cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7329957
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19533
President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday that "reckoning and retribution is coming" to the state of Minnesota as new reports documented the brutal actions of federal immigration agents throughout the US.
In a Truth Social post that was amplified by the official White House rapid response account on X, Trump addressed Minnesota residents and asked them if they "really want to live in a community in which their (sic) are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts,removeds, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign asylums and mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention."
In reality, the operations being done in Minneapolis and across the US by federal immigration agents have little to do with taking violent criminals off the streets.
Recently released data flagged by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, shows that a plurality of people detained by ICE in recent months have no prior criminal convictions.
Trump ended his message with an all-caps declaration to "FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!"
Trump's vow of retribution came just hours after ProPublica published a lengthy investigation documenting 40 instances in which federal immigration agents across the country used "chokeholds and other moves that can block breathing," including nearly 20 instances where agents "appeared to use chokeholds and other neck restraints that the Department of Homeland Security prohibits 'unless deadly force is authorized.'"
The publication also identified several videos in which federal immigration agents were kneeling on the backs of people's necks, similar to the way that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd as he suffocated to death in 2020.
Eric Balliet, a former law enforcement official who worked at both Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol, told ProPublica that he has never seen immigration agents use such tactics before, even if they were arrested people suspected of serious crimes.
"I arrested dozens upon dozens of drug traffickers, human smugglers, child molesters—some of them will resist," he said. "I don’t remember putting anybody in a chokehold. Period."
Arnoldo Bazan, a 16-year-old US citizen who was put into a chokehold by federal immigration agents last year, told ProPublica that he "felt like I was going to pass out and die" because of it.
MPR News reported on Tuesday that immigration agents in Minneapolis have apparently been using license plate readers to identify local activists who have been observing and documenting operations in their neighborhoods.
John Boehler, a policy counsel with the ACLU of Minnesota, told MPR News that the agents' actions appear to violate Minnesota state law, which says accessing people's personal data in this manner can only be done if they are suspects in an active criminal investigation.
There is no reason, Boehler emphasized, that observers should be under any kind of criminal probe.
“Following or observing or reporting on federal agencies or federal activities is not a criminal activity—it's protected First Amendment activity,” Boehler explained. "To be using those cameras, to use those license plate readers, to surveil protesters has a chilling effect on First Amendment rights, and that's what we think the goal is."
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