Call it accident, call it plan. But let's not fall into the reprehensible deception of calling it a lie: It is a fact that federal agents have detained and arrested dozens, if not hundreds, of American citizens as part of immigration raids, regardless of what Kristi Noem wants us to believe.
During a congressional hearing Thursday, Noem, our Secretary of Homeland Security and self-proclaimed Cruelty Barbie, reiterated her oft-used and patently false line that only the worst of the worst are being targeted by immigration authorities. This comes after weeks of his department posting online, on its increasingly far-right social media accounts, that claims that American citizens were detained and held incommunicado are “fake news” or a “hoax.”
“Stop fearmongering. ICE DOES NOT arrest or deport US citizens,” Homeland Security recently posted on the old Twitter.
On Tuesday, at a different congressional hearing, a handful of citizens, including two Californians, told their stories of being grabbed by faceless masked men and taken to cells where they were denied access to phones, lawyers, medications and a variety of other legal rights.
Their testimony accompanied the release of a congressional report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in which 22 American citizens, including a dozen from the Golden State, told their own shocking and terrifying stories of mistreatment and detention by what can only be described as secret police: unidentified armed officers who often appeared to lack the basic training necessary for safe urban policing.
These stories and the brave Americans who are stepping forward to tell them are history in the making, a history I hope we will regret but not forget.
Immigration enforcement, fueled by unprecedented amounts of funding, is about to ramp up even further. Noem and her agents revel in impunity, attempting to erase and rewrite reality as they go, while our Supreme Court crushes precedent and common sense to further empower this presidency. Until the midterm elections, there is little hope for a check on power.
Under these circumstances, for these people to record their stories is an act of bravery and patriotism, because they now know better than most what it means to have the chaotic brutality of this administration focused on them. It is up to the rest of us to listen to them and peacefully protest not only trampled rights, but also our government demanding that we believe lies.
“I have always said that immigrants who are given the great privilege of becoming citizens are also some of the most patriotic people in this country. I know that everyone loves their country. I love our country, and this is not the America that we believe in or that we fought so hard for. Every person, every American citizen, has rights,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said as the hearing began.
Andrea Vélez, a native of Los Angeles, whose arrest was reported by my colleagues when it happened, was one of those who risked testifying.
Velez, less than 5 feet tall, is a Cal Poly Pomona graduate who was working in the textile district in June when ICE began its raids. Her mother and teenage sister had just dropped her off when masked men got out of unmarked cars and began chasing people of color. Vélez didn't know what was happening, but when a man attacked her, she raised her work bag in defense. The bag did not protect her. She also did not tell agents that she is a U.S. citizen.
“They handcuffed me without checking my ID. They ignored me while I repeated over and over again that I am an American citizen,” she told committee members. “They didn't care.”
Vélez, still unsure who the man was who forced her into a van, managed to open the door and ran towards an LAPD officer, pleading for help. But when the masked man noticed she was loose, “he ran screaming, 'She's mine,'” the congressional report says.
The police officer sent her back to the unmarked car, beginning a 48-hour ordeal that ended with her being charged with assault on a federal officer; The charges were eventually dropped after his attorney demanded body camera footage and alleged witness statements. (The minority staff report was released by Rep. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.)
“I never imagined this would be happening here in the United States,” Vélez told lawmakers. “DHS likes to… brand us criminals, strip us of our dignity. They want to paint us as the worst of the worst, but the truth is that we are human beings with no criminal records.”
This “if you're brown, you're falling” tactic is likely to become more common because it's now legal.
In Noem v. Vásquez Perdomo, a September court decision, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that it was reasonable for officers to detain people who appeared foreign and were involved in activities associated with undocumented people, such as applying for a job at a Home Depot or attending an event in Spanish, as long as authorities “quickly” let the person go if they prove their citizenship. These are now known as “Kavanaugh stops.”
Regardless of how racist and problematic that policy is, “immediately” seems up for debate.
Javier Ramírez, born in San Bernardino, testified as “a proud American citizen who has never known the weight of a criminal record.”
He is a father of three and was working at his car dealership in June when he noticed a strange pickup truck idling on his private property with a group of men inside. When he approached, they jumped out armed with assault weapons and grabbed him.
“This was a scary situation,” Ramirez said. But then it got worse.
One of the men shouted, “Catch him! He's Mexican!”
In a video filmed by a bystander, Javier can be heard shouting: “I have my passport!” according to the congressional report, but the agents didn't care. When Ramirez asked why he was being held, an officer told him, “We're trying to figure that out.”
Like Vélez, Ramírez was arrested. Because he had severe diabetes, he was denied medication until he became seriously ill, he told investigators. Although he asked for a lawyer, he was not allowed to contact any, but the interrogation continued.
After his release five days later, he had to seek additional medical treatment. He was also charged with assault on a federal agent, as well as obstruction and resisting arrest. The false charges were also later dropped.
“I should not have to live in fear of being attacked simply because of the color of my skin or the other language I speak,” he told the committee. “I share my story not only for myself, but for all those who have been treated unfairly, for those whose voices have been silenced.”
You already know the poem, friends. It begins when they “came” for the vulnerable. Fortunately, although people like Ramírez and Vélez may be vulnerable due to their pigmentation, they are not meek and will not be silenced. Our democracy, our security as a nation of laws, depends not only on hearing their stories, but also on peacefully opposing such abuses of power.
Because these abuses only end when people decide they have had enough, not only of anarchy, but of the lies that empower it.
