My first introduction to ICE came on August 14th, from about 8pm to 10pm when a block in Lake Worth was shut down so that a gang of State Troopers could brutalize my neighbors. Local news was almost entirely silent on the matter, save for a brief article describing the police stopping a work van. 

The article reported that during this stop cops began to ask about immigration status and their victim, a local father and laborer, ran, and managed to stay safe until that evening, when he was tracked down to his home.

The article fails to mention the crowd of concerned citizens that the police officers openly mocked and threatened with arrest. It also omits the cowardice of the police force, as they are on camera, refusing to give their names or badge numbers. One cop bragged about his salary as unmarked cars blocked the street and a helicopter was circling overhead. 

Two children, one around the age of ten, and one not yet old enough to walk, were held under armed guard as they sat on the pavement for hours. The community watched as their home’s front door get smashed in with a battering ram; then their windows. A community member who tried to give one of the children water was tackled and arrested by Deputy Anthony of the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, who forced the man’s arm back at an unnatural angle. This should come as no surprise, since different law enforcement agencies work together to locate, detain and brutalize migrants in accordance with the 287g agreement. 

What shocked me the most was the unreality of the moment. I had no reference, not even a fictional one, for this type of cruelty. In movies, fascists at least display enough integrity to give the characters some sort of watchable depth. This wasn’t that. It was burger-grease, lazy sadism, thoughtless and stupid and bored. 

In the days that followed, I found myself re-watching the footage mostly during the quiet, normal moments that don’t imply a new gestapo. I did so hoping that the footage would reveal that I’d been blinded by a veneer of temporary insanity, and that migrants weren’t being taken off the streets by force. 

Five months later on December 8th, I watched an ICE agent, annoyed by my presence as one might be at the presence of a rude customer at a deli, abduct a painting crew. He did so masked and unidentified. 

The grey-brown mini-van the cops used was disguised as the car of a mother. There was a stuffed dinosaur on the dashboard, the kind a kid might leave in the car on accident. In the five months between those two incidents thousands of immigrants in the US have been hauled away. Many of them have died. Reports have come out that immigrants are being flown to countries they never resided in for crimes they never get charged with, or being beaten and tortured in a camp hidden away in the Everglades. This newly bolstered army spent that time learning how to disguise themselves as soccer moms to abduct people more easily.

Not a full week after the painting crew were taken I attended a vigil to honor the victims of ICE. Children spoke on behalf of their parents. Many of them have been left essentially orphaned by the state. Community members, some of whom are barely getting by, have given the little that they have in order to provide some relief, taking on extra shifts or working extra hours to do so. Police rolled slowly by the vigil as children fought through tears to explain how the call goes when a lawyer tells you “your parent was taken by ICE and we don’t know where they’re detained”.

Undercover cars watched from a nearby overpass. The glare of laptops was visible through tinted windows. They watched, stopping to chat with the cruiser rolling by, not even bothering to fully disguise themselves. I assume they were taking note of who was there, in hopes that they might find someone else to add to their quota.

The state has resources and strategies, while the masses are just beginning to meet and have conversations. We first need to recognize what the state armies and their allies are doing: they are trying to isolate us. Not isolation in the vague way of therapy talk and muted loneliness, though that helps to spread unrest as well—this is an enforced isolation. This is isolation in the way that armies isolate a platoon in a low-lying forest; isolation as a very real threat that your involvement on behalf of your neighbors can get you arrested or worse. 

The prevalence of the capitalist ideological machine makes this possible with a constant, ceaseless, banter either about the crimes of migrants, (or queer folks, or whomever) or about the inescapably of the state’s power, should you be discontent. The state is vying for control and knows that we are best controlled when left in the smallest, shallow valley, scared and surrounded by nobody we trust.

On Strategy

In the case that you’ve overcome fear and have taken action, it is likely you have done so with great discomfort and often times at great personal cost. I understand and sympathize with the enormous frustration one feels when you have spent the little money that you have, given what little time you have to demonstrations and see no changes despite your efforts. My sympathy, however and the love I have for my friends in the struggle, do nothing to change the reality of the situation. The state has helicopters and new fascist platoons; we have collection baskets, and even those are running dry. The state’s strategy is effective because it acknowledges this as a war. We need to do the same.

Up until now, the efforts of the broad opposition can be roughly divided into two camps: defensive and symbolic.

The first—defensive, include mutual and legal aid, ICE watches, information gathering and dissemination, and/or community defense. As a way to minimize harm, these are vital, but these efforts by themselves are not a panacea. While they may slow the fascist state, they do not create a world where fascists have no power.

The second camp; symbolic is based on flawed logic. The state sanctioned marches, the hundreds and thousands of Democratic party decrees and proclamations which scold ICE, or wag their finger at DHS officials for their inhumanity are limited and do nothing to progress towards a truly safe society for immigrants. 

We can no longer abide by the believe that our society is dictated by a battle of ideas which will be inevitably won by the most well-crafted argument. No idea can mend the contradiction between the exploiter and the exploited. Misery is a feature of the capitalist and imperialist system, it is the symptom that keeps you working towards their goals. They will not minimize it for you. To petition a fascist for rights is to petition a tiger to put away its teeth. This is a war between the capitalist class and the rest of us. The capitalists realize it; their efforts are why we often don’t. You cannot and will not be able to convince state agents or corporations to stop doing fascism, they are not doing it for your sake, they’re doing for their interest.

If the most well-crafted idea does not necessarily win, the most organized force will. We must fight for more than symbolic victories, and even defensive work is no longer enough. This fight is about power—power over our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our labor, and our communities–the ability to call for strikes and boycotts and actions which decisively cut off labor and resources to reactionary interests. This power will only be developed through unity and independent organization, which in turn comes through open and honest struggle, not through passive agreement. 

We have seen throughout history that efforts to organize and defend ourselves against domination, exploitation and oppression are possible—and when struggle is possible, passivity can no longer be viewed as an option. It is beneath us to fight only for symbolic wins, and farther beneath even that to not fight at all. 

This struggle has shown us the networks of resistance we need do not exist and it is up to us to build independent organizations which can fight back. This starts with your family, neighbors, coworkers, and friends. Start conversations among your circles and struggle to build a community capable of resisting the state’s oppression. 

When your labor is used to enrich the powerful while your loved ones are neglected and abused it shows us that we must fight towards an economy not based in exploitation. When the state or it’s friends in the media are able spread lies about our neighbors and divide us, we must take the ability to spread information, and when it sends in an army to a residential neighborhood to enforce that divide, it is not enough to standby, it is not enough to debate, or to get conciliation, we must fight for power. We must view this the way the state does, as a war, and organize to win it.