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It was the secret service, not ICE:
The U.S. Secret Service told the I-Team they approached a South Side school Friday. Chicago Public Schools officials had initially said the agents were from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But nonetheless, the school took the correct and appropriate action.
Good fucking job faculty and staff. This is critically important.
Yeah, but this is surely also to intimidate folks from sending the to public schools.
Oh 100% - that's why clearly rejecting it is so important. If the folks at your local school clearly announce "we don't fuck with Trump's terrorism bullshit" then it makes it less likely that parents (even those with residency or citizenship) will be afraid to let their kids attend.
I think the whole announcement that the admin will raid schools is a pretty transparent attempt to make non-white people voluntarily stop sending their kids to school.
CPS has a very hard headed teachers union that people often complain about. But in times like this, it's exactly what's needed. I can't imagine the for profit "Disney II" charter school up the street to have the same approach 🙄
For-profit? They'll rat you out for a nickel.
Who the fuck works at ICE and thinks the new policies are ok?
You don’t work at ICE and not be a racist authoritarian.
Yeah well. You're probably right. I mean they're basically speical cops.
You know how people get jaded at work towards customers at jobs like stores and support centers? I bet the jaded people at ICE are real fun to be around.
Probably a decent chunk... but the more dangerous portion is those who legitimately believe in the system. Under a normal administration we'd rightfully object to a public servant that refused to carry out their duties.
If a Dem had just won and said "We're going to make sure asylum seekers are all given temporary accommodations in motels until we can process them" and some conservation asshat said "Yer nuh muh presuden" and simply refused to carry out the order we'd rightfully be pissed off that some individual administrator was trying to singlehandedly undermine the electoral will.
This is a fucking complex situation because most people working in government have an understanding of this (which is normally good) and just want to make the implementation of policies that they may not fully agree with as efficient and kind as possible.
Much like MLK's sentiment, the majority of atrocities carried out under the Trump admin will be done by relatively unobjectionable people who are just trying to locally minimize harm. Someone liberal might stay in ICE and comply with these orders because they believe they can take small actions to make the implementation of school raids less cruel and, genuinely, they're probably right.
We're in a weird fucking situation and we're all about to learn how we'd have acted if we lived in 1930s Germany. Will we be the cruel ideologue who actively causes harm? Will we resign in protest and become essentially irrelevant? Will we try to work within the system to prevent small cruelties while supporting large cruelties (i.e. Schindler)? Will we apathetically continue to support the economic system of cruelty? Etc...
This is going to be a cruel four years.
Yooo. For real.
We’re in a weird fucking situation and we’re all about to learn how we’d have acted if we lived in 1930s Germany. Will we be the cruel ideologue who actively causes harm? Will we resign in protest and become essentially irrelevant? Will we try to work within the system to prevent small cruelties while supporting large cruelties (i.e. Schindler)? Will we apathetically continue to support the economic system of cruelty? Etc…
You're right. The best thing to do, though, is resist. Simple disobedience will slow their plans. There's so much power in simply not cooperating and being a nuisance. If you haven't read it already, the OSS (precursor to the CIA) has a great guide in simple sabotage for everyday people (Simple Sabotage Field Manual) that when done can stymie them. This was written back in the '40s during WWII to help occupied countries resist.
And I agree that there are some people in ICE trying to lessen harm. To that, I say that we should find them and support them and give them whatever aid. That goes for anyone who works in the federal government. A low level person at State can "accidentally" approve changes to trans people's documents. An office worker at DoE can ask annoying questions and derail meetings. It's little acts of sabotage that when added up can bring this to a screeching halt.
The headline has been updated:
US Secret Service approached South Side school, not ICE agents: officials
The U.S. Secret Service told the I-Team they approached a South Side school Friday. Chicago Public Schools officials had initially said the agent or agents were from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Secret Service said they were investigating a threat, and responded to a house. They said they were then told the person they wanted to talk to was at Hamline Elementary School, but they did not enter the school, the Secret Service told the I-Team.
The threat the Secret Service was investigating was not immediately clear.
What kind of threat would the Secret Service be investigating at a random house in Chicago? Like, maybe if someone sent out a death threat to an elected official, but even then isn't that the FBI or local cops jobs?
Also, a public school turning away the secret service when they say they're investigating a threat just seems incredibly unlikely.
Also also, how in the world would the school have mistaken secret service agents for ICE agents? Did these agents not identify themselves?
