The employee was a longtime counterintelligence analyst who had worked on the F.B.I.’s investigation examining Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
It’s just a matter of scaling, and what they think they can get away with.
That’s why they keep probing the system for people who will cooperate with them. Eric Adams says we can use Rikers. El Salvador says we can use CECOT. Presumably they could be using ICE’s detention centers, but they’re already full and then some, so that’s no good. There aren’t really a lot of options. I assume that private prison companies are silently building frantically, getting ready, but that kind of thing takes some time, especially if you want to keep it quiet.
They’re also probing the system for what people will fight back against. They tried ICE going out as they’ve always done, but people have started gathering around ICE, yelling at them, taking video, refusing to open the door or help them find the people they’re trying to snatch. That’s no good. It pokes a hole in their aura of invincibility. Because, at the end of the day, they don’t have warrants, they don’t have the cooperation (mostly) of local law enforcement, nothing they’re doing is legal. And I’m sure that always in the back of their mind is, what happen if people really start to fight back? For real? So, they have to scale it back. Wear masks and plain clothes. Bust a handful of vulnerable people and see what happens from that. Depend on existing pathways (“immigration enforcement” for people on visas, even if it has nothing to do with their immigration status).
It is both heartening how far afield they have to go to find people who will go along with this bullshit, while also being pretty terrifying that no one’s trying to actually stop them. They’re probing the lines of what will get real resistance, because they know they’re too weak to just bluster into big cities busting down all the Democrats’ doors. They don’t want to overreach.
Wonder how long before Democrats and leftist are on that list and get abducted?
It’s just a matter of scaling, and what they think they can get away with.
That’s why they keep probing the system for people who will cooperate with them. Eric Adams says we can use Rikers. El Salvador says we can use CECOT. Presumably they could be using ICE’s detention centers, but they’re already full and then some, so that’s no good. There aren’t really a lot of options. I assume that private prison companies are silently building frantically, getting ready, but that kind of thing takes some time, especially if you want to keep it quiet.
They’re also probing the system for what people will fight back against. They tried ICE going out as they’ve always done, but people have started gathering around ICE, yelling at them, taking video, refusing to open the door or help them find the people they’re trying to snatch. That’s no good. It pokes a hole in their aura of invincibility. Because, at the end of the day, they don’t have warrants, they don’t have the cooperation (mostly) of local law enforcement, nothing they’re doing is legal. And I’m sure that always in the back of their mind is, what happen if people really start to fight back? For real? So, they have to scale it back. Wear masks and plain clothes. Bust a handful of vulnerable people and see what happens from that. Depend on existing pathways (“immigration enforcement” for people on visas, even if it has nothing to do with their immigration status).
It is both heartening how far afield they have to go to find people who will go along with this bullshit, while also being pretty terrifying that no one’s trying to actually stop them. They’re probing the lines of what will get real resistance, because they know they’re too weak to just bluster into big cities busting down all the Democrats’ doors. They don’t want to overreach.
Yet.
Who knows what this year will bring.