There are vigilantes now posing as ICE officers, trying to join in on Trump’s mass immigration policy across the nation, causing migrants to be even more scared than they already were.
Recently, it was reported that there are ICE agents across the nation who don’t see the need to present their badges, arresting people based on their accents and ethnicity. While a court enforced a block on that, a scenario where copycat vigilantes got inspired by these acts was always in the realm of possibility.
CNN now reports that Sean-Michael Johnson, a 33-year-old from South Carolina, was charged with kidnapping and impersonating an officer of the law. Johnson apparently approached a group of Latino men along a road in Charleston County, detained them while mocking their accents, and declared, “You’re going back to Mexico.” A video obtained by the media outlet shows Johnson shouting epithets at the Latino men in the car and threatening them to get out of his country. Considering what recently happened with the last notable case of a man who imitated law enforcement in Minnesota, Hispanic communities throughout the nation are reasonably concerned.
Johnson went on to be released on bond, and his family pleaded with the judge that he has been struggling with mental health issues and needs therapy. But this is not an isolated issue, and ICE itself felt the need to respond. The agency released a statement saying, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are highly trained and dedicated professionals who are sworn to uphold the law, protect the American people, and support U.S. national security interests. ICE strongly condemns the impersonation of its officers or agents.”
The Hispanic community of Charleston referred to their targeting as “an everyday thing.” There’s a growing sense of worry over how immigrants are a vulnerable community in the U.S. One leader of the Hispanic community noted that their community is already highly vulnerable to scams for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, as the recent Smokey Robinson situation revealed, they may not always feel safe enough to report crimes committed against them to the police because they’re worried they will also be turned into criminals.
The Trump administration has demonized immigrants to the extent that they’re making claims that immigrants are harboring cannibals that would start to eat themselves if given the chance. Trump himself said that the reason he opened the Alligator Alcatraz detention center for immigrants was because if they did escape, they would be hunted by reptiles in the wild. This is the kind of rhetoric that inspires his followers to make decisions such as this, especially if they themselves are not mentally stable.
There have already been similar incidents to the Johnson case, such as one in Philadelphia where a 22-year-old also impersonated ICE agents inside the campus of Temple University in an attempt to forcefully enter a residence hall. There was also another incident in North Carolina where an ICE impersonator was arrested under suspicion of threatening to deport a woman unless she complied with his attempt to sexually harass her.
This growing pattern is disturbing, but it certainly aligns with the dehumanization that’s coming straight from the White House.
