Promoting respectable callousness – ICE thug version
Where we are with the Trump 2.0 regime?
For one thing, they are starting to deport US citizens and are issuing threats to attorneys who are US to get out of the country within a week1:
The ICE thugs, aka, la migra, are acting more like goons than ever, apparently:
On Thursday, April 24, about 20 armed agents stormed the property.
"I don't know who they were," Marisa told KFOR. "It was dark. All the lights were off." …
The woman said the agents had a search warrant for the home, but the people named in it do not live there.
Marisa said the agents forced her and her daughters outside into the rain before they had a chance to get dressed.
"They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them," she said. "My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments—her own dad, because it's respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear."
Marisa discovered that the names on the search warrant didn't belong to her or anyone in her family. Instead, she recognized them from mail still being delivered to the house—likely addressed to former residents.
"We just moved here from Maryland," Marisa said. "We're citizens. That's what I kept saying. 'We're citizens.'"2
She reported that the migra goons took “their phones, laptops and their entire cash savings [amount unspecified] as "evidence."
ICE now admits that their goons realized they had attacked the wrong people – if “wrong” people to attack is even a concept for la migra thugs. KFOR news in Oklahoma City reports, “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security admits they know the mom and three daughters who say ICE agents left them traumatized when they raided their Oklahoma City home were not the suspects they were after.”3
The Northern District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney’s office told KFOR that U.S. federal agents arrested eight Guatemalan Nationals during a set of raids across the country last Thursday as part of an operation cracking down on illegal immigration ordered by President Trump.
The names of the eight suspects they arrested are the same suspect names listed on the warrant served on Marissa’s house, where none of them were located.
For days, we have been asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, for answers.
They finally responded Wednesday, confirming the raid on Marissa’s house was part of that nationwide operation, and admitting for the first time that Marissa and her family were not supposed to be targeted. [my emphasis]
In a world where there was a responsible majority in either House of Congress, the punks who head ICE, and anyone else who’s calling the shots like Border Czar Tom Homan (officially the “White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations”) would be hauled in front of Congress and asked why they are taking such criminal actions. Ask them specifically whether they approve of how la migra treated this woman and her daughters. Is forcing them to stand outside in their underwear in the rain acceptable to these Republican officials who profess to be such fine Christian white folks?
She said they ordered her and her daughters outside into the rain before they could even put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments—her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear.” (3)
And they should be forced to state what they will do to la migra goons who break the law in the course of their official actions. And also Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, who is apparently auditioning for the lead role in the remake of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS:
That’s probably being too generous: starring in gross porno movies would be a more constructive contribution to society than what she’s currently doing.
(I’ll confess that in my wild youth, I saw that film in a theater on a dare. I can say confidently that it’s genuinely disgusting. I almost threw up during it.)
Continuing with what the woman who KFOR identified just as “Marissa”:
Marissa said the agents tore apart every square inch of the house and what few belongings they had, seizing their phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as “evidence.”
“I told them before they left, I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” she said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
Before they left, Marissa said one of the agents made a comment.
“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
Now, Marissa said they have, quite literally, nothing.
“I said, ‘when are we going to get our stuff back?’ They said it could be days or it could be months,” she said.
Marissa said she is left with nothing but questions.
“What if I would have been armed,” she said. “You’re breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women?
This is who supporters of MAGA, the Trump Cult, are. This is who today’s Republican Party is. They get off on hearing stories like this. You often hear critics of authoritarianism reminding us, “The cruelty is the point.” And that’s true.
But giving people permission to enjoy and the cruelty – when it’s done to someone else, of course, someone part of The Others – is also a conscious goal of the Trumpista movement.
I’ve been citing the German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer’s concept of “respectable callousness” (röhe Bürgerlichkeit), which means the phenomenon of people thinking it’s fine, socially acceptable, and even enjoyable to celebrate cruelty committed against other people. More specifically, celebrating the government committing such acts of cruelty. It’s something that authoritarian regimes like Trump 2.0 actively promote.
Raids like those la migra has been performing in a state-terror style like Marissa’s case are examples of such cruelty and Trumpista officials don’t mind them being publicized. They want people to be aware that the regime could do the same to them.
