Tom Hohman is in Minneapolis.\u00a0\u00a0Hohman, Trump\u2019s \u201cBorder Czar\u201d, is directly taking over ICE Operations there.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s got a tough job.\u00a0\u00a0His agents were randomly searching for undocumented migrants and taking men, women, and children in custody often without any due process of law.\u00a0\u00a0The actions of his agents were countered by the citizens of Minneapolis.\u00a0\u00a0Many have tried to protect folks who have committed no crimes, but simply are undocumented. (And before we get lost in the weeds, crossing the border \u201cwithout papers\u201d is a\u00a0\u00a0civil offense, not a criminal offense<\/em>).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAgitators\u201d followed ICE teams randomly driving the roads, looking for \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The ICE teams focus on the \u201clooks\u201d of possible undocumented, with all of the civil liberties violations that entails.\u00a0\u00a0Minnesota citizens created networks of \u201cwarners and watchers\u201d, blowing whistles and horns when ICE was around.\u00a0\u00a0And they stood witness, both personally and with video, of ICE actions.\u00a0\u00a0The seemingly untrained and badly led\u00a0\u00a0ICE \u201cteams\u201d often lashed out at the citizens, with chemical weapons and physical attacks. It\u2019s resulted in the shooting deaths of two, both US citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hohman promises a change in strategy.\u00a0\u00a0He uses \u201cbattle terminology\u201d to describe ICE actions, saying some agents have been \u201cin theater\u201d for eight months.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIn theater\u201d means doing their job, in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0And clearly, to Hohman, the United States is a battlefield, where ICE is fighting what he calls a valiant and necessary war to clean the streets of the undocumented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He promises more ICE operations.\u00a0\u00a0He promises continued deportations.\u00a0\u00a0But he also promises that the \u201crandom\u201d drive-by operations led by the officer he replaced, Greg Bovino, will not be the strategy.\u00a0\u00a0Hohman promises to focus on those undocumented who commit other crimes, targeting operations to capture specific individuals.\u00a0\u00a0And he intimates that there is some kind of \u201cdeal\u201d made with the mostly Democratic leaders of Minnesota, to give ICE access to undocumented being held as criminals in Minnesota\u2019s jails and prisons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n To push the military analogy a little farther, it\u2019s kind of like the opening scene of the movie,\u00a0Patton<\/em>. The US Army in North Africa, fresh from a horrible defeat at Kasserine Pass, is waiting.\u00a0\u00a0The general who led them to defeat, has been sacked.\u00a0\u00a0The soldiers look slovenly, undisciplined, and defeated.\u00a0\u00a0And in comes General George Patton, flags flying on his Jeep, demanding discipline, decorum, and readiness.\u00a0\u00a0Tom Hohman is Trump\u2019s Patton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who hoped that the ugly, un-American actions of ICE were over, Hohman made it clear that he\u2019s going to continue to \u201cwage war\u201d on the undocumented.\u00a0\u00a0As he said, \u201cIf you\u2019re undocumented, you are always at risk\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But Hohman plans to focus on the campaign promise Trump made during last year\u2019s Presidential election.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s going after criminals, not just any undocumented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The concern we should have, is the true leader of the ugly American campaign is still in charge.\u00a0\u00a0Stephen Miller is still Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House.\u00a0\u00a0It was Miller\u2019s demand that 3000 undocumented be deported a day, that drove the random round-ups that led to violence.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s Miller\u2019s firm assertion that all undocumented persons are\u00a0\u00a0\u201ccriminal\u201d, simply by being undocumented. That means children and grandparents should be thrown into jail without due process, and dumped in foreign lands. And Miller put Kristi Noem in place as the Secretary of Homeland Security, with old, trusted, Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski at her side. Nothing has changed at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hohman promises that \u201cjustice is coming\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He wasn\u2019t talking about the undocumented criminals.\u00a0\u00a0He was referring to the protestors, the \u201cwarners and watchers\u201d, who use social media to track and disrupt ICE operations. Just as the Justice Department opened \u201cobstruction\u201d investigations of Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, the organizers of the \u201cwarners and watchers\u201d may be subject to Federal intervention.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a chilling thought:\u00a0\u00a0the US Government using the power of the Justice Department to stifle political dissent.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s a sign of our times.\u00a0\u00a0The Justice Department demands the voting rolls from swing states, and even sent the FBI into the Fulton County (Atlanta) board of elections.\u00a0\u00a0Attorney General Bondi offered to take ICE out of Minnesota in exchange for their voter information.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we can expect is the ICE will be more disciplined, and better organized, and less likely to \u201cpick fights\u201d with civilians.\u00a0\u00a0Hopefully they will be less likely to use deadly force.\u00a0\u00a0And we can brace for an ICE \u201cpublicity tour\u201d of all the horrible criminals that are caught and deported.\u00a0\u00a0But with Miller, Noem and Lewandowski still at the helm, don\u2019t expect the real policy to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America is still in the \u201cbusiness\u201d of \u201ccleansing\u201d the undocumented. And it\u2019s still un-American. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Battlefield<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
At the Top<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJustice is Coming\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n