ICE at Airports Trains Us to Accept Being Terrorized in Our Daily Lives | I had an ultimately harmless encounter with ICE at a TSA checkpoint. It was a preview of a new, more sophisticated way to terrorize people

A few issues of particular note: >Shortly after Trump deployed ICE agents to airports, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon may have tipped the administration’s hand. Bannon speculated on his “War Room”podcast that the immigration force’s presence at TSA security checkpoints was a “test run” ahead of the November midterms. > >Maybe, Bannon seemed to suggest, it was a rehearsal, meant to test how far the administration can stretch our tolerance for agents as part of the landscape of our daily lives without pushback. > >If ICE’s invasion of American cities as part of Trump’s broad-based crackdown on immigration and dissent alike was a sledgehammer, what I experienced was more akin to a scalpel. It represents an agency that is understanding the criticisms against its methods and looking for new, more sophisticated ways to terrorize people. > >If we can accept the reality that Trump’s personal army is requiring more documentation from us just to board an Airbus, how long until we are forced to tolerate them in our voting booths and beyond? > >... > >Later, as I was sitting in my seat toward the plane’s rear, I began to gain a greater perspective on what I had just undergone. That interaction — the kind that I had worried about for a few hours before waking up and schlepping to the airport — was designed to happen to people like me. It represented a moment of friction, designed to jolt me at first, but then get me used to the fact that people with weapons will now ask more of me just to do the same thing I had done a few weeks before, when I flew to Puerto Rico without any ICE agents at the TSA checkpoint. > >Free passage would be harder, the stakes of any interaction would be higher. The fear that I was feeling in that moment had been designed, as if in a lab, to train me to accept a violent overreach that would’ve seemed absurd mere weeks ago. Unaccpetable behavior once again by government agents, but sadly the author may have a very valid point. This is in many ways normalizing having thugs overseeing what are otherwise normal activities and keeping everyone on their toes constantly until everyone is thoroughly worn down.

F*** ICE. Many of them were recruited with neo-Nazi slogans and ads. They're Trump's white supremist goon squad and not a single one of them can be trusted. Abolish ICE and bring sanity, compassion, and efficiency to our immigration system.

That’s honestly a pretty unsettling way to experience something that’s supposed to feel routine. Even if nothing went wrong, moments like that can stick with you and make everyday travel feel more tense than it should.

Boiling frog syndrome. It's been going on for years.

We’ve reached the stage of swapping out “local” government authorities for anonymous stormtroopers.

They can try to train us as much as they want we won't accept them, f\*ck off

We already do! We’ve been terrorized by local and state police for decades!

Even a harmless interaction can leave a lasting impression. When ICE is deployed to assist with what used to be routine tasks, it can make people feel like normal life is becoming more tense and unpredictable.

The cognitive dissonance US Americans have is astounding. From a European perspective it was always perplexing to see US Americans constantly claim they were the most free while being brutalized daily by a basically unaccountable authoritarian police force. What use are rights written in a constitution when government thugs can just ignore them and kill you without any repercussions? ICE is just an escalation not something new.

Normalizing the police state.

I remember seeing soldiers with AK’s at the Cuban airport, (25 yrs ago, not now) and thinking “jeez, talk about intimidation, we’re just a bunch of people travelling with a broker like Sunquest, looking for a tan”. USA has gone so far backwards on many levels so quickly.

I'm trans, all my validly issued documents line up the way I want them to. More than ever, I am risking my life by trying to travel at all. They'll do it to us. Then they'll do it to you.

