Curmie Doesn't Like ICE Unless It's Cooling His Drink

Thirty-ish years ago, when Curmie was in grad school, he had a paper accepted for a conference in Greece.  It turned out that one of the professors with a courtesy appointment in Theatre (his “home” was African and African-American Studies) was also going, so we planned to travel together, room together to save money, etc.  But our plans were altered by the fact that Curmie’s colleague was a Nigerian citizen.

How is that relevant?  He had a visa for Greece, after all.  (Curmie, being an American, didn’t need one.)  Well, we were scheduled to change planes in Germany.  That’s it: we’d never even leave the international terminal at the airport.  But Nigerians needed a “transit visa” (I think that was the term) to even set foot in the airport.  When we checked in at the airport in Kansas City, it took a little time to convince the airline staffer that all we were doing was changing planes, but everything seemed to have been worked out, and we boarded the plane for the first leg of our trip. 

Then a couple of armed security types showed up to escort Curmie’s companion from the plane.  That was embarrassing for Curmie, let alone for his travel partner, who actually wouldn’t be allowed to land in Germany.  That meant, among other things, that the first leg of his voyage would take him to a different American city than where Curmie was headed.  He could then make a connection through Amsterdam instead of Munich or Frankfurt (Curmie connected through one going to Greece and the other on the return trip; he can’t remember which was which); he’d get to Greece a couple hours after Curmie, but he could at least get there.  The kicker is that the border between Germany and the Netherlands is open: Curmie’s friend could have entered Germany from Amsterdam without as much as having to show his passport if he’d arrived by car or train or bus.

This is the part that’s relevant to this post.  There’s more to the story about the return trip, but that can wait for a future post.  What matters is the idiocy of the rules.  This time, the problem was with German regulations, but let’s just say that those folks don’t have a monopoly on this sort of stuff.  Yesterday happens to be the 10th anniversary of Curmie’s finally getting home at about 3 a.m. with a British exchange student who had been held up by Homeland Security.  You can read about that incident here.  There was another variation on the theme (that Curmie didn’t write about) a few years later.  And, of course, there were the two times Curmie himself got stopped trying to re-enter his own country.  Yeah, there’s a lot of stupid enforcement of stupid rules by stupid (but ever so self-important) people out there.  The Trump administration does not have a monopoly.

None is this attempt to deny the importance of border safety.  True, with the exception of some restrictions on Asian immigrants, prior to the Immigration Act of 1924 (barely a century ago), you entered the US pretty much by walking or driving across the border or landing at the dock in the harbor.  Trans-oceanic flights hadn’t happened yet, but there were passenger flights between Havana and a couple of destinations in Florida.  Still, it’s easy to understand why countries would want to be able to keep foreign bad actors out and to reserve citizenship rights to those who go through appropriate channels.  There are also legitimate national security issues involved: not enough to justify a lot of what’s happening now, but worthy of attention nonetheless.

Curmie has several foreign-born friends who went through the process, and are now US citizens.  A couple of them still have accents associated with their birthplaces; others could just as easily have been born in Omaha.  (And some of Curmie’s born-in-the-USA friends grew up with (legal) immigrant parents, learned a different language (generally Spanish) before English, and still haven’t completely lost the accent.)

What this post is about, then, is not about the legitimacy of ICE as an agency.  For the sake of argument, let’s take that as granted.  This is about conduct.  If ICE really attempted to go after “the worst of the worst,” as their apologists keep asserting, the level of criticism, from Curmie, at least, would be significantly reduced.  It’s tough to make an argument that we wouldn’t be better off without foreign-born murderers, thieves, rapists, and similar purveyors of perfidy, after all.  But in fact ICE is under strict orders not to pursue those violent criminals.  Stephen Miller, who’s really in charge of this show, wants numbers and obviously doesn’t care about anything else, including whether the people being harassed are American citizens, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to detain a grandmother or a hotel maid than a gangbanger who might shoot back.

ICE agents are universally bullies.  Hence the strutting around as if they are answerable to no one.  Hence the masks, which serve the dual purpose of being intimidating and protecting the identities of the real criminals: the agents themselves.  Bullies are all cowards, after all.  There have, of course, been numerous assaults and robberies committed by felons pretending to be ICE, too: if we’re not allowed to know who’s behind that mask (even a badge number), then anyone wearing a mask and carrying a weapon is protected.

Again, if ICE agents actually needed a warrant, or even actual probable cause to detain someone; if they were more interested in serving the community by detaining actual illegal aliens rather than in playing demolition derby, crashing into cars for no other reason than that the driver is brown (no, SCOTUS, that isn’t enough, even if you idiots think it is); if they obeyed the law, themselves…  then, it would be a lot harder to argue against their presence.  But they don’t do any of that, and they’ve got the entire administration—Trump, Vance, Noem, Bondi…—ready to lie to protect their little Sturm Abteilung cosplayers.  Not really SA, though, of course: no one would ever use the term “elite” to describe these bozos.

ICE agents have no right to detain anyone who isn’t a legitimate suspect of an immigration-related offense or who isn’t actively interfering with their attempts to do their jobs.  Spraying tear gas or pepper spray into a non-violent crowd exercising their 1st Amendment rights or directly into the face of a protester isn’t acceptable.  Nor is intentionally crashing into someone’s car and dragging them out. (Oops, that was an American citizen.  They’re generally free to go after a few hours without food, water, toilet access, or legal counsel.  Don’t expect an apology, let alone restitution, of course.)  Photographing public ICE actions from a distance is perfectly legal, but don’t tell that to the goons on the ground or the prevaricating pols.  Oh, and giving a speech behind a podium displaying a quotation from a literal Nazi isn’t cool, either.

A decade ago, a career in ICE might have been an ethical course of action.  Anyone in ICE today is by definition an idiot or an asshole… and probably both.