Vance's ICE Performance: Orchestrating an Old Playbook in Minneapolis
📰 THE STORY: The Hill reports live on Senator J.D. Vance's remarks from Minneapolis 'amid ICE turmoil,' framing it as a response to an ongoing crisis regarding immigration enforcement. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The 'ICE turmoil' narrative is a recurring theme used to justify increased securitization and targeting of immigrant communities. Historically, agencies like ICE
have their roots in post-9/11 fearmongering, leading to mass deportations and family separations that predate current events. The demonization of immigrants has been a consistent strategy in US politics since at least the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, intensifying with Operation Wetback in 1954, and again with the creation of DHS/ICE in 2002. Double Standard: While Vance and others decry 'chaos'
at the border or within interior enforcement, the US routinely destabilizes countries in Latin America through economic pressure, military interventions, and support for corrupt regimes (e.g., 1954 CIA coup in Guatemala for United Fruit; ongoing sanctions on Venezuela), creating the very migration flows they then condemn. The media rarely connects these dots, focusing solely on the 'crisis' at the
border rather than its root causes. Follow the Money: The rhetoric around 'ICE turmoil' directly benefits the sprawling 'border industrial complex,' including private detention companies like Geo Group and CoreCivic, which lobby heavily for stricter enforcement and expanded facilities. Defense contractors also gain from increased surveillance technology and personnel. Campaign cycles see