The Hill Discovers Federal Agents Can Violate Rights – When It's About ICE
One might applaud The Hill for amplifying a genuine cry for accountability regarding ICE overreach and rights violations. The author, a former detainee, details an egregious instance where federal agents disregarded due process. It’s a compelling, firsthand account of arbitrary power and its consequences, particularly welcome from a mainstream outlet that often remains silent on similar issues
when they involve more politically inconvenient targets. Yet, the specific framing—focusing on ICE's violations—allows for a comfortable distance. There's no mention of the routine impunity enjoyed by federal agents across various departments, especially when those actions align with broader foreign policy objectives. The corporate media laments ICE's lack of accountability, but consistently
ignores the other federal agents, say, those facilitating aid to ethno-nationalist regimes or those who ignore international law when it comes to human rights abuses of Palestinians. Accountability, it seems, is a fluid concept, selectively applied based on narrative utility. One might wonder if The Hill would be equally keen to run an op-ed about the civil rights violations implicitly endorsed by
Congress's continuous rubber-stamping of unconditional foreign aid to entities with documented histories of such abuses.