ICE is disappearing people.
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I see that misguided narrative in the gutless business leaders who talk about “de-escalation” and “finding real solutions” — as if the problem is just that a few ICE murdered two people, not that all the ICE agents are an authoritarian secret police in the making.
I see that misguided narrative in the elected officials who decry ICE, but then talk about “better training” and “more oversight” — as if the secret police will become humane if they just get a few new rules to ignore and have to sit through a Powerpoint about them.
8/
Training a rabid dog, a rattlesnake, or an ICE goon could only ever be effective in making their bites worse.
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@Pollinators @inthehands
I will emphasize some of your points when I call my Senators.@knowattitude @inthehands Thank you.
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My neighbors definitely do not think this is more of the same. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at how many Somali and Latin-American restaurants were thriving in November and now are closed, or getting almost no business if they are taking the risk of staying open. Look at how many kids are staying home from school — regardless of legal status, just because of the color of their family’s skin. Look at how many families are living in houses filled with dirty laundry because they won’t even take the risk of leaving the house to go to the laundromat.
My neighbors are living in •terror•.
If it’s more of the same, why did all of this suddenly change in the last two months?
14/
@inthehands one of my neighbors described the alex pretti murder as making her feel similiar to the second plane hitting nyc on 9/11 in that it was a clarifying inflection point where there was no mistaking we were in a new phase. i thought that was notable. people are on a war prep footing
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The KKK but with a budget the size of Russia’s military. Running mass detention camps.
Think about that for a minute.
Think about what it could mean, what it •already is•:
Into the abyss
The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.
Degenerate Art (degenerateart.beehiiv.com)
16/
"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."
We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.
Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.
We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)
There are TWO things that could happen next:
1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.
2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.
EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.
We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.
The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.
Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.
@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796
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All of what’s happening in Minneapolis is deeply rooted in US history. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul history specifically: Read about the Rondo neighborhood, for example. It’s no accident the the flagship lake in the City of Lakes was named after the vice president of the Confederacy until just a few years ago. Don’t get too excited about making saints of us all here.
It’s crucial for us to recognize that historical precedent. It’s also crucial for us to recognize the extreme new danger of the present moment.
15/
@inthehands I appreciate: Precedented, but *not* the same.
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Please remember them. Remember them, and then remember what they died for: fighting a much larger danger. Remember what they were fighting, •see• it, and •act•.
Do not let their deaths be in vain by making their deaths the only thing you see.
/end
@inthehands Thank you for writing about these horrors. It’s important for all of us to get first-hand accounts, not pablum filtered into neutrality by MSM.
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"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."
We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.
Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.
We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)
There are TWO things that could happen next:
1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.
2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.
EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.
We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.
The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.
Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.
@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796
@violetmadder @inthehands Well said. “More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are.” #concentrationcamps, #iceout
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People were jumping into action here in Minneapolis — droves of people, comfortable people, white people — not in mid-January, but in •early December•. (And the groundwork started much earlier!)
Community meetings overflowing. Signal groups exploding. Observer trainings filling day after day after day. Mutual aid networks popping up like mushrooms. On and on.
Why? Because we saw brown and Black neighbors being dragged from their cars, dragged from their homes, stalked, terrorized, •kidnapped• with barely the slimmest shadow of due process or legal oversight.
5/
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This •is• precedented:
DHS murdered Pretti and Good the exact same way police have been murdering Black people for generations. The ICE+CBP abduction patrols sure look a heck of a lot like the bounty hunters who operated in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The terror tactics of CBP and ICE bear an uncanny resemblance to the tactics of the KKK.
None of that is a coincidence. It’s the same historical thread. It’s basically the same people.
Precedented.
11/
@inthehands Much like the Pinkerton Detective Agency, including the backing of the government. We know how that ended, and that it took the public rising up and not just resisting but replacing the politicians who supported what was happening. I'm hoping that in '26 we'll see the first wave of that.
-
"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."
We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.
Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.
We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)
There are TWO things that could happen next:
1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.
2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.
EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.
We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.
The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.
Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.
@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796
@violetmadder @inthehands And you included, “while the sky gets angrier.” Thank you.
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Precedented, but not the same:
If ICE and CBP are basically the reincarnation of the KKK, it’s the KKK with a budget the size of Russia’s entire military.
Literally. In the literal sense of “literally.” The incoming ICE + CBP budget is ~$140 billion.[1] Russia’s military budget is ~$145 billion.[2]
(If I’m misreading these numbers, please correct me.)
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/
12/
@inthehands you are not misreading it, and it is actually even more than that. Because that is their *sole* budget and does not include other budgets they benefit directly or indirectly from. Some concentration camps for example, likely will be paid for by the BoP or other agencies.
And put another way: that is near the entire GDP of Kuwait.
It is more than the GDP of Luxembourg, nearly twice Venezuela's, and 3.5 times that of Iceland. -
@inthehands you are not misreading it, and it is actually even more than that. Because that is their *sole* budget and does not include other budgets they benefit directly or indirectly from. Some concentration camps for example, likely will be paid for by the BoP or other agencies.
And put another way: that is near the entire GDP of Kuwait.
It is more than the GDP of Luxembourg, nearly twice Venezuela's, and 3.5 times that of Iceland.@inthehands or let's put it another way entirely!
The ENTIRETY of DHS (that's USCS, USCG, USSS, INS, FPS, TSA, FLET, APHIS, FEMA, SNS, NDMS, NIRT, DEST, CDP, CBRN, EML, BioWar, Plum Island, CISA, NCS, NIPC, and more) was a total of 240,000 employees in 2018. They have slashed that number by over 20,000.
