Axar.az presents an article, "ICE" by John Samuel Tieman

I remember this cop. This cop walked a beat. Every now and again, he'd knock on our door and ask how things were going. I was just a kid. To my delight, he'd take his nightstick and hold it horizontally before me. I'd grab it, hang on, and he'd lift me. Today, this seems both charming and quaint. And it seems like the way policing should be, protective and involved with the neighbors.

As I write, according to the Mayor Of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, agents of the Immigration And Customs Enforcement, I. C. E., outnumber local cops by five-to-one. I. C. E. cops are heavily armed and masked. They are neither charming nor quaint. Nor are they protective, involved with the neighbors, or make neighborhoods feel secure. Indeed, they patrol through neighborhoods like infantry units. They patrol transit hubs and malls. They patrol near churches, mosques and schools. They gather in parking lots. While they are American, it all feels like a military occupation by some strange invader that isn't us but vaguely looks like us.

In Minnesota, I. C. E. says it's there to enforce immigration laws. Their presence bears no relationship to the problem they claim to address. Non-citizen immigrants, those without legal status, are roughly 1.5% of Minnesota’s population. That's less than half the national average. Nothing about that figure justifies the scale, posture or tactics now widely deployed. As Brian O'Hara, the Minneapolis Police Chief, put it, “It’s not necessarily about which laws are being enforced. It’s about how that enforcement is happening.”

I. C. E. is not like a municipal police force. I. C. E. was created in 2003. To an extent, it was a reaction to 9/11. Its mandate is narrow. Its main focus is to provide border security and to enforce immigration laws. That mission is needed. Minnesota, however, is another matter. The posture of I. C. E. is military. When I was in the army, we used to talk about “assuming an attack posture.” Its aim is intimidation. Regardless of intent, the result is that the presence of I. C. E. is provocative. But for the presence of I. C. E., none of this would be a problem. It is not a stabilizing force or, frankly, a force for law enforcement. Undocumented residents are ensnared together with citizens.

Renee Nicole Good was an American citizen. She was the mother of three. She was 37. When an I. C. E. agent shot and killed her on January 6th, it was not an accident. It was predictable. Her death brought into focus what many of us have thought all along, that such violence is not an “if” but a “when”. Her death was the foreseeable outcome of a policy that prioritizes intimidation over rule by law.

I. C. E. must be reformed. But more than that, America must be reformed. We must return to a nation guided by the norms that used to govern all of our law enforcement bodies. And I mean norms such as clear rules of engagement and training in de-escalation. Such norms protect civilians, undocumented residents and agents alike. Otherwise, it's Minneapolis today and a street corner near you tomorrow.

There are days when I get up, read the newspaper, listen to National Public Radio – and I hardly recognize my country. Is Pres. Trump really talking about annexing Greenland? Did we really just kidnap the President of Venezuela? And now there's Minneapolis. But here’s what really makes me sad. I'm a historian. I think of that historian in the future, the one who will write, “The U. S. had it all – wealth, power, culture, rule by law, great universities, top scientists, a free press, freedom of religion, a Constitution that inspired so many nations – and the Americans just threw it all away.”