Do not stop talking about Minnesota
Following the murder of Renee Good at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 7, 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti was murdered by federal agents on Saturday.
The escalation in violence in the past few months has made it clear that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is engaging in genocidal practices, and this federal administration must be held accountable for its crimes against humanity. Recent reporting from 404 Media, an independent digital media company, shows the clearest link between ELITE, digital infrastructure being created for ICE to use in regular operations, and ICE’s recent activity in the field. With the murder of Good and the inhumane treatment of detainees in ICE detention camps, the actions of this administration reflect the fascist ideology and the authoritative nature that were always embedded in the Trump administration.
There are three main factors that I will argue point to the undeniable reality that the actions, operations and practices of ICE are genocidal in nature. First, I will demonstrate that the methodology employed by this administration is indiscriminate and systematic, targeting a single group. Second, the real-time execution of these operations has taken a “shoot first, ask questions last” approach, causing irreparable harm to the afflicted communities. Additionally, the agency has been used as an arm of the Trump administration, illegally detaining individuals who have expressed extreme opposition to his presidency. Last, the conditions that detainees are exposed to in these detention camps show the administration’s intent to inflict harm, rather than enforce the law.
Methodology
The relationship between Homeland Security Investigations and the Denver-based software company, co-founded by right-wing mega-donor Peter Thiel, was brought to light when an immigrant legal rights group published a cache of internal ICE documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents showed the intimate relationship between Palantir and various administrations on either side of the aisle. According to the documents, Palantir’s tools are frequently used in day-to-day operations. Using its data and software, ICE is able to track air travel, analyze driver’s license and track people’s locations via cell phone records.
Through public procurement records obtained by 404 Media, sworn testimony from an ICE official in Oregon shows the use of ELITE, one of Palantir’s apps.
“Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets through advanced analytics,” a user guide for ELITE obtained by 404 Media says. “The tool aims to be nearly all encompassing when it comes to finding ICE targets, from identifying subjects in the first place, to building a list of people, to supervisors approving selections for officers to ultimately go into the field and apprehend.”
Using various criteria such as location, criminality and other vague terminology, ELITE lets ICE see specific areas to target.
“The fact ICE is using this app proves the completely indiscriminate nature of the agency's aggressive and violent incursions into our communities. This app allows ICE to find the closest person to arrest and disappear, using government and commercial data, with the help of Palantir and Trump's Big Brother databases. It makes a mockery of the idea that ICE is trying to make our country safer. Rather, agents are reportedly picking people to deport from our country the same way you'd choose a nearby coffee shop.”
— Sen. Ron Wyden (OR)
ICE is targeting locations, places and communities. Areas with a higher concentration of immigrant residents are more likely to show up as areas of interest on this app. Those in the community are then subject to indiscriminate searches, such as those in Wooburn, Oregon, who were detained in a raid. In October, ICE agents waited in three unmarked vehicles outside of an apartment complex and went on to smash a van’s window to detain a 45-year-old woman and arrest 30 others in a dragnet.
With an aggressive quota of eight arrests per team per day, this dragnet circumvented the legal channels for ICE to conduct operations and prioritized the quota. In the case of the woman, who is referred to as MJMA for anonymity, she was unlawfully stopped without reasonable suspicion. There was no reason for her arrest or for immigration officers to believe she had committed any immigration violation, according to the law firm representing her. Furthermore, ICE has completely taken MJMA’s right to talk to her lawyer for over 48 hours.
According to the ICE agent who testified in the hearing, ELITE is a tool that gives you a probability; “there’s no such thing as 100%,” the agent said. The impacts of this can be seen in real time, such as in the case of Jose Roberto Ramirez, who was forcibly removed from his aunt’s car in Minnesota. Ramirez is Native American and a US citizen.
According to reporting by the Washington Post, tribal leaders in the greater Minneapolis area said indigenous people have been stopped, questioned, harassed and even detained solely on the basis of their skin color or names. This instance is one of many; reporting from ProPublica found more than 170 US Citizens have been detained.
These raids and arrests are indiscriminate in nature, as it’s based on probability and the floodgates have been opened for racial profiling in these investigations. In early September, the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn a ban on “roving patrols” issued by an LA judge in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem. This decision allows ICE agents to stop and question individuals based on how they look, the language they speak, or their current location. This peels back to probable cause needed to make these arrests in the first place and disproportionately affects people of color, immigrant or not.
In a stern warning, one of the three who voted in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, spoke on the implications this decision has on the Latino community.
“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino,” Sotomayor said.
The first Hispanic justice’s statement is corroborated by Amy Reed-Sandoval, who was the first to point out the difference between socially undocumented and legally undocumented immigrants in her book Socially Undocumented (2020). For example, it is much more likely for an immigrant of color to be stopped and questioned by federal agents than a white undocumented immigrant. Sandoval argues this is because there’s a difference between those she considers socially undocumented and those who are just legally undocumented.