Exactly, this is what the voting places are going to look like

EDIT: This is a copy of the link text for those that don't want to click, or have a problem with the paywall. I didn't write it. >The night before we were set to fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, I approached my partner with a confession: For the first time that I can remember, I was afraid of flying with a Latino last name. >It was a new sort of affront I had to steel myself against. Air travel is filled with moments — buying basic economy tickets, being herded through winding security lines like cattle, squishing your limbs into a compact seat — that smoosh you until you feel subhuman, usually along class lines. >In the days leading up to our flight to Las Vegas, however, I saw the indignities of the airport mount as President Donald Trump deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into America’s terminals, turning an already-debasing necessity into something more chilling. >If one thing has been consistent in ICE’s ever expanding mission, it’s that the agency is being used by the administration to instill fear. >Certainly, that’s how I felt after my experience. At JFK, an ICE agent was taking the customary Transportation Security Administration role of checking IDs at security. Everything, though, seemed to be running as normal. When I handed over my passport, however, he asked me a question I hadn’t heard him ask anyone else in front of me — most of whom presented as white: “Do you have a second form of photo ID?” >I can’t be sure what motivated the agent to ask me, and apparently no one else near me, this question, but his request of me was difficult to separate from ICE’s role not only as brutal enforcers of Trump’s deportation regime, but also its use as his personal police force. If one thing has been consistent in ICE’s ever-expanding mission, it’s that the agency is being used by the administration to instill fear. >Later, it was impossible not to think about what my brief, eventually harmless encounter with the agent might portend. Shortly after Trump deployed ICE agents to airports, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon may have tipped the administration’s hand. Bannon speculated on his “War Room”podcast that the immigration force’s presence at TSA security checkpoints was a “test run” ahead of the November midterms. >Maybe, Bannon seemed to suggest, it was a rehearsal, meant to test how far the administration can stretch our tolerance for agents as part of the landscape of our daily lives without pushback. >If ICE’s invasion of American cities as part of Trump’s broad-based crackdown on immigration and dissent alike was a sledgehammer, what I experienced was more akin to a scalpel. It represents an agency that is understanding the criticisms against its methods and looking for new, more sophisticated ways to terrorize people. >If we can accept the reality that Trump’s personal army is requiring more documentation from us just to board an Airbus, how long until we are forced to tolerate them in our voting booths and beyond?

We need to stop all travel. Make the airline companies handle getting ICE out if they want us back.

They already did this years ago with TSA. This is just the next step. We accepted it when the TSA was injected and never subject to any sort of effectivity metrics or anything. They've been in place for over a decade without any public accountability.

Think about it like this. They want us to get used to people who are armed and willing (and want) to kill anyone they're told to kill being everywhere. Then when the order to start killing -pick a group- gets sent, they will already be there and ready to start the killing. Airports are one of the best ways to flee from a tyranical regime that hasn't taken full control yet. They are making sure we can't escape punishment if we "misbehave." The 21st century Nazis are real and they proudly wear ICE on their uniforms.

Modern gestapo 

Fascist indoctrination

Meh. I would say the Patriot Act is the granddaddy of terrorizing Americans and getting them used to government overreach.

Acting like TSA were some saints lmao.

> ICE at Airports Trains Us to Accept Being Terrorized in Our Daily Lives I'd say TSA has already done a pretty good job of that in the past twenty years. ICE will merely be upping the game.

Proto CorpSECorps

It’s not new or sophisticated. Trump said he was going to steal the election. Take him at his word

Vote with your wallet. Boycott. Boycott. Boycott. ...we'll see how many weeks it takes before TACO happens.

It'll also have a chilling effect on your already dwindling tourist trade. 

ice is no more scary than DHS. Some of us are old enough to remember being outraged at the TSA being placed in airports...

Whatever! Do not pity them having to do “a tough, thankless job.”! They are your enomy! Plain & simple. Anywhere they sent, they are there to harass, get you to kowtow. Do not ‘obey’ in advance.

Like TSA rubbing down my d*** ain't enough

"But Kamala would have been the same on Gaza" \- Leftist voters

the ultimate terrorization, not being terrorized. f****** eye roll

This isn't anything new. After 9/11 we had the military, well armed with their standard rifles, at the airport for years. I don't see them anymore.

ICE at PHL yesterday were basically hall monitors with vests and guns. Literally directing lines and that's it. No one was listening to them anyway. F*** those assholes anyway

Did we forget this was the original point of the TSA? 

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