I think the answer to all of these questions is going to be "the Secret Service is lying their ass off because everyone in the executive branch knows Trump will throw a giant hissy for if he hears that his big mean ICE agents got scared of by a bunch of public school teachers," but I guess we'll see what happens.
My family did have the Secret Service show up at the house one time. I don't recommend it.
Fair enough, looking at some news stories about past death threat incidents it does seem like there's been a number of times where they do arrests and interrogations themselves
What kind of threat would the Secret Service be investigating at a random house in Chicago?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Obamas from Chicago? Is it possible that they were investigating a threat against the Obamas or a site that a suspect believes is linked to the Obamas?
Trump's MAGA crew are right now running a victory lap, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that at least one nutjob has declared open season on Obama or something. And after the two attempted Trump assassinations, I don't think they're going to want to look like they dropped the ball a third time.
That was my first thought too.
Although it's also possible some edgy teen made a comment online from a Chicago School computer. And by comment I mean threat worth investigating.
All questions I have zero answers to, but am also curious about.
I would guess the agents said "We are federal agents", and since there has been all this talk of ICE and Chicago, made an assumption.
The secret service might be investigating a threat to a family member of someone they are protecting.
There are plenty of plausible answers, but we definitely don't know the full story yet.
Yeah, most of this seems plausible, except
I would guess the agents said "We are federal agents"
That doesn't sound right to me at all, cops don't say "Hi I'm with the government" they're always "This is FBI Agent Smith" or "I'm with Immigration and Customs Enforcement" or "I'm calling to speak to you about an official IRS investigation." I don't understand how "federal agents" is even in their lexicon.
"I’m calling to speak to you about an official IRS investigation."
I've gotten three of those calls, and the callers sounded like they were from Chennai or Bangalara. I quickly ascertained that they had no idea who they were talking to, and didn't know what a Taxpayer Identification Number was, let alone what mine was.
Yeah I have no idea, I'm just tossing guesses out here at this point like I said. Its a weird story overall.
But if you identify yourself as secret service it might lead to a lot more questions. Federal agents is a shout I know from many a cop show. Notably NCIS, which is famous to get "NCI what?" as a response if they acronym themselves.
I don't think it matters if it causes confusion. I believe LE are supposed to identify themselves accurately.
America already went back 50 years in one week. Gonna be a helluva 4 years.
Fuck ICE
I think we are at the beginnings of a potential split up if the country. Shits gonna get crazy before it gets better. I hate this timeline.
The divide between me and family members is already setting records. It's because Trump opened the flood gates on day one, complete with his staff Seig Heil saluting to a cheering crowd.
So yes... It will get bad. Despite the "landslide" victory Trump won, the reality is that he won by 1.5% of the popular vote. This leaves nearly every major city and over 75 million people that voted against him.
Trump is acting like everyone supports him, but half the country actively tried to prevent him from winning... And we are not fucking happy about what he's doing.
He has both the senate and the house, and he's already trying to do away with term limits. This is the perfect storm. It's going to result in riots, unrest, and destabilization like this country has never seen before if the pacing doesn't change.
I mean maybe it's for the best. Maybe into four or five separate regions. It's very clear that places like Texas do not want to share a country with Cali or NY any longer, and neither do the latter. If everyone can agree to do it peacefully, there shouldn't be too much disruption. It'd be like the breakup of the USSR. Then the left leaning states can finally get on with implementing modern social policies like universal healthcare without the troglodytes getting in the way.
My main worry would be, who gets all the nukes.
This is such an insanely ignorant take...
I'd love it if I could join my state (California), and just break off... But that's not how any of this works.
I don't think the country splitting would be peaceful, or easy. People fled the USSR for most of the 90s bcz the valuation of their currency went to almost zero for a while.
I'm betting the USA will split into 3 different countries. The East/Northeast will be one, they'll probably still call themselves the United States of America being the original 13 colonies and all. The West/Northwest will be another, closely allied to the East maybe call themselves the California Republic or something with the bear animal logo and stuff. Then the New Louisiana Territory in the South, Texas and all that, which will basically become the new Middle East but in the West (Middle West, if you will) where foreign powers will fund never ending proxy wars through religious extremists.
States and localities will make the good chunk of the resistance. Make sure to pay attention to every single local election
Multiple states have statewide and local elections this year
Unreal
Unfortunately it is real. Only one week in, 3 years and 51 weeks remaining.