This is my first Ever post to Daily Kos. I was up since 4 am composing this letter to my Representatives. I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to stand for this anymore!
Dear Senator / Congressperson,
When “ICE” started with these unmarked raids and arrests, wearing masks, using unmarked vehicles and a mish mash of uniforms, and with most not identifying the agency they were with, my wife and I looked at each other and said that this opened the door wide open for Law Enforcement Impersonators to start grabbing people, especially lone women, for rape, slavery, human trafficking and possible forced prostitution. The implications were obvious and chilling.
Well, it didn’t take long! There have been several cases of law enforcement impersonators in the last week, from the murder of the Minnesota legislator to supposed Immigration raids where the people cannot be located by family or lawyers. In many cases such as the NY Comptroller, the “Agents” refuse to show ID or a Judicial Warrant and even arrested the NY Comptroller for interfering with the snatching of the person he was trying to protect when he was simply trying to determine if this was legal and legitimate.
THIS HAS TO STOP!
I have several friends who are here legally, have committed no crimes, and are in the process of taking all the legitimate steps to become full US Citizens. I am feeling a degree of trauma worried about them being snatched up, their legal status changed on short notice, and them being deported, or worse renditioned to a detention center where they have NO Due Process. I might just lose contact with them and wonder the rest of my life what happened to them. If I am there when it happens, I will be like the NY Comptroller, demanding ID and a Judicial Warrant, and calling 911 to verify if this is legitimate. I would be traumatized the rest of my life if I stood by and let ICE Impersonators abduct a young woman friend or associate of mine, finding out later, and wondering what horrors she was going through for the rest of her life. I will risk arrest (shouldn’t have to) to try and verify the legitimacy of the arrest and will do all I can to ensure that person gets due process.
One citizen who tried to photograph a license plate had an “Officer” jump out of the SUV and point a gun at him. A legitimate law enforcement officer only points a gun at someone in a situation where there is just cause and sufficient threat to warrant using that gun. Don’t unholster unless you intend to use it. THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL! These people are acting like the Schutzstaffel.
Jen Psaki had a very good 10 minute summary of what is going on last night. Please watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmpOZsjbCks
I am writing to all three of my national reps and my State Rep with these suggestions for new legislation that is needed YESTERDAY! Please consider these suggestions.
- Any Law Enforcement officer must show an official ID to a subject being detained, and to a representative of the group observing, and must allow at least agency and badge number to be written down or preferably photographed, and subsequently allowing subject or witnesses to verify that the officers are legitimate. A proper Judicial Warrant must be presented and be allowed to photograph to determine legitimacy. Uniforms must be properly marked with the agency in a form that is not readily available for non-official people to buy to impersonate an officer. Citizens must retain the right to video or photograph the events and vehicles without intimidation. A phone App should be developed to allow the badges, license plate, and Warrant to be transmitted to local law enforcement for rapid verification. Public PSA announcements should be made explaining the new law and how to identify real vs fake ID and Warrants.
- The subject or witnesses must be allowed to contact 911 to determine the legitimacy of the arrest BEFORE the person is placed in a vehicle. I don’t care if it slows down meeting Dear Leaders Daily Quota.
- Speaking of Quotas, they are one of the main reasons for the agents to go after the low hanging fruit, people whose status is abruptly changed at routine court check-in’s and who are then are often abruptly and inhumanely scooped up and taken from their families with no chance to get their affairs in order. The Quota system needs to be outlawed, and we need to go back to the slightly harder job of identifying the real criminals (there are very few criminals among the immigrant community BTW. Not nearly as many as among the White Nationalist).
- Allowing “officers” to detain someone on “Suspicion” of being illegal needs to end. The current criteria seem to be that the subject has more melanin than Steven Miller. ICE needs to do its homework, determine who is subject to legal deportation, get a JUDICIAL Warrant, hand signed by a proper Judge, and then go get that person.
- If the detainees have no criminal record and have simply overstayed a Visa or are in process of obtaining citizenship or asylum, there is no risk to the community or real risk of flight. Put a tracking device on them if necessary, but mandate that non-violent non-criminal detainees be given a minimum of say 2 weeks to get their affairs in order. They may need to sell a car, business, house, do normal out processing from a job such as turning in ID badges, getting final pay, retirement, we may need to make special legislation to require that employers pay out any retirement, sick leave or PTO balances, IRA, stock options or whatever on an expedited basis.
- For procedural deportations, we need to allow the person to self deport either back to their home country, or if that is not an option, to the country of their choice. It may take a little while to contact embassies and arrange travel. No one, not even violent offenders, deserves to be sent to a hell-hole detention center where they have no due process or contact with friends and family.
- Speaking of Employers, why is no one going after the Illegal Employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers who they know they can abuse??? I know that a lot of farmers, meat packers and such could not find enough people to work for them, so let’s fix that. I don’t mean requiring Child Labor (I picked strawberries in the summer as a Kid, but I did it when and as much as I wanted to). My suggestion is to reform our guest worker laws to make it easy for enough farm workers to come up to work in the fields or other hard to fill jobs. Give the employers the rest of this year to straighten out their employment practices, make them pay at least Minimum Wage to the guest workers, and starting next year aggressively enforce sanctions against employers who still employ undocumented workers.
- In order for this enhanced guest worker program to work, we will have to give assurances that their status (green card, work permit, or whatever) will not be revoked abruptly unless they commit a felony or violent crime.
- Due Process is afforded EVERY Person (Citizen or not) in the United States by our Constitution. We need to enforce that in the courts and make sure it is not ignored out of convenience and in a misguided attempt to meet Dear Leaders daily quota. That is NOT WHO WE ARE, and we need to show the WORLD that we are fighting back and not going to let that happen on our watch. It will take Seven Atta-boy’s to make up for one dumb abuse, so it will be a long climb back out of this hole of global disrespect we have fallen into in just a few short months, but we need to start now and work diligently to restore and even improve our reputation as a world leader in Human Rights.
- If the Republicans will not go along with these kind of reforms, MAKE THEM VOTE AND PUT IT ON THE RECORD that they favor this type of inhumanity.
In summary, please fix the laws ASAP so that I don’t have to risk arrest or intimidation at gunpoint just to protect a friend or colleague or stranger from potentially being kidnapped by someone impersonating a law enforcement officer. This is happening way too often already, and we need protections enacted NOW to protect the citizens and lawful residents of our once great nation.
