(They’re here!) ICE, ICE baby, will you have my baby? Please do stop me, or constrain me! Since you’re here in town anyway, oh ye ever-watching feds. You know how it plays … Like the pilot who has one in every city. (Like Zeppelin lyrics, “Pilot of the storm.” But does he “leave a trace?”) It’s topical nowadays. (And they’re in these parts for you!) To protect you?
Now beyond mere wordplay: ICE has been seen in western Wisconsin this winter, moreso than usual, and we’re not talking just about the bad weather.
It’s probably coming soon to a (neighboring) county near you, and not just if you have a North Pole zip code. (Would that read out as 00000-0000?) As jagged ICE goes postal. Forming an great big ICEland? Travel vouchers for them? As a federal budgetary expense?
Anyway, ICE SUVs were initially seen by one of my correspondents following that long and lonely road (locally now) that is Hudson’s First Street, OK only the part that will lead you to the cop shop, where they parked. The obvious joke is that they were driving directly along Lakefront Park, which is directly along the St. Croix River, which they probably thought was a lake and were on “thin ice.” (You know, where savvy and swimming-hardy Mexicans might be hiding out.) The SUVs had that insidious supreme lettering ICE along the sides where the doors to alleged-freedom-bringing are, saying “protecting the homeland.” (One where they don’t give a damn about needing to order-out for pizza.)
— Here is quite the new idea for insidious ICE, many of them are Hispanic, preying on other Hispanics to make a career, according to a news report, and is that kind of opportunism kind of like cannabalism? Or envy the Duke boys as in training they spin a car around, squad or otherwise? So the other night, those three darker skin guys hanging out outside Northland Liquors just after closing, or those coming in out of the kitchen to have a drink at the Wild Badger, they’d better watch it. Or my nephew’s engineer friend, who is foreign, or another’s workmate who reversed the trend seen in telemarketing and came here from India to be employed …
And yes, now a confirmation of sorts, as people started in with their reports of ICE presence over a week ago: ICE in recent days did a raid of at least one area Azul Tequila restaurant and another Mexican place also, possibly resulting in at least a temporary closure, and reportedly made some arrests, according to the restaurant Facebook site. News on the matter has now been active on social media, and I found the most interesting comment is that people who demand low price Mexican food, or you also could add are willing to offer or even work for cheap wages, “incentivizing” the whole situation ICE is weaponizing and making war against. —
So, we knew that in this police state that (now and has been) the good ol’ USA, we’d be seeing their bright shiny and decidedly albino faces (still in a majority of cases) eventually, but we didn’t think it was this soon that they’d be having brew at the local coffee shop — and not at the kind that serves the brew that made Wisconsin (and even its farmers) famous, as ICE is ever on duty protecting the public, and never sleeps, so would need to be in a state where they could jump behind the wheel at any time, not like any fellow officer would ever pull one of them over, and such consumption is except for if they’d show up under cover at a bar to make an arrest. Whew. Gotta do less Adderall. Can I take Narcan for that? Will any of this get ME arrested? (Hey, I’m sure that at this point ICE is used to such blatant criticism, even if it is jokingly drug-addled.)
But those officers, sorry right wingers, are not SuperHeroes, although they may be masked men, and they do need to sleep sometime, or indeed sometimes. Maybe aided by a government-provided sleep-apnea unit, or some of that really good stuff (RGS) not available to the American public. As some protesters found out their whereabouts at a local motel and made clanking noises under their windows all night long. But hey, pots and pans are no match for (potentially mind you) guns firing rubber bullets. Kitchen scrubbing soap cannot combat chemical irritants.
And anyway, we should not be this surprised (appalled?) that apparently, the snidely whiplash of a Somali crackdown has spilled over onto us by geographic association, and that the feds are again leaving the Twin Cities for a bit (unless they truly are SuperHeroes and have ability to be in more than one place at a time) to again pursue (a) Dillinger and Capone, or then (b) meth makers at the other end of our county. After all, weren’t they said to be patsies for the Mexican drug cartels? Can the PDs claim such investigative mileage on their taxes? It’s that time of year.
I should point out that there is the slim chance that the severity of “ICE being here” could be overblown by the fact they are conducting training exercises via a very sweet deal with the local rod and gun club, stationed just north of Hudson. But why would people like ICE based there be traveling in the downtown miles to the south, and not just using the pass-through street? And even if decidedly taking the back route in, that raises questions …
My doubts were cured later in the day I am typing this. Over at Green Mill, someone suggested out of the blue sitting at the center of the bar, “maybe now they’ll speak English in the kitchen.” There were some awkward chuckles, followed by silence, even at this rather conservative bar. In the next five minutes, ICE was referenced in the tavern talk at least three times, by different people.
Then a young woman, or girl, who had darker skin, came out of the kitchen area and grabbed something underneath the bar counter, in a moment of irony. In another, I then recalled there was a sign on the (front) door that said: Sorry but there temporarily is only pizza and wings available (and only) at the bar. It passingly made reference to unfortunate circumstances, and it appeared there was a shortage of kitchen help.
The ride home
A conversation ensued with a local person who knows some people, also local, who have such darker skin tone, and they are running scared by staying home from work, (and not paying more withholding into the federal tax system, we assume), even though they are legal and documented, and this has been verified by their restaurant employer, possibly because they are big companies and want to collect all possible taxation revenue. This is how they first heard that ICE was in town, as many people suddenly now are having a possible deportation issue and are watching such matters closely.
A family member works in rural Minnesota at a large Amazon shipping warehouse, which they say checks all its potential workers to ensure documentation. Still, ICE has raided the facility multiple times.
Wouldn’t you think they’d know they were wasting their time in a fruitless effort? Do they do their homework before invading? Or is this just racist harassment?
Back at the first siting site, along First Street, that same night there were no squad cars seen, in two different checks, parked outside of the police station, when their few spaces normally are filled or close to filled, like they suddenly had reason to be more active. And why was an ICE patrol vehicle driving down First Street in the first place? What is there, or nearby? Restaurants with busy kitchens.
This probably all started with another blogger (let’s not call him a journalist) who did the sensational reporting on the alleged great Somali child care fraud and coverup. One question for him, as has been noted: When you recorded yourself trying to enter these child care centers and said you found them locked, you did not offer a time and date of said entry. Daylight hours? Apparently. Or a weekend? Should we just trust you?