“Are we really going to be the Gestapo?” podcaster Joe Rogan asked. “‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
Uproar over ICE and Border Patrol aggressive tactics has begun to breach President Donald Trump’s fortress.
“Hate to say it, but they are all lying,” posted lifelong Mississippi Republican Pete Perry on Facebook. “Denial of what we have seen, what has been put in front of us – them and us – and ignored and lied about. We saw it. They saw it. And they know we and everyone else have seen the truth.”
Perry was writing about the numerous fallacious statements justifying the killing of American citizen Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse in Minnesota, made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem, her cohort Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino, and other high-ranking officials in the Trump administration. He cited numerous falsehoods from Noem, Bovino, and others made before and after the facts of the killing became known.
You can tell he was angry. “OK. I've been an active, participating, fighting Republican for almost 60 years, I'll bet longer than damn near anybody else that is reading this post or bothering to comment on it and telling me how wrong I am. But my Republicanism is based on a law-and-order basis, a constitutional basis – and this is not it.”
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson, published in Jackson Jambalaya, had a similar take. “What we have right now is the Trump Administration, led by the head of the Border Patrol and Kristi Noem, rushing to seed a narrative into the minds of people before all the facts are known and some of the facts they presented have already turned out not to be true.
“These are not PR agents. These are government officials. They have an obligation to be truthful and measured while so many facts are unknown.”
Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the committee overseeing homeland security, said, “we have to be very honest.”
President Trump backed off his erroneous comments about the killing and yanked authority in Minnesota away from Noem and Bovino, assigning border czar Tom Homan to take charge.
However, Trump still intends to swarm heavily armed ICE agents into cities to arrest illegal immigrants.
Many have noted how the images from these incursions too much resemble images of security forces in Iran putting down demonstrations. Ironically, Trump wants to protect Iran’s dissident citizens but forcibly dispel and arrest dissident American citizens.
It didn’t have to come to this. Normal police apprehension practices could have yielded the results Trump wants. How many more dead citizens and justifying lies must occur before more Republicans, like Perry, will show their outrage?
"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God” – Romans 12:19.
Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from Jackson.