Through racist and degrading rhetoric, the Trump administration has created a perception of criminality amongst colored immigrant communities. These communities are identifiable because their skin color, language and culture are different from the homogeneous evangelical culture the Trump administration is trying to push. These communities are subject to disproportionate patrolling and policing, and paired with the recent ruling in Perdomo v. Noem, these perceived differences can be used as justification for detainment. So now the target isn’t documented reports of illegal immigration, it’s the perceived threat of illegal immigration within an area, community or person.
The methodology for enforcement used by this administration is in violation of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, given the targeting of locations hosting large communities of immigrants using ELITE, violently detaining individuals based on a probability and the documented ways ICE racially profiles these communities.
Intent to inflict harm
In real time, we’re seeing a shoot-first approach to enforcement from this agency. Individual rights to due process have been replaced with shooting and violence. Death has become a rational punishment for individuals committing no crime, or those who still have their civil liberties. In the case of Renee Good, nothing about the ICE agent’s conduct was procedural: according to the Department of Justice Policy On Use Of Force, firearms are not to be discharged to disable moving vehicles, and deadly force is prohibited to prevent escape of fleeing suspects. But of course, Good was committing no crime in her final moments, and multiple legal agencies and analysts have debunked Trumpian claims that she committed acts of domestic terrorism
So when the federal administration defends and normalizes these actions, they also rewrite the rules, and JD Vance’s defense of the murder in a press conference sends the message to all ICE agents that proper procedure can be thrown out the window. This almost instantly resulted in an escalation of violence in Minnesota and across the country.
Videos circulating all across social media document interactions with ICE, instances of violence and the racist rhetoric spewed by these agents. In Maine, Cristian Vaca caught the moment on film when ICE agents came knocking at his door and told him, “We’re gonna come back for your whole family.” Vaca, a legal resident as of Sept. 2023, is joined by his wife and young child. In his final moments, Pretti was helping a woman who had been pushed over by ICE agents, and was pepper-sprayed and tackled to the ground. Firing nine shots, Pretti was executed on the street in front of his Minnesota neighbors.
Article II, Section C of the UN Genocide Convention states member nations cannot deliberately inflict on the group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruction in whole or in part. ICE targets places and locations in their methodology, resulting in indiscriminate deaths, arrests and injuries, because their operations are based on probability. The killing of Good, Pretti and the rise in violence and danger towards immigrant communities have created unlivable conditions in Minnesota and targeted areas.
ICE Detainment
In a military base in El Paso, Texas, a detained teenager was beaten and taken to the hospital. Samuel, who goes by a pseudonym, said an officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears.” He is just one of dozens of accounts of abuse in this ICE detainment facility alone. On Dec. 8, the ACLU sent a letter to ICE, detailing accounts of violence and sexual abuse from officers. The letter documents ways in which ICE agents pressure and use intimidation to make detainees agree to self-deport.
For context, illegal immigration is a civil crime, not criminal. The federal government is choosing to prosecute individuals criminally, despite the extensive civil enforcement scheme that exists.
“The act of being present in the United States in violation of the immigration laws is not,
standing alone, a crime. While federal immigration law does criminalize some actions that may be related to undocumented presence in the United States, undocumented presence alone is not a violation of federal criminal law. Thus, many believe that the term ‘illegal alien,’ which may suggest a criminal violation, is inaccurate or misleading,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in an issue brief on criminalizing undocumented immigrants.
Outside of El Paso, Amnesty International released a report on Dec. 4, focusing on human rights violations in The Everglades Detention Facility (Alligator Alcatraz) and the Krome North Service Processing Center.
This report documents torture, enforced disappearances and human rights violations.
Detainees told Amnesty International the ways in which medical care, food, water and shelter are denied or inadequate. Ana Piquer, the regional director for the Americas, said their research showed the intentionality behind these violations.
“These findings confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize and hide the suffering of people in detention,” Piquer said.
In California, Ever Oropeza-Paz, who was detained at the Golden State Annex ICE detention facility for nearly two years, said he would work a dollar a day for months, just so he could make a call to relatives.
“The bottom line is that scrubbing toilets for an entire day might earn you a two-minute phone.”
However, many non-governmental agencies have been denied entry into these detention facilities, and even lawmakers have enacted their constitutional oversight authority. This precedent has been set in McGrain v. Daugherty, Watkins v. United States and language in appropriation laws. So the true nature of these detention facilities is not known, and these documented violations are the tip of the iceberg.
This will be remembered as a moment in our history where the state of our democracy was at stake. We are living through that moment right now, and one question should be on everyone's mind: how many more fellow Americans must be killed before you say something about it?
