This post is about the brutal tactics of ICE. In the instance described, ICE agents broke into the home of a U.S. citizen at 5:30 am, smashing his doors. Five people were arrested, two of them American citizens. One who was handcuffed and shown on television being led away by ICE was the homeowner, an American citizen, born in Texas.

Every time I see one of these ICE videos, I get outraged. I have seen them knocking people to the ground who were photographing them. I have seen them smash car windows and drag people out through the window. I have seen them brutalizing people suspected of being illegal. I have seen them beat up protestors. All while wearing a mask, but not a badge or shield. and I keep wondering, “is this America?”

Joyce Vance served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She knows the law and she has a deep love of justice, compassion, and America.

She writes a blog called Civil Discourse, where this excerpt appeared. She is appalled by ICE’s thuggish tactics, and also by Kristi Noem’s showboat tactics. Noem’s behavior towards others reminds us that she killed a young dog because she couldn’t train him. She is known as “Ice Barbie.”

Vance reminds us that ICE in earlier days followed the law. Now, many people object to its actions, specifically, snatching people off the street, throwing them into an unmarked van, disappearing them, all without a warrant. And the masks! Are they being arrested or kidnapped? No one knows. No wonder people call them “Trump’s Brownshirts.”

Vance writes:

For weeks now, the news has been a deluge, making it impossible to keep up with everything. This week so far has been no exception. We know that this is intentional, at least in part. It tends to distract from things like the fact that the Epstein Files have yet to be released. There’s a constant hum of Trump’s incessant push to grow a more muscular, imperial presidency that will allow the Article II branch of government to eclipse the Article I and Article III branches.

But some days, it can be helpful to stop and focus on one small incident to get a snapshot of what’s happening. Today, I focused on some reporting about ICE, one of the agencies under the control of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. 

A lot has been written about how Trump has transformed ICE. I know many of you have seen that and are deeply concerned by it, as am I.

ICE’s congressionally designated mission focuses on immigration enforcement and transnational crime. When I was a prosecutor, we worked serious cases with ICE agents. They were competent investigators. They knew how to get cases done. We did some of the early crypto for crime cases with them and also international networks that were engaged in human sex trafficking, drug trafficking, and elder abuse. They worked computer intrusion cases that had a transnational aspect. We did immigration cases with them, focusing on prosecuting people who were illegally in the U.S. after a prior deportation and who had violent criminal history or were involved in gangs. But what we didn’t do was bust into an American citizen’s house at 5:30 a.m. with the DHS Secretary along. 

Newsweek reported that Noem “joined federal immigration agents during an early morning operation in Elgin, Illinois, on Tuesday that resulted in multiple people being led away in handcuffs, and two U.S. citizens being briefly detained.” CBS reported that five people were arrested during the raid, among them two U.S. citizens, who were released after showing their papers.

Here is the report from CBS in Chicago. 

It’s a simple, red brick, ranch-style house. Witness video, taken after a pre-dawn explosion was heard by neighbors, shows agents peeking into the home, a helicopter flying overhead with a spotlight right on the house in what people in the video describe as a “very quiet neighborhood.” 

This is what Noem posted Tuesday morning, characterizing the men, including the two U.S. citizens who were subsequently released, as violent offenders.

By 8:30 a.m. local time, DHS was responding to these reports, tweeting that “No U.S. citizens were arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers’ safety while the operation in the house was underway. This is standard protocol. Please see our release on those arrested.” 

American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweeted that the man seen in the video was a U.S. citizen named Joe Botello. “They smashed in the doors, dragged him and his roommates out in handcuffs, then posted a video online suggesting he was a criminal, despite knowing he was released soon after,” he wrote, relying on a report from the Chicago Tribune. The agents were masked and armed when they made forcible entry into Botello’s home, destroying both his front door and a glass patio door, according to the Tribune. An agent asked the Texas-born Botello, “how he was able to speak English so well.”

It was another poorly executed raid where people’s rights, in this case, American citizens, were violated.

By the way, the Secretary’s presence might seem like a small thing here, but it’s not. It’s not amusing. It’s not cosplay. It’s not cute. It’s not shake your head and then look away. It’s dangerous. And it was done, apparently, for a photo op.

I spoke with my former colleague Sarah Saldaña, who served as the Director of ICE from 2014 to 2017 and as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas from 2011 to 2014. She was the last presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed Director of ICE. I asked her about participating in law enforcement actions. She told me, “ICE removal operations in the field are highly sensitive and potentially dangerous events. Enforcement removal officers are fully armed and trained to respond to various, often unexpected scenarios that they might encounter. Our focus in removal operations under the Obama Administration was on individuals who presented threats to national security and public safety, and those with convictions of serious criminal offenses. As Director and with training only as an attorney and agency manager, I would never have considered actually interjecting myself into the execution of such an operation. I could easily represent a distraction to officers and, without the proper training, present a danger to them, the persons sought, and to myself.”

Noem, too, should be concerned about the security risk her presence creates. Furthermore, if Noem accompanied agents to the scene, as the reporting indicates, she made herself a witness. If I’m a criminal defense lawyer for one of the men or a plaintiff’s lawyer in a civil suit, I’m cutting the subpoena for her testimony pronto. This is why smart prosecutors know better than to go along when a search warrant is executed, let alone an attorney general or a cabinet secretary. But Noem likes her photo ops. It’s just another sign of the less-than-professional way Trump’s appointees are running government, following Pam Bondi’s comments about prosecuting people for First Amendment-protected speech earlier this week. 

Just as members of Congress challenged FBI Director Kash Patel during his oversight hearing on the Hill today, we have to continue to speak out and challenge Noem, Bondi, Kennedy, and others who aren’t up to doing the job the American people deserve. Americans speaking up is precisely what this administration doesn’t want. They want us to be overwhelmed by all the stories about all the things. They want us to be intimidated from exercising our right to speak, lest we fall under attack too. So, our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. “Courage is contagious” is becoming one of our mottos for this administration. Keep focusing on the truth. Keep speaking out. Keep going.

We’re in this together,

Joyce