Abhorrent ICE footage hauls the U.S. back to WWII with Gestapo-esque raid

Get the Full StoryFor months before the election, watchdogs were warning that Donald Trump s plans for immigration smacked of something sinister. After three weeks of watching ICE agents smash in classroom doors, harass children in public, and tear families apart, it s abundantly clear that those warnings weren t exaggerated. Across the U.S., everyday Americans are using social media to spread the word about just how aggressive agents are being, and no resource is more accessible than TikTok. Users from all walks of life are sharing videos of Mexican-Americans using their status as citizens to intervene and save others who look like them; teachers blocking ICE agents from taking children from classrooms; and anti-ICE protests from around the country. Videos like the one below truly emphasize just how necessary these stories are and how close the government s techniques are to those the Gestapo used in Hitler s Germany. azcentral A family member is speaking out against an ICE operation in northwest Phoenix on Sunday, calling it an unnecessary use of force that involved an armored vehicle, flash bang grenades and several dozen ICE agents and police dressed in military-style gear to arrest a single person, a 61-year-old man in poor health. Video provided by: Marco Garcia and Natally Cruz ICE immigration AZ original sound azcentral azcentral The video, out of Phoenix, Arizona, shows an aggressive display of force. A fully armored police vehicle, complete with one of the most ludicrous battering rams to ever grace a small neighborhood, was accompanied by several dozen ICE agents decked out with military-style full-body armor, rifles, and flashbang grenades. Several are concealing their faces. One agent advises the others to keep their heads on a swivel, for all the world like a commanding officer of an occupying force in enemy territory, rather than seeking one undocumented grandfather in a placid, working-class Mexican-American neighborhood. The suspect the agents were looking for turned out to be 61-year-old Alphonso Garcia Vega, an elderly man in poor health. His son, Marco Garcia, caught the whole thing on camera, and was understandably seething at the actions taken against his father and his home. Throughout the video, he demands to see a warrant and tells the agents, You guys are f ing treating us like criminals. He continues, That s my f ing father, man! He told AZCentral news that his father had been threatened by the cartel when he was deported back to Mexico a few years ago. Backed into a corner, Garcia Vega returned to the U.S. and the relative safety of his family. While Garcia doesn t believe his father has a record, he has already been deported, but it s a moot point. Yes, that man is here illegally, but the most concerning aspect of this video is ICE s massive overreaction especially knowing that the whole ordeal started because Garcia Vega refused to talk to agents while taking a walk. Who on Earth thought that two dozen agents, a veritable tank, and flash grenades were necessary to arrest one old man doddering around a sleepy suburb? There is an easy answer to that: someone who wants to normalize the violence. The Reich gained power by inserting Nazi loyalists into institutions, starting with the police force. The force was reorganized under one man, Hermann G ring, who expanded his power, one way or another, until he had ties to every single law enforcement agency. The force was small, and only functioned well when the German population snitched and worked alongside them. The Gestapo had the ability to make preventative arrests, and its actions weren t subject to appeals. Anyone who opposed the Nazis were quickly rounded up, shuffled away to concentration camps, or outright killed, and they were so effective people began to feel as though they were somehow omnipotent. The force was used to carry out reprisals against civilians who dared to speak up, and was allowed to kill anyone who so much as looked at them sideways. Through aggressive overreach and other ultraviolent actions, the Gestapo desensitized the general population. The public atrocities helped to dehumanize minority groups, allowing the Nazi party unfettered access to wipe out anyone and everyone it deemed undesirable. The violence is only just beginning, and MAGA morons lack the empathy to even understand why this is wrong. Instead, they are celebrating Trump s victory and lambasting any liberal who won t roll over in front of tyranny. They celebrate the idea that Guantanamo Bay, a prison reviled and investigated for abuses against suspected terrorists, might become a holding cell for immigrants. They cheer in the face of repeated history, one that saw the Japanese interned for years and millions of Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and countless others slaughtered. They will continue to cheer until these horrors affect them personally; they will continue to cheer until there is no one left to speak out for them. But if we keep sharing videos and talking about the injustices, it may be a lesson they will never have to learn.

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