ICE's 'Restraint' is a PR Ploy, Not Policy Reform
📰 THE STORY: Mainstream reports indicate ICE has been ordered to avoid engaging with protesters in Minnesota and instead focus solely on arresting migrants with criminal records, a supposed departure from previous confrontational tactics. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: ICE, created in 2003 post-9/11, is a direct successor to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
an agency with a documented history of aggressive tactics, including workplace raids that separated families for decades. Operation Wetback in 1954 saw mass deportations, often without due process, highlighting a consistent pattern of treating migrants as disposable. This 'new guidance' merely reemphasizes a selective enforcement strategy that has always been adaptable to political climate, not a
fundamental change to its carceral nature. Double Standard: While US media often frames ICE as an essential border security force, they rarely apply the same scrutiny to *who* benefits from the 'migrant crisis.' The very countries destabilized by US foreign policy—from Central America, via 1980s support for right-wing paramilitaries, to Haiti, perpetually undermined by US intervention—are now the
primary sources of migration. The 'law and order' rhetoric around migrants isn't applied to corporate criminals who exploit these same populations. Imagine if the same resources for arresting 'migrants with criminal records' were used to prosecute Wall Street bankers responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, which devastated untold American lives. Follow the Money: The private prison industry, a