All praise the almighty leader as he sends his precious pearls of wisdom down to the masses who are not worthy of his superior intellect and prodigious strength of character!
(Sorry! One has to practice to be prepared for the inevitable new rules of alternative free speech that will be instituted if the Trump regime is allowed to continue with its agenda unchecked. Let’s try that again under the pre-Trump standards.)
President Trump continued to use his Twitter feed as a political weapon this morning as he attacked Democrats while simultaneously engaging in his daily exercises of fear-mongering and hate-building towards immigrants.
The Democrats are making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen. I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13 & clean out the toughest of situations. They are great!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018
Trump criticizes the Democrats who have called for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, as ICE is officially known, the day after a group of 19 regional supervising Special Agents in Charge at the Department of Homeland Security division wrote a letter to Department Secretary Kristjen Neilsen advocating exactly the same thing.
While the image of Trump sitting on the sidelines munching popcorn as SWAT teams of ICE agents round up tattooed MS-13 members from barricaded white picket-fenced towns may be a compelling fantasy for some, the reality of ICE’s effectiveness and ability to work within the norms of the American justice system is quite different.
Scott Hechinger, Senior Staff Attorney & Director of Policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, an organization that provides criminal, civil, family and immigration legal defense to those who could not otherwise afford a lawyer, saw Trump’s tweet and responded with a dose of reality for the president.
ICE didn’t “liberate” any towns of MS-13. But they did undermine & defy the efforts of the FBI to do so on Long Island by arresting & detaining a valuable confidential informant risking his life to take out the gang. Also: 19 ICE investigators just called for disbanding of ICE. pic.twitter.com/OoYZBbsHBZ
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) June 30, 2018
Hechinger’s response demonstrates the dangers of ICE’s uncoordinated and overlapping efforts with other law enforcement agencies with exactly the same argument made by the 19 ICE agents in their letter to Secretary Neilsen.
Trump followed up his initial tweet with a second ICE-focused missive addressed directly to ICE agents.
To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements. So brave! The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018
The idea that the toddlers and infants that ICE has been separating from their families comprise the worst criminal elements is exactly why so many people are spending their day today expressing their outrage by joining one of the many Families Belong Together marches across the country.
(Los Angeles Families Belong Together March photo courtesy of Rich Ramirez.)
Trump’s ludicrous smearing of the Democrats as advocating the abolishment of all police is another example of his fear-mongering and rabble-rousing of his base in a technique straight out of the playbook of the most successful fascist and authoritarian leaders around the world.
Don’t let the man whose first wife has said he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside divide this country with his calls for fear and hatred. If all the people who oppose his policies band together — as they are doing today — Zero chance, It will never happen!
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
