ICE shows Canadians the frightening path the RCMP is on

 

The force's Community Response Unit could, under the wrong circumstances, become something much worse than it already is

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is quickly emerging as the Trump administration’s authoritarian secret police force, aggressively sowing terror and suppressing political speech, not just at the country’s borders but throughout the country. But ICE wasn’t founded by President Donald Trump: it was a product of President George W. Bush’s so-called War on Terror and has played a fascistic role in the U.S. under both Democratic and Republican administrations ever since. 

There were warning signs about the role ICE would play in the event of an authoritarian turn. B.C. and Canada must learn from the American experience by heeding these warning signs in advance, curbing our most fascistic police forces — particularly, the RCMP’s CRU, formerly known as the C-IRG (Community-Industry Response Unit) — before it’s too late.

In the past 100 days, ICE has raided university dorms; kidnapped people in broad daylight in Boston; publicly threatened students; and detained would-be tourists, at times in solitary confinement, for weeks. The majority of these cases have been instances of direct suppression of political speech: indeed, the administration publicly brags that it has revoked more than 300 student visas solely on the basis that these students spoke out against the U.S.-backed genocide of Gaza. Some of these students, like Mahmoud Khalil, have been protest leaders, but many have been targeted for little more than a social media post. In March, Rümeysa Öztürk, a graduate student at Tufts University, was snatched by masked, unidentifiable ICE officers in front of her apartment, an event captured in a chilling video. Her crime? Co-authoring an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for the Tufts administration to honour a divestment resolution passed by the Tufts Community Union Senate.

The Trump administration is using activism for Palestine as a kind of test to see how far it can go, and there are signs that it intends to expand the mandate of its secret police beyond visa holders and permanent residents, to naturalized citizens, and on to other forms of critical political speech.  (more...)

ICE shows Canadians the frightening path the RCMP is on