America Must Love ICE

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Many of my readers might not know this about me, but I love ICE. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal, uncovering a “round-the-clock digital dragnet” across Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and X to catch anyone criticizing ICE.

Because I never criticize ICE.

I appreciate them. Government-quality internet stalking is a thankless job. And expensive. ICE spent $258 million on surveillance tools and consultants in Trump’s first full year back — a 57 percent jump. That conspicuous allegation of our taxpayer dollars makes me all lusty pants.

Plus, I have always had a weakness for bad boys. Body armor. Unmarked SUVs. Masked federal agents who refuse to identify themselves.

You want to slam my face into the pavement because I attended a protest? That’s hot. I love MAGA men with ready access to a firearm and no clue how to use it. Every time one of them growls, “Show me your papers,” my lady bits clench. It goes straight to the core of my authoritarian daddy issues.

All the woke critics can zip it. ICE has brought that certain film noir suspense back to American streets. A masked man following a woman down an empty sidewalk used to signal a possible rapist. Now he may simply work for the federal government.

Although these categories have occasionally overlapped. Last year, at least seven sexual assaults — including rapes — were reported at the Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego. Or so they claim. We don’t know because the county sheriff investigated exactly none of them. Like I said…keeping the mystery alive.

I love ICE so much that I am starting a fan club. Membership will be restricted to true patriots. If you really love America, you must put some muscle into it. Read our mail. Search our trash. Follow our cars. (The last one should be easy because immigration authorities can obtain access to license-plate surveillance networks that record where people drive.)

Why wait for someone to post that they attended an anti-ICE protest when a camera can catch their Subaru in the parking lot?

I got an idea. How about you assemble dossiers containing critics’ names, addresses, workplaces, birth dates, Social Security numbers, vehicle registrations, and criminal histories and then cross-reference that data with…how much they love ICE.

Oh wait. You are already doing that. Cool. Cool. The days of Grandma mouthing off on Facebook are over. Listen, Karen, you do not get to have an opinion! (Unless you are a proud Trump voter, in which case, carry on. But perhaps report a neighbor.)

No one appreciates ICE. I worry for their safety. Several of them have accidentally shot themselves!

I know. I know. You are doing your best. And I am definitely not criticizing your tactics. I especially like what you boys did with Reddit user Tired_Thumb.

For those of you not familiar with the ICE boys’ preferred method of saving democracy, this one is clutch. During one six-week period, Tired_Thumb posted 116 comments in forty subreddits about everything from fireplace tiles to folk punk. But then that diabolical hoodlum posted three comments criticizing ICE agents.

Oh no, he didn’t.

Criticism is the gateway drug to protecting free speech. Americans must love ICE.

So the government wanted Reddit to surrender Tired_Thumb’s real name, home address, phone number, account history, and IP addresses. Of course, when the tired user challenged the administrative summons, ICE withdrew it. The Justice Department then returned with a secret grand-jury subpoena.

I love a man who cannot take no for an answer.

I also admire ICE’s commitment to intimidation. For example, in Syracuse, federal agents tracked down poll worker Paigelynne Gonyea over a January Instagram post about Jonathan Ross — the ICE agent who shot Renée Good in the head, chest, and arm as she sat in her car bleeding out. DHS called that self-defense. Ross got three days of administrative leave, which is roughly what I’d get for a late library book.

Gonyea’s crime? She named Ross — who had already been identified by the Minnesota Star Tribune — and wrote that it would be a great day for him to be indicted. How dare that shameless little hussy want justice!

For this, two agents found her mid-shift at a polling place and handed her a letter warning that her post violated federal law. They asked her to sign it. She refused.

Damn woke liberal women. Always playing hard to get.

Other Americans have been confronted at home, work, and on the road and asked to acknowledge that something they posted “may” constitute a crime.

Pleeeeeease. “May” is such a seductive word. Virtually anything may be a crime. Ordinarily, federal agents identify the law they believe someone broke. ICE preserves the romance by keeping things vague. Plus, who doesn’t love a masked psychopath? It’s like 50 Shades of Gray, except Christian Gray carries pepper spray instead of a whip.

Sorry, I may need a moment to calm the burning in my loins.

Still, I am becoming disenchanted. And this is definitely not a criticism, but…there are places you boys could step it up in the censorship department. The First Amendment was ratified in 1791. It has had a good run. If ICE intends to strip away our constitutional rights, I would appreciate a little urgency.

Let me explain how a real Fascist gets it done.

And I mean Fascist with a capital F — not the timid lowercase variety that sends Reddit a subpoena and waits for its legal department to respond. My boy Benito Mussolini knew how to silence a populace. (And I have a weakness for a bare-chested man who can thresh wheat.)

