Who Doesn’t Like Living in a Country with a Massive, Warm and Fuzzy Secret Police Force?

 

Who Doesn’t Like Living in a Country with a Massive, Warm and Fuzzy Secret Police Force?

They may be one or two ICE officers in a car with no markings, maybe even a single agent… with no badge, no warrant and no individual identification. Even no uniform. How do people even know if these folks are even who they purport to be? And with little more than an opinion of an ICE official, people are often “quick deported” to countries that may have little or no relationship to the deported individual. Since detained folks that cannot instantly prove that they are US citizens are often whisked away into an immigration nightmare abyss, there is little doubt that some US citizens are now in other countries, often in horrible prisons (with no trial), with very few paths to release.

It's easy to kidnap just about anyone, since it seems to be happening in broad daylight every day. Imposters can have a field day. For example: “Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.

“The man, Fernando Diaz, was arrested by Huntington Park police after officers said they found a loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings in his SUV, according to NBC Los Angeles. Officers were impounding his vehicle for parking in a handicapped zone when Diaz asked to retrieve items inside, the police said. Among the items seen by officers in the car were ‘multiple copies of passports not registered under the individual’s name’, NBC reports…Diaz was arrested for possession of the allegedly unregistered firearm and released on bail.” The Guardian, June 28th.

As the US Supreme Court seems to have created a rubber stamp to Trump-mandated immigration injustice, even by letting a bona fide legal challenge against such actions sit in limbo with no interim remedies (as the deportation is carried out). On June 27th, in Trump vs Casa, Inc., announced on the last day of their current term, the United States Supeme Court, issued rough-hewn 6-3 majority ruling on a stay in the citizen birthright question, effectively blowing away the last guardrail from the judicial branch. Now, unconstitutional orders from the President have become exceptionally difficult (and expensive) to challenge.

It can be terrifying: “A group of armed federal immigration agents in Huntington Park, California, blasted their way into a family’s home Friday [6/27th] morning while searching for a man they accused of charging into a law enforcement vehicle, according to several media outlets… ‘I just heard the loudest blast of my life,’ resident Jenny Ramirez told NBC Los Angeles. ‘I told them, ‘You didn’t have to do this. You scared my son, my baby and myself.’ ’… Ring camera footage obtained by the outlet shows a group of armed Customs and Border Protection agents placing an explosive device near Ramirez’s home before a fiery explosion breached the front of the residence. The agents then entered one by one with weapons drawn.” Huffington Post, June 28th. They did not knock on the door, and the man they were seeking didn’t even live there.

To most Americans, this is not something they ever see. To many, it is just a come-uppance to big blue states for electing democrats… unless they live in a red state where their harvesting crew is too small to pick the relevant crops… to their car wash now relegated to an automated wash that requires no labor, a local restaurant that is forced to close or a construction site where a half-built home sits open to the elements, unfinished. Even if there are workers, the fear factor – Trump’s number one tool for governance on most levels – keeps too many at home. They are getting arrested at local courts, so many witnesses slated to testify in criminal or civil trials just don’t show up. Churches, hospitals and schools are open game as well.

If you are detained, even assuming a thick Texas drawl, can you prove you are legally in the United States? If you were born at home, do you even have a recognized birth certificate? Less than pure white increases the likelihood of being detained. Shopping at a big box hardware store also amplifies your risk, citizen or not.

California, of course, is passing legislation to require law enforcement officers to remain unmasked. Feds may not care. The Trump administration excuse that supports masking – they are protecting themselves from attacks – literally makes tracing an officer using illegal tactics from ever being identified, particularly when cell phones are often confiscated during a detention (legally, a “detention” by a government official, which does include soldiers, is an “arrest”). A similar bill is pending in Congress but given the GOP control (as well as the requirement of a presidential signature), it has no chance of passing.

“A new bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat would seek to address the scourge of unidentified, masked and plainclothed agents abducting people off the streets in executing President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign.

“The bill, dubbed ‘No Secret Police Act of 2025,’ would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2022 to prohibit federal immigration from wearing masks. According to Goldman, it would ‘get rid of masks, would require all agents to show their identification and insignia, and ensure accountability for these horrible, horrible policies.’… The legislation comes as Trump administration officials defend Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ ability to act with anonymity. In a recent Washington Post letter to the editor, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons wrote that ‘officers wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxing.’

“But this purported right for agents of the state—who are empowered to use force in carrying out their duties—to shield their identities has, as Goldman put it, led to the use of ‘authoritarian tactics that resemble Soviet Russia more than they resemble a democratic United States.’… Indeed, one could be forgiven for mistaking footage of ICE arrests in recent months for kidnappings.” The New Republic. June 27th. It follows a well-trodden authoritarian practice, dramatically presented in a number of WWII era motion pictures. That dreaded knock on the door by men in trench coats, Gestapo officers.

The ability to arrest is determined, except in times of war and the like, by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution (while applies to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment). The relevant provision reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Hence warrants and arrests, unless committed directly in view of the arresting officer, require “probable cause,” which is always more than “mere suspicion.” Probable cause would not, thus, be justified by the color of one’s skin, their neighborhood, or that that one is leaving a Home Depot with a box of hardware. Yet, most of the actual arrests are based on little more. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and except in times of all-out declared war (e.g., Civil War, WW1 and WW2), what is going on in this round-up and deportment process violates the Constitution and the most basic definition of human rights… and a vast swath of Americans just do not care.