ICE COLD: The Last Ordinary Moment

Four people detained at a rodeo while getting drink wristbands. An MLB coach detained flying home to his wife and daughters. A grandmother detained coming home after burying her brother. A man who went to work and woke up with a mutilated face and a brain bleed. A professor awarded with a jail cell after being named Teacher of the Year.

Think about the last five ordinary things you did. Got a drink with friends. Flew home. Said goodbye to a loved one. Went to Work. Got recognized for doing your job well.

Now imagine any one of them ending with your family wondering where you are, your body in a hospital bed, or behind bars.

For the people in this week’s ICE COLD, you don’t have to imagine it. They lived it.

Earlier this month, Ricardo Montes joined thousands of people at a rodeo in Sikeston, Missouri, for a summer night out.

Ricardo is a father of seven and a grandfather of eleven. He has been married to his wife Sandy, a U.S. citizen, for 21 years.

He went to get a beer. He showed his ID. His Green Card scanned clean. Then ICE showed up.

Ricardo was one of four people detained that night, led away in handcuffs as their families begged agents to stop. His family watched this cruelty unfold right in front of their eyes. Sandy gave her husband a kiss goodbye, took off his cowboy hat before they took him to Scott County Jail, then transferred him to Ste. Genevieve Detention Center.

The ID checks at the beer stands were supposed to verify drinking age. Think about that for a second.

These checks are meant to catch underage college kids trying to buy a beer with a fake ID. And plenty do. They get caught. Their fake gets taken away. Maybe they get kicked out. Maybe they get a citation.

You know what doesn’t happen? They don’t get put in handcuffs. They don’t get ripped away from their family. They don’t get sent to a detention center where they could sit for weeks to months with no idea when they’ll come home or if they’ll ever get to go home.

But when you have a Green Card and brown skin, a beer line can become the place you kiss your wife goodbye in handcuffs.

That should horrify you. There is no version of America where this should be normal. This is the cruelty America is supposed to condemn. Donald Trump and his administration made it what America does.

Oswaldo Pirela, the Padres’ minor league catching coordinator, was flying home through El Paso this weekend, the same trip he’s taken over and over again for years working with the team’s Triple-A club. This time he never made it home.

Immigration authorities detained him at the airport. His wife and two young daughters, who were both born in this country, were waiting at home ready to run into their fathers arms.

This is a man who came to this country seeking asylum and searching for a better life. He came to a country built by immigrants, on the promise that if you work hard enough, you can build something here. That anyone can achieve the American Dream.

Oswaldo did. He built his life here. He raised his family here. He built a career in the MLB – America’s favorite pastime. He built the life America promised was possible. ICE turned believing that promise into a crime.

ICE doesn’t believe in America, and they sure as hell don’t believe in the American Dream.

Eva Mendes came to this country from Cape Verde when she was eight years old. She’s a mother of six. Last month, she renewed her Greencard.Then her brother died, so she did what any sister would do. For the first time in 40 years she flew back to Cape Verde to say goodbye and bury him.

On the way home through Logan Airport, ICE detained her. She was transferred to a county jail in Maine. While she sat there, her first grandchild was born.

She flew to Cape Verde to say one final goodbye. She came home for her first hello as a grandmother. ICE stole that from her.

Her attorney says the detention traces back to a 2009 shoplifting case, though he hasn’t seen anything in writing that confirms it. Paperwork from 17 years ago was all ICE needed to turn grief into detention and a grandmother into a prisoner.

If shoplifting 17 years ago puts you in a cage, ICE is looking in the wrong direction. Try 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Jose Mejia Hernandez, known to everyone as Don José, has lived in Arlington, Virginia for 18 years.At 6:30 in the morning, walking to work, two trucks pulled up and men chased him to the ground. He says he was struck with a taser and lost consciousness. He woke up hours later with facial trauma, brain swelling, internal bleeding, and zero memory of what happened in between.

His wife and stepchild didn’t know where he was for three days. And, It gets worse. Doctors say Jose needs an MRI. But a week later he has still yet to get one. Because ICE hasn’t removed the GPS ankle monitor interfering with the scanner.

Let that sink in.The device ICE put on his body is preventing him from getting the scans that he so desperately needs.

The Trump Administration and DHS can keep calling it enforcement. They can keep calling it policy. So we will keep calling it what it is. Evil.

Dr. Berhanu Kibret teaches at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He was in Texas for a national pharmacy educators’ conference, where he was named Teacher of the Year.

He flew home from that trip and ICE detained him at the airport. DHS says his visa expired in 2024. His attorney says he holds valid work authorization and is fighting a detention that shouldn’t be happening at all. A judge denied his bond request Friday. He’s now been held for three weeks in Oklahoma, more than 250 miles from the airport where he was arrested.

Anyone who has ever taken a pharmacology class can attest to one simple fact: it is a hard subject to learn, let alone teach. Teacher of the year in that field means you are a damn good professor.

And think about who he is teaching. The next generation of pharmacists, researchers, and scientists. The people who will develop new medicines, discover new treatments, and maybe one day find the cure for a disease that has taken so many lives.

His peers saw a Teacher of the Year. His students saw a professor shaping their futures. ICE saw another human being to cage.

A father. A grandmother. A coach. A worker. A teacher. People building families, going to work, burying the people they love, teaching the next generation.

Donald Trump hates these people. Donald Trump hates you. And no matter how much MAGA merch you wear, Donald Trump hates you too. There is not an ounce of compassion, decency, or humanity in his obese body. This is his America. And he is proud of it.

Five people. Five ordinary days. Five encounters with ICE brutality. And every one of those roads led to the same place: a detention center.

That is why the Save America Movement exists and why we’re part of GTFO ICE. These facilities are where ICE’s cruelty ends up — and they do not belong in our communities. Help us fight to get these detention centers out and keep more families from ending up behind their doors.

Join the fight at GTFOice.org