Police in Philadelphia are looking for a man posing as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who robbed an auto repair shop. The crime is the latest in a string of incidents in multiple cities involving people posing as ICE personnel in order to commit crimes.
Fox 29 reported on Monday that according to police, the man posed as an officer while wearing a tactical vest and a shirt labeled “security.” He claimed to be an ICE agent and zip tied the wrists of the cashier, a woman originally from the Dominican Republic who has been a legal U.S. resident for over 18 years.
The man then stole $1,000 from the cash-only business.
In February, two men in South Carolina were arrested and accused of impersonating ICE officers. They accosted a Latino man driving a pickup truck and told him they were going to send him back to Mexico.
Similarly, a Florida man harassed two Latino migrants in April and falsely claimed he was an ICE officer. The man demanded that the migrants prove their immigration status and threatened to deport them. Other ICE impersonation incidents have occurred in Florida, California, and at Philadelphia’s Temple University.
The impersonation scheme has become enough of a problem that California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a warning to the public.
“We have received reports of individuals looking to take advantage of the fear and uncertainty created by President Trump’s inhumane mass deportation policies,” Bonta said in a March press release. “Let me be clear: If you seek to scam or otherwise take advantage of California’s immigrant communities, you will be held accountable.”
The crimes have occurred amidst a push by President Donald Trump and key members of his team like adviser Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s racist anti-immigration policies, for increased immigration arrests and deportation. ICE agents, often with their faces obscured, have followed orders and abducted people off the streets without identifying themselves and detained and deported community members.
Despite public outcry about the thuggish tactics, Republican leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson have expressed support for the masked abductions. Trump has even complained about protesters wearing masks and demanded they be arrested while backing masked ICE agents.
The heavy-handed approach and the push to have more raids is what led to the ongoing protests in Los Angeles that are now spreading to other cities.
Criminal elements are taking advantage of Trump’s embrace of these authoritarian techniques in yet another way that crime is enabled by Trump’s actions.
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Instead of directing the government to fight crime in a traditional manner, Trump has pushed the false narrative that immigrant crime is more of a problem than homegrown threats. This pivot has provided the pretext ICE cosplayers need to rob more auto repair shops, harass innocent people, and continue terrorizing communities.
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