Trump’s ongoing mass deportation operation continues to target citizens and residents alike, provoking mass anger across the United States.
In a video taken last month that has gone viral, Reverend David Black, a Presbyterian minister, is seen offering to pray for ICE agents outside the Broadview, Illinois facility. ICE thugs responded to this call to prayer by repeatedly shooting Black in the head with “less lethal” pepper ball rounds.
As Black fell to the ground under the barrage of pepper ball fire he recalled to Religion News “We could hear them laughing.”
In just the last week, US citizens in Oregon and Illinois have alleged that immigration Gestapo have assaulted and detained them, despite not having a warrant or legal justification. These cases demonstrate that the attacks on immigrants are an attack on the entire working class, regardless of citizenship status. Furthermore, the fight to defend democratic rights cannot be waged with appeals to the Gestapo, but must be fought on a class basis against not only the Republican Party, but also their Democratic Party co-conspirators, who have allowed Trump to return to the White House and have provided him with the votes and funding to carry out these attacks.
Two cemetery workers in Chicago pepper sprayed, shackled
On Tuesday, two US citizens and cemetery workers, Daniel Greer and David Eichler, were viciously assaulted by immigration police while laboring at the Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. Forest Park, a suburb of Chicago, has been flooded with immigration agents as part of the Nazi-inspired “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Speaking to WGN9, Greer and Eichler said they were working when they noticed someone struggling in the Des Plaines River near the cemetery. Witnesses told WGN that the immigration Gestapo were trying to persuade the man in the river to give himself up to them.
Greer said he and Eichler thought the man, “was in harm’s way because he was in the river and we’re trying to see what’s going on.”
Eichler began filming the armed ICE agents who became agitated once they saw the workers.
ICE agents demanded that the workers “Just open the gate, buddy,” onto the private property so they could access the river from both sides of the bank.
The workers refused to unlock the gate, stating it was private property. ICE agents refused to provide a warrant or heed the workers’ advice. Instead, agents used a bolt cutter to break open the gate, after which they proceeded to assault, shackle and detain both workers. On the video, the agents are heard yelling, “Get on the ground now!” before repeatedly shooting the workers with stinging pepper ball rounds.
“Once they breached the gate they pepper sprayed us, their guns were drawn and then proceeded to tackle us onto the ground,” Darren Eichler told WGN9 Chicago. Eichler revealed that after several hours he was eventually hospitalized due to the pepper spray.
A still shaken Eichler told WGN, “I’m concerned for my neighbors, my families, my friends. If this happened to me, a US citizen [for] no real reason, who is to say what they will do to somebody else?”
Both Greer and Eichler said they were never read their Miranda rights and, despite being detained for hours, they have yet to be charged with a crime.
Milwaukie man abducted by ICE, held for hours despite providing proof of citizenship
On October 2, Frank Miranda, 46, of Milwaukie, Oregon, was abducted by masked immigration agents dressed in plain clothes while he was on his way to work in Portland. Miranda was born in Glendale, California and is a US citizen.
In an interview with Willamette Week, Miranda said that the morning he was kidnapped he drove to work and parked his car outside the metal shop at about 6 a.m. when he noticed lights behind him. Shortly thereafter he saw two men come out of the SUV and call him by name, asking for his ID. Miranda said the men claimed they were from the Department of Homeland Security.
“They looked like day laborers,” Miranda told Willamette Week. “They were not looking or acting professional at all.”
Miranda said he took out his Oregon driver’s license at which point the agents snatched it from his hand. At this point, Miranda took out his phone and began filming the incident. “I pulled it out to show it to him. I knew something was wrong right there.”
Miranda was able to film for roughly 30 seconds before the immigration Gestapo took his phone. In the video, one of the agents is heard accusing Miranda of an “overstay.” When Miranda rejected this lie, another agent is heard off camera threatening to “get the dog.”
An agent then asked Miranda where he was born, “And don’t lie to me.” Miranda responded, “California,” and asked the agents where they got their information.
“Wherever we got it from doesn’t matter,” came the reply.
The masked thugs proceeded to handcuff and shove Miranda into a separate van. Once inside the van, Miranda said an agent that didn’t speak English kicked his legs out from underneath him and told him he would be sitting on the floor.
Miranda recalls the agents celebrating their capture, “They were high-fiving.” The immigration thugs proceeded to take Miranda to an ICE facility where he was fingerprinted and held for several hours. Miranda did not speak to any agents without a lawyer present, and none of the agents provided their names or badge numbers.
After several hours, Miranda was eventually driven back to his place of employment and dropped off without an explanation as to why he was abducted and assaulted.