Nick Miroff

But again, we saw protesters and agents and officers in these intense confrontations in the street.

We saw them pulling their guns.

We saw them shooting people.

But, you know, once the evidence made its way into courtrooms and it started to go badly for the administration, the administration kind of pulled back.

And we're at the stage right now where, you know—

It's too early to say what their response will be once evidence involving the shooting and other incidents is introduced into court.

But it doesn't seem like this administration is going to back down from street-level protests or from public officials in Minneapolis, you know, dropping F-bombs at press conferences.

I don't know.

I mean, I've heard that, but what is an example of a state successfully prosecuting a federal law enforcement officer in recent years based on a use of force incident of this kind?

I mean, everybody I asked about this told me that these cases are transferred into federal court and that it's extremely rare for state or local jurisdictions to successfully bring charges against a federal law enforcement officer accused of wrongdoing while in the course of their duties.

Absolutely.

I mean, like, just to be clear, like, there is no precedent for what we're seeing right now where the Border Patrol and ICE officers are in the streets of American cities, in neighborhoods, pulling cars over, confronting protesters, zooming around in unmarked cars with masks on.

I mean, this is not what these agencies were created to do.

And so...

That the root of all of this is the Trump administration's quest for a million deportations a year, a mass deportation campaign that is going to be on this kind of happened in this episodic rolling basis in blue Democratic run cities.

and a desire to have imagery of confrontation in which they can have this political fight over immigration, the future of this country, left-wing protesters, have all of these things play out on social media, on television,

i think that they think it is winning politics for them and i think that they think that this is winning policy for them this is what stephen miller has been building up to his entire political career we didn't see it on this kind of level you know in the first trump administration because there were checks there were safeguards the border was still the focus but now that the border is basically closed and all of the energy and the resources and attention are on this deportation campaign

These confrontations are what they've been building up to for a long time.

So this is something that I'm writing about this week.

And I think that the main takeaway is that the Department of Homeland Security has gotten way off of its foundational mission.