded on due process. Certainly the government has the right to detain undocumented individuals, but these folks were ignoring citizenship, green card status, family status, all of the legal standing issues that are at the core of law. In former administrations even with all the immigration challenges, individuals were picked up who had been checked out through the legal system, not randomly picked up off the streets based mostly on skin color. Now they go to camps where standards of treatment and who is detained are hard to determine. Families don’t know if their loved one has survived.
What is happening is terribly dangerous for our community policing and faith in our leaders.
I am an avid procedural cop drama fan. A favorite is Blue Lights, which highlights community policing in North Ireland. The cops are referred to as Peelers. This caught my attention because I didn’t know what that meant. Turns out that Robert Peel established London’s police in 1829. He was very dedicated to the idea that police are citizens in uniform and their purpose is to create order through trust. Their authority comes through visiblity, accountability, and restraint. In our modern world, ICE’s behavior has been characterized “warrior” — the public is looked at as a targets to be controlled by an authoritarian regime. Peel specifically rejected the secret police role that had characterized the ancient regime of continental monarchies. The purpose of the uniform, the identification, is so that you know who you are with and they are accountable to you. Which system are we? A community policing democracy or a tyranny with a state secret police?
With Markwayne Mullin being voted out of committee as a potential head of Homeland Security — his credentials framed by Donald Trump as those of a “MAGA warrior” and former cage fighter — the central question is no longer abstract: Will we sustain a model of community-based policing rooted in public trust, or begin to treat the public itself as a target-rich environment for the state secret police? Are the ICE raids about immigrants? Or about terrorizing all of us and subverting the upcoming election?
With voting on the line in November, who are our police — Peelers or Warriors? What is our country?
The debate continues on whether ICE must have judicial warrants for home entry, required identification of agents, no masks and visible badges, body cameras, limited use of force, accountability for misconduct, restriction on enforcement, locations to guarantee safe space, and more. All of these should be taken for granted in a free society, why is there debate?
Our local law enforcement must defend us and democracy and due process. Reform ICE now!
