Thoughts on the Minnesota ICE activities

Minneapolis was clearly singled out for a surge of ICE enforcement not because of any specific problem with local immigration enforcement, but because the Trump administration wanted to publicize the Minnesota welfare fraud story. In short we are talking about a political stunt.

I should say I am not entirely on board with some of the “sanctuary city” policies. I support police not going out of their way to support ICE, and not asking about the immigration status of people they come into contact with, but I think it is a good idea to hold a person who is already in custody and wait for ICE to pick them up.

If ICE really wanted to inflate their deportation numbers (Steven Miller’s goal), ICE would surge in some red states. I would put Minnesota in my top three worst states for ICE to surge into, if you wanted to fatten your deportation numbers.

In addition to being a tragedy, the ICE Minnesota surge is a complete and utter disaster politically, and has failed miserably to publicize wrongdoing in Minnesota.

ICE has revealed itself to be lawless, incompetent, and cruel, and the statements by Kristi Noem and Steven Miller in particular, are a lesson in how NOT to conduct public relations.

From a public relations standpoint, ICE could not have picked worst people to shoot - white American citizens not doing anything unlawful.

Kudo’s to the loosely organized folks in Minneapolis. By just following ICE around and recording their activities, we’re now not talking about immigrants, we’re talking about whether it’s okay to shoot protesters.