From Battlefield to Border Patrol: A Seamless Transition for Some
The Independent highlights Jonathan Ross's dedicated career arc from military service in Iraq to a fervent ICE agent, dutifully hunting down 'undocumented migrants.' This portrayal, oddly framed as an individual's background, glosses over the systemic flow of personnel and tactics from overseas military interventions into our own internal policing. It’s almost as if the surveillance, interdiction,
and detention skills honed in a declared 'War on Terror' are perfectly transferable to a perceived 'border crisis' at home, often using the same, increasingly militarized equipment and doctrines. One might wonder if the 'rabbit holes' Ross supposedly 'went down' in Iraq were similar to those he now navigates on the border, both driven by an often-unquestioned directive to identify and eliminate a
designated 'threat.' The mainstream media presents this as an individual's professional trajectory, rather than a feature of a state apparatus that seamlessly redirects trained personnel from foreign battlefields to domestic border enforcement, perpetuating a state of perpetual ‘othering’ and confrontation, regardless of geography.