Marissa’s comment to KFOR, “What if I had been armed?” is a reminder of the twisted nature of Trumpista ideology. Remember those Trump fans that Trump celebrated as "Second Amendment people" in 2016? “Donald Trump suggested at a rally Tuesday afternoon that the "Second Amendment people" could do something about Hillary Clinton choosing judges if she is elected president, a comment some took to mean he was implying violence against the Democratic nominee.”4
The aspiring rightwing terrorists who refer to themselves as “patriot militia” types have been saying since forever that we need an unlimited flood of pistols, rifles, shotguns, and combat rifles among American citizens because that’s the only sure protection against jack-booted thugs from the federal gubment bustin’ into your house, holding you illegally, stealing your stuff, and doing things like making you and your children stand outside at night in the rain in your underwear. We’ll see how many Second Amendment enthusiasts are willing to criticize this action in public.
According to the “castle doctrine” and “stand-your-ground“ concepts that the "Second Amendment people" have been promoting and even getting enacted into state laws, if an individual or an armed gang of thugs come busting into your house at night, it actually would be legal to shoot them.
It’s highly advisable for people who keep loaded guns available in their houses for self-defense to stay well-trained on how to use them. And I believe the usual law-enforcement advice is still that if you hear someone breaking into the house, getting out of the house if possible is the preferable approach. And also to call emergency services right away, and also for single-home units to have an alarm system that is connected to the local police department.
The truth of it is that what Melissa referred to, that busting into a house could get the home invaders shot. And presumably the pervy migra goons would immediately respond with deadly force without a second thought, since a lot of them are working at ICE anyway because they could pass police academy training to meet the standard to be local cops.
And if a house alarm connected to the local police went off and the cops showed up and saw people carrying guns outside the house and some of them were masked, the cops themselves could be the ones who initiate the shooting. I don’t know if la migra makes a practice of notifying the local cops of raids like this beforehand. And even Kristi Noam’s thuggish operation probably wouldn’t care if they killed a few actual police officers because they would then blame it DEI programs, or treasonous mayors, or something, and use that as a reason to be even more unprofessional.
My guess is that at least some bad operators in the Trump 2.0 regime are hoping for shootouts to happen so they can use it to promote the narrative that they are fighting terrorists and gang members and violent criminals.
KFOR also reports, “Marissa said the men identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals, ICE, and the FBI.” They quote the U.S. Marshals Service as saying they had advance knowledge of the migra raid “but did not assist in any capacity.“ Also: “News 4 reached out to the FBI. Last week, a spokesperson said they were assisting on this case and directed inquiries to Homeland Security.”
I believe it’s a crime for law-enforcement officials to lie about who they are. Or does that no longer apply to migra Brownshirts?
To top it all off, the Trump 2.0 regime is lying about the actual number of people they are deporting. Because of course they are:
To meet President Donald Trump's goal of deporting 1 million people a year, the administration would have to have sent well over 100,000 people packing in his first 100 days.
On Trump's 99th day in office, his border czar says the administration is on track, deporting 139,000 people since Trump's inauguration.
"The numbers are good," Tom Homan said April 28 during a news conference at the White House.
But immigration experts say the figures don't add up.5
Victims of Trump's irresponsible anti-immigrant crusade include American citizens. MSNBC YouTube channel 04/30/2025. (Accessed: 2025-01-05.
ICE Agents Raid Home, Force Family Out in Their Underwear: 'Traumatized' Newsweek 04/30/2025. <https://www.newsweek.com/ice-agents-force-family-underwear-oklahoma-2065984> (Accessed: 2025-01-05).
Humphrey, Spencer/KFOR (2025): ‘We’re citizens!’: Oklahoma City family traumatized after ICE raids home, but they weren’t suspects. Oklahoma News 4 04/30/2025. <https://kfor.com/news/local/were-citizens-oklahoma-city-family-traumatized-after-ice-raids-home-but-they-werent-suspects/> (Accessed: 2025-01-05).
See: also: Homeland Security admits Oklahoma raid targeted wrong people. <i>Oklahoma News 4</i> 05/01/2025. <https://kfor.com/news/local/homeland-security-admits-oklahoma-raid-targeted-wrong-people/> (Accessed: 2025-01-05).
Schultheis, Emily (2016): Trump: "Second Amendment people" could do something about Clinton judge choices. CBS News 08/09/2016. <https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-second-amendment-people-could-do-something-about-clinton-judge-choices/> (Accessed: 2025-01-05).
Villagran, Lauren (2025): White House touts nearly 140,000 deportations, but data says roughly half actually deported. USA Today 04/28/2025. <https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/28/trump-100-days-touts-deportation-surge/83280907007/> (Accessed: 2025-01-05).