Adam Serwer

The fact is that everybody just sort of refers colloquially to federal agents as ICE, whatever agency they may be a part of.

Yeah.

So what I would say is that they go around and sometimes these lead to confrontations, right?

Sometimes the agents will get out of the car, they'll box somebody in, they'll threaten them.

You know, I was told of incidents where they sprayed pepper spray into the heat vents in order to get the pepper spray into the car, especially if someone doesn't want to roll down the window.

A couple of the people that I spoke to had actually been followed home or had their plates run by federal agents who came and said, you know, stop fucking following us.

You know, there are lots of viral videos of federal agents saying things like, you know, did you see what happened to unrepeatable language, which is, you know, a death threat.

And obviously, you know, they're willing to kill people, even people who are not posing a threat to them.

So, you know, the thing that I was struck by was the tremendous courage of the people who are following ICE around because they know that if they get killed, you know, the federal government will refuse to investigate.

They won't allow local authorities access to the scene.

And then, you know, the president and the vice president and their advisors will all say that they were a terrorist and murderers and trying to kill federal agents, right?

So they know that they might be killed and that whoever kills them will not be held accountable for their death and that they will be smeared by their own government.

So to me, you know, what these people are doing is profoundly brave.

They're unarmed.

They do not seek physical confrontation with ICE agents.

Their purpose is just to foil their operations by making everybody aware that they're occurring.

Well, I mean, you know, ICE wants the element of surprise.

So if people are ready for them, they might be able to escape or hide, you know, or something of the sort.

And the thing is, is that what people have told me is that, you know, it's not just if you don't have legal status that you should be afraid, because there are lots of stories of people stopping people who are citizens, who have legal status, who are here legally and being mistreated.

You know, I spoke to one Somali-American activist who told me that her sister had been detained at the Wibble building for hours, even though she's an American citizen.