Jonathan P. Baird

What has been happening in Minneapolis is a federal invasion where the constitutional rights of the people are being stripped away by federal agents acting like militarized thugs. ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting a campaign of terror that is wholly inconsistent with the constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizures guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

Hordes of armed masked men, almost 3000 now, have descended on that community against the wishes of most people in the city as well as against the wishes of the state and local government. Obviously untrained and undisciplined federal agents are creating havoc. They have no defined mission other than harassing people in a blue state who voted against Donald Trump.

ICE and Border Patrol are randomly stopping people, pushing them around and asking: “where are your papers?”.They go door to door breaking into homes without judicial warrants. They constantly use chemical agents, flash bang grenades and physical violence against citizens exercising First Amendment rights. They treat Minneapolis residents as enemies. Many residents are afraid to leave their homes.

ICE has been racially profiling the Minneapolis community, especially Somalis and Latinos. White residents are being offered money or “protection” in exchange for informing on neighbors labeled as non-citizens or protest leaders.

Patty O’Keefe, a 36 year old U.S. citizen, publicly described a recent encounter she had with ICE. She received a report that legal observers in her Minneapolis neighborhood were being pepper sprayed. She and a friend went out in their car and found the agents. They began following them in their car, honking their horn and blowing whistles to alert others about ICE’s presence in the area.

ICE agents subsequently stopped, got out of their vehicle and surrounded O’Keefe’s car. They pepper-sprayed into it, smashed the car windows and dragged out O’Keefe and her friend. After detaining O’Keefe, the agents taunted her. One agent said:

“You guys got to stop obstructing us, that’s why this lesbian bitch is dead.”

The agents took O’Keefe to the Federal Building in St. Paul where she was put into leg shackles. She was held for eight hours. She described inhumane jail conditions, saying:

“I saw holding cells with over a dozen people each, and a large holding cell of between 40 to 50 people. Most of the people there were Hispanic or East African, both men and women. Some cells had no room for people to sit or lay down. Most people I saw were staring straight ahead, not talking, despondent and grief-stricken. I know I’ll never forget their faces.”

ICE has staked out high schools and college campuses. Their agents position outside churches, retail and grocery stores, yelling at and intimidating residents. They have no standards of conduct. It is not clear they have any idea how to deal with protesters. Based on their actions, they have no rules that address the use of excessive force.

The murder of Renee Good powerfully illustrates ICE’s lawlessness. Having looked at the videos from very angle, I observed an execution. Good died for nothing. Various conflicting demands appear to have been shouted at her but I believe she was simply trying to depart the scene. The agent who shot her calmly walked away with no seeming fear of any consequence. The idea he had injuries is laughable. Tha gaslighting by pro-ICE partisans has been Orwellian.

It was bad enough Good was murdered in cold blood but then ICE apologists had to slander her as a domestic terrorist. Good luck with the slander. Good was an award-winning poet. Then we heard J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller claim “absolute immunity” for the agent who shot Good. That is a misstatement of the law. States can arrest federal agents who violate their laws. It ia admittedly difficult to obtain a conviction but federal agents only have “qualified immunity”.

Instead of investigating Good’s murder, federal authorities have been pursing an investigation of Good’s wife. It is notable that federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis resigned their jobs when asked to do that. That was a bridge too far for anyone with a shred of professional ethics.

In his recent interview with the New York Times, Trump said there was no limit to his power except his own morality. That would indicate he sees the Constitution as a dead letter. It doesn’t figure as any limit on his power. And that is the way his regime has been acting in so many contexts whether it is international law, using the Department of Justice to prosecute his enemies or to hide the Epstein files.

We have reached a scary place. We are witnessing the demise of law as Trump reaches for dictatorial power. Amazingly, a federal court judge in Minnesota issued an injunction barring federal agents from arresting or detaining people who are peacefully protesting but it is hard to be optimistic in the long run when the Supreme Court has been almost a rubber stamp for Trump. As Chris Hedges has said:

“Authoritarian states are constructed incrementally. No dictatorship advertises its plan to extinguish civil liberties. It pays lips service to liberty and justice as it dismantles the institutions and laws that make liberty and justice possible.”

I have to say that I have been very disappointed by the passivity of the legal profession in responding to this unprecedented state of affairs. Where are the voices calling out the fascism? I thought as Americans that we loved liberty more than this. It should be clear by now that no court will save us. As has been true in Minneapolis, the future of our democracy depends on the power and actions of the people.