Dictators can only do their evil deeds if they can count on enough henchmen to do their bidding. But what happens if they stop going along to end up on the right side of history?
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Thanks to cell phone cameras and patriotic Americans (and non-Americans) filming the actions of ICE and Border Patrol goons operating on behalf of Donald Trump, the administration’s cruel immigration policy is on full display for the world to see.
Not a day goes by without new horror videos showing these thugs going about their business of abducting their daily quota of brown people, some of whom happen to be citizens, and most of whom are hard-working and law-abiding members of their communities.
No American, even one in support of mass deportations, should be OK with what is in those clips because it goes against every one of the ideals the country was founded on.
The government does not get to grab people off the streets without warrants. There aren’t supposed to be masked and heavily armed agents combing US cities for their prey and arresting anybody getting in their way (including nonviolent members of the opposition party).
That’s what the Gestapo did in the Third Reich, or the Stasi in East Germany, or the KGB in the Soviet Union.
It’s easy to blame Trump for all of this. After all, he is in the process of turning the US into a country that looks a lot more like the above than the republic the Founding Fathers had in mind.
However, it’s important to remember that he needs accomplices to carry out a mass deportation effort that is not only inhumane but will also greatly disrupt the US economy.
Many, many accomplices.
Because Trump certainly won’t round up any undocumented immigrants himself. In fact, even while he was president the first time around, he continued to employ “illegals” at his own properties; there is no reason to believe that the Trump Organization, which is importing cheap labor with special visas, only hires documented immigrants.
Heck, he even married an immigrant who worked in the US illegally and made another the head of DOGE.
And while Stephen Miller might hate brown people with the fire of a thousand suns, that white supremacist ghoul isn’t going to do the dirty work of arresting them any more than Heinrich Himmler personally operated the trains that took “subhumans” to Nazi extermination camps.
To be fair, Tom Homan might be a different story. He shares Miller’s loathing of immigrants but also seems like the type of guy who wants to roll up his sleeves and arrest some people himself, preferably Democratic politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) or California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). However, there is only so much a guy who can barely string two coherent sentences together can do.
Finally, there is Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who certainly likes to dress the part. But an ICE raid isn’t a costume party, so her effectiveness is very much in doubt.
However, all those immigrants aren’t going to deport themselves (in spite of being offered money and plane tickets to do so), which is why the administration is relying on ICE and Border Patrol brute squads to do their dirty work.
We have a message for them.
However, before we get to that, a quick word on how people should speak to MAGA supporters — and we assume that anybody who puts on a mask and straps on a weapon to enthusiastically abduct immigrants or arrest Democrats is one of those.
There’s a school of thought that says they should be coddled, kind of like wayward children, and that the only way to get them to see the true nature of the Trump regime is to patiently explain to them that they have been duped, and that just about everything they think they know about the state of the United States is either completely wrong or tainted by the right-wing propaganda they willingly feast on all day long.
But we believe that we are long past that.
A while back, we wrote that it is not possible to simultaneously be a good person, informed, and a Trump supporter. You can be two of those at the same time, but not all three.
And it has gotten significantly worse since then.
In fairness, you don't know if it's ICE, CBP, common street thugs, gang rapists… pic.twitter.com/eplhuQenwc
— Mike Morton (@TheMikeMorton) June 19, 2025
If you’re watching what is happening and are making even a cursory effort to arm yourself with the facts — instead of gobbling up and regurgitating the slop that you are being served by Fox News and other MAGA acolytes — there is no way you can be a decent human being and also approve what you are seeing.
And if you’re OK with families being torn apart, people being disappeared without due process, law-abiding taxpayers (that’s right, those undocumented immigrants pay taxes but are not eligible for most federal benefits) being rounded up, neighborhoods being terrorized, the Marines being called in to deal with largely nonviolent protests, and people being denied the ability to pursue the same opportunities that your forefathers sought at one time — i.e., a better life in a country of immigrants — you don’t need to be coddled; you need to be told the truth, which is something most Trump supporters haven’t experienced in a long time… and the truth is that they are awful people.
They should be treated as such.
That applies even more to the ICE agents out on the streets doing all of these things, so here is our open letter to them.
Dear ICE Agent,
We don’t know what’s going on in your head when you put on your tactical gear, mask up, and grab your weapon before getting in your unmarked truck to terrorize your fellow man and woman.
Maybe it makes you feel strong. Maybe it fills a void in your life. Maybe you think that you’re the hero in this story, as though you are part of SEAL Team Six out to get Osama bin Laden.
You are not. In fact, right now you are the villain.
Mind you, we’re not talking about arresting legitimate criminals with warrants. We’re talking about abducting peaceful moms and dads just trying to make ends meet, college students who don’t think countries should practice genocide, and people standing up for the rights of others.
That seems to be the order of the day.
Speaking of orders… it doesn’t have to be like this.
You swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and yet you are violating it (and the inalienable rights it bestows on all the country’s residents) every single day.
No superior, including the president, can make you violate it because you, too, have rights.
There is an off-ramp here for you and your colleagues. You can refuse to be a part of this campaign of fear and violence. You can denounce it and blow the whistle.
But that off-ramp is coming up awfully fast, and, once you miss it, there is no turning back.
You can’t claim that “you didn’t know.” We all know.
You may think that you are a “good cop,” just operating without all of those pesky rules. In reality, you are closer to a concentration camp guard who was “just following orders” than a good cop — because those orders are illegal, indecent, and cruel.
And just like the guards at Auschwitz, history will judge you harshly.
But not just history.
If you continue down this path, we hope that you and everybody else who systematically violated the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike will be held to account once actual law and order is restored, not by a different kind of jack-booted thug, but by a judge and jury.
For now, rest assured that the court of public opinion is already judging you — and its verdict is becoming more damning every day.
It doesn’t have to be that way, but you’ll have to show a bit more courage than what it takes to shove a gun in the face of an unarmed bystander who is trying to do what you should be doing: stand up for the rights of some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Sincerely,
In the name of every decent person horrified by what you are doing to the United States of America
