<
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/23/ice-is-so-bad-at-immigration-enforcement-that-its-detaining-native-americans/>
"Trump’s version of ICE has always assumed that if your skin shade is anything
darker than right-wing podcaster translucent, your ass needs to be gone from
this country.
Obviously, that’s not how things are supposed to work here in America, which
proudly considered itself to be a melting pot (albeit belatedly and after a lot
of post-Civil War legislation and jurisprudence). What makes America great is
the blend of people in it. And, because this nation is so large, there’s plenty
of room for everyone and no non-bigot will ever claim the addition of migrants
has somehow made us weaker.
ICE has always been awful. It’s been even worse recently, now that it knows no
one in the administration will ever prevent it from being the racist throwback
Trump clearly wishes it to be. It’s even bolder now that the Supreme Court —
via Justice Kavanaugh’s shadow docket concurrence — said it’s ok to engage in
racial profiling.
Racial profiling should be illegal. It isn’t. Among the many problems with
racial profiling is that when you’re just looking for people with darker skin,
you tend to do absurdly stupid shit like this:
Federal agents have detained a handful of Native Americans amid the Trump
administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.
The detention of at least five men in and around Minneapolis has sparked an
outcry among Native American groups about Indigenous people being racially
profiled as undocumented immigrants by federal immigration agents.
Minneapolis is one of the largest urban centers for Native Americans in the
United States.
When you’re rounding up Native Americans, you’re rounding up the people who
have done the least amount of immigration ever. Anyone engaged in these arrests
has migrated more times than the people they’re arresting. This — along with
the recent murder of Minnesota native and US citizen Renee Good by ICE officer
Jonathan Ross — should have been enough to make ICE tuck its tail between its
legs and head off to a more receptive, red-coded locality.
It didn’t. And because ICE neither understands nor cares, it’s up to regular
American citizens to point out the obvious:
“It is deeply offensive and ironic that the first people of this land would
be subjected to questions around their citizenship,” Jacqueline De Leon,
senior staff attorney at the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund and a
member of the Isleta Pueblo. “Yet nevertheless, that is exactly what we’re
seeing.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
