Humans All the Way Down

By now I think we’ve all seen the images and read the stories of ICE grabbing people off the street, detaining United States citizens with no warrant and no probable cause, and even taking parents on their way to drop off their children at school or preschool. They are masked, often in plain civilian clothes, and employ force freely.

The narrative from the Department of Homeland Security and the White House has been that they are primarily targeting criminals and that if someone turns out to be documented, that person will be released. These claims have been shown to be largely untrue (see the links above).

There are serious legal and Constitutional problems with these actions, which I will get to in a separate post. For now I want to put those aside and beg you to think of the human element of these events.

Stand in Your Neighbor’s Shoes

Suspend, for a moment, whether or not these folks are undocumented. Focus instead on the experience of the human being.

Imagine you’re asleep. Your kids are in their beds, probably after some bedtime battle or another. There’s probably a lot on your mind, especially with current events and economical challenges, but you’re too tired to apply any brain power to it. You drift off, reminding yourself that tomorrow your daughter needs to wear a costume to school for Halloween week.

Suddenly, you’re jolted awake by loud banging. Your children are screaming and you leap out of bed, trying to get to them, terrified of what could possibly be happening. A break in? An attempted kidnapping?

As you leave your bedroom, flashlight beams sweep across you, blinding you temporarily. Rough hands grab you, shouting at you to get down, to put your hands behind your back. As bright dots swim across your vision, you manage to see your children being pulled by masked men out the front door. They are calling for you, and you scream their names.

The masked men take you outside. They keep you from your children, who you can see with zip ties around their hands. It’s raining and everyone is soaked. No one reads you any rights. No one tells you what’s going on. No one shows you a warrant. No one comforts your children.

Unnecessary Force

The description above is taken from accounts I have read from a Chicago raid on an apartment complex. People were dragged from their homes and detained regardless of their status, including children. There was no knocking on doors or giving residents a chance to show proof of citizenship.

This is where I want to start ranting about the law and due process and the fourth amendment (it’s a good one, I will talk about it in a future post). However, to jump straight to legal arguments skips right over the human element. Before we can talk about law and order, we have to talk about the people.

While I don’t believe these searches and screenings should be happening at all, there is a way to go about them that honors the humanity of the people they impacted. Members of ICE could have chosen to wait for morning, to ring doorbells, or to leave notices that they would be back for interviews.

There was a way to treat these folks like real people deserving of respect.

Instead, they were treated the way we treat pests: drive them out, pick them off as they run. ICE’s tactics in this case, and in many other cases, are intended to scare vulnerable people who have nowhere to run.

And the outcome is to other and dehumanize a group of people who, by and large, are no threat to the populace at large.

The Power of Othering

I wonder how many of us have looked at these events and thought, “Wow that is terrible and scary” and then, conscious or not, retreated into the safety of knowing it won’t impact us.

I know it happens to me. I read a news story and I hate what is happening, but I also know that I am a white suburban mom married to a white man with a lucrative and well-respected job. No one is going to kick in my door. No one is going to think I am undocumented (we’ll get into the race thing sometime – it’s a big one). I have the freedom to move on and engage in my life, putting the stress of these stories aside for the moment.

And in doing so, a subtle, small change begins in my mind. We are different, them and me. In the eyes of ICE, they might be citizens, or they may not be; appearance (and sometimes financial situation) are the determiners, and I’m on the right side of that equation.

They are worthy of suspicion in the eyes of ICE simply because they look like people who may be undocumented. We are different kinds of people, and while their plight is horrific, it’s not one that impacts me.

The Argument Against Empathy

This is how atrocities are allowed to happen: violence is excused and people are determined unworthy of humane treatment because of a perceived or actual crime, one they are suspected of based mostly on their race.

Ultimately, the argument is they look undocumented so it’s acceptable to be suspicious of them. They should just show their papers, and if they are undocumented, they deserve whatever treatment they get. It’s an argument against empathy and humanity and the idea that all people are created equal and deserving of dignity, regardless of their legal status.