The Word is Minneapolis--But It's Not Over

 

If the United States survives its current authoritarian chaos and the future consequences of the destruction left in its wake, even for a decade or two more, historians (if there are any) will need just one word to signal the reasons it did: Minneapolis.

Chicago showed the way, with elements of resistance learned from Los Angeles, Portland and elsewhere, but it was Minneapolis that made the difference.  An unprecedented and overwhelming assault of some 3,000 armed federal thugs was met with steadfast, intelligent, inventive and relentless resistance.  

The key moments within the daily responses to the hourly official crimes were of course the way the city showed up after the murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti, never wavering from their resistance and support for their immigrant neighbors (including organizing to feed families when they were too terrorized to leave home), and coming out in sub-zero temperatures by the thousands to protest peacefully--and to mourn.  

Now the feds have announced the end of their operations in Minnesota.  In other words, ICE is out.  But there is no dancing in the streets of the Twin Cities.  For one thing, since the feds have done nothing but lie, no one in Minnesota believes anything they say.  They will watch what happens, and what if anything stops happening.

For another, the federal thugs leave behind vast damage to communities and people: traumatized families and children, economic ruin for some, and a host of residual problems for schools, medical care facilities, government and businesses.  There are still Minnesotans vanished into black site prisons and with unknown fates, including children.  There are also children left behind when their parents were swiftly deported.  Even those released from concentration camps still face official efforts to deport them, including Liam Ramos and his family.  Community support for immigrant families will need to continue.

For yet another, Minnesotans are concerned for other places in the US that may yet be visited with the lawless thugs fostered and protected by a rich bureaucracy in Washington.  The feds still plan to spend over $38 billion on new "detention centers," many of which will warehouse more individuals than any actual federal prison, while prisoners convicted of no crime die in existing concentration camps, and disease runs rampant. They  still contain hundreds of children, though these publicly-funded prisons refuse to disclose anything about themselves. 

 It's known however that one family with five children, from age 18 to twins who had their fifth birthday in captivity, has been imprisoned in Texas for at least nine months.  Another known case: A healthy infant sent to one of these camps contracted a number of life-threatening diseases there, and even then ICE extracted her from the hospital.  A judge has since seen to her release.

Congressional Democrats are refusing to fund the Homeland Security department until the same rules that apply to all other kinds of law enforcement are institutionalized in ICE and Border Patrol.  Polls show a majority of Americans support this stand.   

Though the lawlessness of these federal thugs became most obvious in Minneapolis with its treatment of protests--including the murder of two peaceful protestors--and its violation of fourth amendment rights, it was also exposed there in its treatment of those it disappeared.  A federal court judge in Minnesota ruled that they have been violating constitutional and basic human rights of prisoners.  The top federal court judge in Minneapolis earlier declared from the bench that ICE had "likely violated more court orders in January than some federal agencies have in their entire existence." 

Last week Reuters put a number on this aspect of defiance of the law: Courts have ruled 4,400 times against ICE for jailing people illegally.  There is no indication that they are stopping.

There is also little redress or consequences from any of this.  In a Chicago case where federal thugs rammed a vehicle and shot the woman driving five times (she survived), and a Minneapolis case where federal thugs shot a man in his home through his door, the preponderance of evidence showed that the federal agents were lying about what happened (the feds acknowledged this in the Minnesota case.)  Cases against the victims were dismissed, but there are no criminal cases brought against the thugs for what they did.  Similarly and most obviously, there are no consequences so far for the murderers of Good and Pretti.

Attempts to intimidate protestors and criminalize protest continue.  It's well known that agents have been identifying protesters and threatening them with terrorist watch lists, and some Minnesotans have filed charges in court saying they were menaced at home by federal thugs.  The New York Times reports that Homeland Security had demanded identifying information on social media accounts of those who criticized ICE from Google, Facebook and other companies--and have often been given such information.

Even if the army of federal secret police does decamp from Minnesota, they leave a very damaged legal system behind that will take a lot of time to repair, as Politico reports.  The US Attorney's Office in Minneapolis has been hollowed out by resignations by prosecutors who refused Washington's directives to ignore the murders and otherwise support the federal thugs in their thuggery. The federal prosecutors that remain face judges that no longer trust them.  State and local law enforcement no longer trusts the feds either, and cooperation is disintegrating.  In this as well, Minneapolis may be a harbinger, if the lavishly funded federal Gestapo invades other cities and towns in the United States of America.