Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force

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Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force - Dailykos

(Santa Ana Mayor Valerie) Amezcua... said she has reluctantly accepted the reality: There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve ... Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. “It’s almost like he tries it out in this county and says, ‘It worked there, so now let me send them there,’” Amezcua said.

Current and former national security officials share the mayor’s concerns. They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of (Trump) as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes.

ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. The transformation, the officials say, unfolded rapidly and in plain sight. Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.

And although they are reluctant to predict the future, the current and former officials worry that this force assembled from federal agents across the country could eventually be turned against any groups the administration labels a threat.

could be, and will be.