Mussolini began with a street team. His Blackshirts beat political opponents, smashed newspaper offices, and force-fed critics large quantities of castor oil. The oil caused explosive diarrhea, severe dehydration, and occasionally death. (Hint: Try using RFK Jr’s parasitic diarrhea lettuce instead. You can hide it in tacos.)

Now, I am going to give you my hottest fascism tip, ICE boys, so pay attention…

Mussolini soon realized that beating critics individually was labor-intensive. I mean, how many Americans can you really shoot in the face in one day? Mussolini figured that out early. There were too many Italians and only so many clubs.

So his government restricted newspapers, replaced hostile editors, and suppressed opposition publications. By the end of 1926, Italy’s major antifascist newspapers had been shut down. That’s how you get rid of those damn antifa and let fascism spread its wings.

Now, imagine if our regime silenced comedians and fired journalists? Even better, imagine if Trump had his own publication to post propaganda. Kinda like how Mussolini was the editor of his own paper. He could then just spout lies that his base believes. You could even name it something with the word “Truth” in it, just to show irony isn’t dead.

Listen, I am just spitballing, but this is how you scale censorship, boys. Stop chasing Grandma through snarky memes. That is retail intimidation. Go wholesale. Make social-media companies register government-approved moderators. Replace editors who publish hostile investigations. Require every account to display a legal name, home address, and current feelings about the president.

Have some confidence. Name a crime later. Punish first.

I am also not that impressed with your paramilitary army. Again…NOT a criticism. But they don’t hold a candle to OVRA — Mussolini’s secret-police network. Its agents tapped telephones, intercepted mail and planted informants in factories, cafés and apartment buildings. At its peak, OVRA ran a network of roughly 100,000 informants and kept files on some 130,000 suspected subversives.

OVRA even kept  profiles that detailed a target’s habits, associations, and sex life. Now that is a spicy dossier. Into bondage and kidnapping? Expect a knock at the door.

ICE is showing promise here. But why should taxpayers fund all the spying?

Instead, create an ICE loyalty app. Report three neighbors and receive a free upgrade to Patriot Gold and some Trump meme coins. Members could earn points by forwarding suspicious group chats and photographing unfamiliar gardeners. The highest-ranking member gets to ride along on a dawn raid and feel like a big man.

Come on. Isn’t your leader a reality TV show host turned felon? Just ask him for ideas. Staged cruelty is his whole shtick.

Or better yet, just steal a page from my history heartthrob. Mussolini especially valued anonymous denunciations. By the 1930s, Italians were sending private accusations directly to police, Fascist officials, and Mussolini himself. A grudge against a coworker no longer required an awkward conversation. It required stationery.

ICE has a tip line, but I have seen almost no gamification. Rookie mistake.

You need to get more organized. For example, in 1926, Mussolini created the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State — a court built for exactly one purpose: to try enemies of the state. The genius was in the naming.

This is how you get shit done. You don’t prosecute a critic. You reclassify them as a threat, and then you prosecute the threat. The category does the work the evidence can’t.

ICE is getting there, boys. The regime now brands organized doxxing of agents “domestic terrorism.” That label even generously is stretched to cover the act of filming agents. Point a camera at a masked man loading your neighbor into an unmarked van, and congratulations: you’re the terrorist now. I find that plot twist almost unbearably sexy.

Mussolini also understood that warnings become more persuasive when punishments followed. For example, around 15,000 political opponents were sentenced to confino — banishment to remote villages or island colonies without an ordinary criminal trial. That’s right. Anyone who smacktalks ICE can kiss due process goodbye. They are ending up in Ivanka Trump’s Albanian island. Or Gitmo. Or an El Salvadoran prison. Take your pick. We got options.

Still, ICE has mastered one important Fascist technique: the knock at the door. Agents do not have to arrest every critic. They only have to visit enough homes and workplaces for everyone else to hear about it. One woman receives a warning over an Instagram post. One Reddit user discovers a secret grand jury wants his name. The rest of us begin searching our old posts. That kind of unpredictable intimidation is what creates hot boy mystique.

You see, Mussolini understood that the most effective knock at the door was the one that never came. Once enough Italians had seen what happened when it did, they began conducting the interrogations themselves.

That is the goal, boys. ICE no longer needs to censor Grandma because Grandma has learned to shut her trap.

All I know is that it’s a good thing I never criticize ICE. But I do lie awake at night waiting for my own knock. It has added excitement to my life. When it comes, I am prepared.

Nope. No Latina Anne Frank hiding here. Just two cats and some wayward teenagers. I fully support removing the workers who harvest our crops, build our houses, and care for our elderly while paying their fair share of taxes. Did I mention that I wear my red hat to bed?

Please tell the gentlemen at the door they can save themselves a trip.

I have already interrogated myself.

Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. The Grim Historian is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.