ICE is 21,381 employees. That works out to $6.5 MILLION dollars PER EMPLOYEE. Their 2026 budget in brief states that they will spend $24.7M TOTAL on "detainee healthcare."
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@inthehands or let's put it another way entirely!
The ENTIRETY of DHS (that's USCS, USCG, USSS, INS, FPS, TSA, FLET, APHIS, FEMA, SNS, NDMS, NIRT, DEST, CDP, CBRN, EML, BioWar, Plum Island, CISA, NCS, NIPC, and more) was a total of 240,000 employees in 2018. They have slashed that number by over 20,000.
ICE is 21,381 employees. That works out to $6.5 MILLION dollars PER EMPLOYEE. Their 2026 budget in brief states that they will spend $24.7M TOTAL on "detainee healthcare."
@inthehands "ah, but that's"
TSA is losing $300M including the elimination of VIPR (a security augment force and the only one with CBRNE.)Election security? Eliminated completely. National Risk Management? Gone. Chemical Security? Deleted.
Shelter and Services? Minus $650M to FEMA. Grant reductions? There goes another $650M.
Citizenship and immigration? Grants, $10M deleted. Application processing? -$163M. Oh, and firing 750+ FTEs.
So yeah. It's even fucking worse.
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The KKK but with a budget the size of Russia’s military. Running mass detention camps.
Think about that for a minute.
Think about what it could mean, what it •already is•:
Into the abyss
The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.
Degenerate Art (degenerateart.beehiiv.com)
16/
"We have become the evil we fought."
SearingTruth -
ICE is disappearing people.
This is a grim and difficult piece, but it is heartening to read it one particular way: the broader national and global conversation is finally, finally starting to pick up on what so many of us have been yelling for weeks and months: the Department of Homeland Security is acting as Trump’s secret police, a group of Brownshirts with a military-sized budget whose horrors extend far beyond two murders.
The Disappearances in Minnesota - emptywheel
Right now, all the focus is on competing videos of conflicts involving Alex Pretti and his murderers. But the bulk of kidnapping that proves this is a paramilitary occupation remains disappeared.
emptywheel (emptywheel.net)
1/
The sooner Americans come to terms that tRump, evangelicals, repugnicans and Maggots are running #deathcamps, the better it will be for everyone.
Imagine rotting and being tortured in an #ICE deathcamp warehouse, thinking "There are good folks on the outside that know I am her...that can stop this"
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It's kinda the same, in the way a hatching coccoon of a hideous bloodsucking monster is the same as its hideous bloodsucking larva. Same species, different stage.
It's been incubating. The larva was smaller, and not as often biting at white skin-- but it was a sign, proof, of awful things left unchecked and hungrily growing stronger. It's accelerating, getting bolder and testing where it has or hasn't built up enough political and social infrastructure to bring the hammer down in earnest.
And it has a great many nests and a great many stinging tentacles.
I wish I were that optimistic. But using your metaphor, the larva have actively been quietly attacking the political and social infrastructure, to make sure that we can't bring the hammer down when fascism rears its ugly head. The solution (as always) is to make the rich not rich somehow, but as long as they are and have been rich, richer than ever, they've pushed programs to criminalize friendship and decimate communities. To turn our hammers into manacles, and turn us against each other.
This isn't a parasite. This is leukemia.
CC: @inthehands@hachyderm.io -
@inthehands
From the wonderful post https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/into-the-abyss you cited:
"…nobody sane now thinks the answer to abuses at Dachau was to give the guards more training.""…the U.S. is currently holding three times as many people in immigrant detention as were detained in the Nazi concentration camp system in spring 1939—six years into the Third Reich and just before the start of World War II."
@inthehands @zillion Also as a measure of how unlawful and messed up the modern detentions are, those 1930s death camps bothered to give the prisoners toilets. -
Precedented, but not the same:
If ICE and CBP are basically the reincarnation of the KKK, it’s the KKK with a budget the size of Russia’s entire military.
Literally. In the literal sense of “literally.” The incoming ICE + CBP budget is ~$140 billion.[1] Russia’s military budget is ~$145 billion.[2]
(If I’m misreading these numbers, please correct me.)
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/
12/
@inthehands it is becoming increasingly clear that the anti-immigration crackdown is actually an excuse to raise a paramilitary force. They want to avoid another Jan 6 failure and ensure that, the next time they lose an election, they have the force to finish the coup
-
People were jumping into action here in Minneapolis — droves of people, comfortable people, white people — not in mid-January, but in •early December•. (And the groundwork started much earlier!)
Community meetings overflowing. Signal groups exploding. Observer trainings filling day after day after day. Mutual aid networks popping up like mushrooms. On and on.
Why? Because we saw brown and Black neighbors being dragged from their cars, dragged from their homes, stalked, terrorized, •kidnapped• with barely the slimmest shadow of due process or legal oversight.
5/
@inthehands thank you, for your part inneducating folks.
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P Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary shared this topic
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ICE is disappearing people.
This is a grim and difficult piece, but it is heartening to read it one particular way: the broader national and global conversation is finally, finally starting to pick up on what so many of us have been yelling for weeks and months: the Department of Homeland Security is acting as Trump’s secret police, a group of Brownshirts with a military-sized budget whose horrors extend far beyond two murders.
The Disappearances in Minnesota - emptywheel
Right now, all the focus is on competing videos of conflicts involving Alex Pretti and his murderers. But the bulk of kidnapping that proves this is a paramilitary occupation remains disappeared.
emptywheel (emptywheel.net)
1/
@inthehands more than 9 murders. Two are white.
