Baby Steps
Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2026 7:10 pm
Yesterday I went with a group of folks to Senator Cantwell’s office to tell her bout to vote for the DHS appropriation bill unless certain conditions were met. Security would allow only five of us in, and I was not among the lucky five.
But the pressure on our Senators was effective. Senator Murray had voted to pass the bill out of committee two weeks ago, but has now committed to making sure the bill does not pass. So has Senator Cantwell. As the ICE funds were actually appropriated in the Big Ugly Bill, the strategy is to require the administration to fund the rest of the DHS request using those funds. We’ll see.
That was one of the conditions of the list. Another was during Bovino. That’s two.
But swapping Bovino for Cava bag Homan is not progress. Homan is thick as thieves with Steven Miller, and he is the architect of the “brutality” program in deportations.
Understandably, the country overreacted to 9-11. One of them was DHS itself. The brutal, out of control behavior of ICE/CPB in Minneapolis brought to light a sick, cancerous culture that we allowed to fester in both organizations. Good people within those organizations have begun to talk about the “quality” of the new recruits, drinking off the job, and other problems within the organizations. I think that this destructive culture is so deeply rooted within those organizations that better training is not a solution. It’s time to build a new organization for immigration enforcement that is not paramilitary in nature, but centered on the Constitution and human rights. We can enforce our immigration laws without brutalizing our fellow humans.
But that won’t happen during Republican control of the government. MAGA ‘s enforcement is based on ultimate brutality — treating people as if they are subhuman. And the entire party has either been cheerleaders for brutality or stayed silent in the face of accumulating evidence of brutality. They are happy to stand by and watch citizens and non-citizens be brutalized.
So, for now, we have to settle for harm reduction. And by “settle” I mean hound our reps and senators every day. There are some obvious steps that can reduce the harm: no face coverings, restrict border patrol to the border zones, return ICE agents to their home areas, require judicial warrants for attempted and forcible entry into non-public spaces, unrestricted Congressional access to detention facilities, etc. But we need our demands to be specific — not general immigration reform.
We’ve seen baby steps, which may be encouraging. But what we’ve seen isn’t nearly enough to stop this war against the American people.
But the pressure on our Senators was effective. Senator Murray had voted to pass the bill out of committee two weeks ago, but has now committed to making sure the bill does not pass. So has Senator Cantwell. As the ICE funds were actually appropriated in the Big Ugly Bill, the strategy is to require the administration to fund the rest of the DHS request using those funds. We’ll see.
That was one of the conditions of the list. Another was during Bovino. That’s two.
But swapping Bovino for Cava bag Homan is not progress. Homan is thick as thieves with Steven Miller, and he is the architect of the “brutality” program in deportations.
Understandably, the country overreacted to 9-11. One of them was DHS itself. The brutal, out of control behavior of ICE/CPB in Minneapolis brought to light a sick, cancerous culture that we allowed to fester in both organizations. Good people within those organizations have begun to talk about the “quality” of the new recruits, drinking off the job, and other problems within the organizations. I think that this destructive culture is so deeply rooted within those organizations that better training is not a solution. It’s time to build a new organization for immigration enforcement that is not paramilitary in nature, but centered on the Constitution and human rights. We can enforce our immigration laws without brutalizing our fellow humans.
But that won’t happen during Republican control of the government. MAGA ‘s enforcement is based on ultimate brutality — treating people as if they are subhuman. And the entire party has either been cheerleaders for brutality or stayed silent in the face of accumulating evidence of brutality. They are happy to stand by and watch citizens and non-citizens be brutalized.
So, for now, we have to settle for harm reduction. And by “settle” I mean hound our reps and senators every day. There are some obvious steps that can reduce the harm: no face coverings, restrict border patrol to the border zones, return ICE agents to their home areas, require judicial warrants for attempted and forcible entry into non-public spaces, unrestricted Congressional access to detention facilities, etc. But we need our demands to be specific — not general immigration reform.
We’ve seen baby steps, which may be encouraging. But what we’ve seen isn’t nearly enough to stop this war against the American people.