ICE Has Only Seemed To Be Quieter

As a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin enjoyed a reputation for confrontation and theatricality. He often donned a cowboy hat on the Senate floor (a no-no for a body that prizes decorum) and strode the hallways of the Capitol bouncing a rubber stress ball. 

During a 2023 Senate hearing, the former mixed martial arts fighter challenged Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a fistfight, taunting him to “stand your butt up.” In a separate incident last fall, Mullin “joked” about killing journalists. 

Mullin’s confirmation hearing to replace Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security this spring was likewise combative. Sen. Rand Paul—whom Mullin had called a “freaking snake”—challenged his temperament and lack of expertise. “Explain to the American people why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and border patrol agents,” Paul said. 

Since ascending to DHS, however, Mullin has submerged his ostentatious persona. Unlike Noem, whose shock-and-awe immigration enforcement tactics sparked widespread public outrage, Mullin has been relatively low-key. No dehumanizing videos, no embarrassing cosplay, no obvious corruption. 

He’s also built a brutally efficient deportation machine that—until last week—was largely escaping protest from an easily distractible public:

Arrests have surged to 2,000 per day, according to the New York Times, and more than 63,000 people were in ICE custody at the start of July, often in horrific conditions.  ICE has especially targeted unaccompanied minors, reports ProPublica, and judges are signing more than 10,000 deportation or removal orders each month.  Immigration judges have also sharply reduced the number of immigrants granted asylum, while judges resistant to the administration’s policies have been fired. Judges are now also holding mass deportation hearings involving as many as 100 cases at a time, according to NPR, often with little or no notice to the people involved.  Deportation flights reached a record high in May, according to the nonprofit Human Rights First, with 288 flights to 38 countries, including St. Kitts, Nevis, Paraguay, Ghana, and Cameroon.  DHS has also told employers to fire thousands of legal immigrant workers who are likely to lose their Temporary Protected Status in coming weeks, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision granting the administration broad discretion over TPS status. 

The fatal shooting of a Houston man by ICE agents earlier this month, along with another killing last week in Maine and the death of yet another man in Florida, have revived some public scrutiny of ICE’s tactics. But the national outcry has so far been relatively muted compared to the protests in Minneapolis, Portland, and other cities earlier this year. These recent shootings have not involved U.S. citizens, unlike the killings in Minneapolis, and ICE has taken pains to avoid the massive shows of force that frightened or inconvenienced ordinary Americans. “It’s by design,” as one anonymous source told Politico. 

Even as outrage is building anew over ICE’s abuses, thousands of people have already been quietly disappeared from their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. Perhaps you no longer see the family that lived next door, the server at your favorite restaurant, the custodian at your children’s school, or the aide who helped your elderly parents. And perhaps the reasons for their absence are perfectly benign. Many Americans will tell themselves that. 

But it’s exactly that silent complicity that Mullin and his agents have been counting on to carry out their mass deportations. The current furor may yet die down. Don’t look away. 

Don’t miss at the Monthly…

Can Trump really steal the midterms? Trump’s escalating lies about election integrity, including his speech on Thursday, are stoking increasing fears about election interference this fall. Building on Legal Affairs Editor Garrett Epps’ recent analysis, Executive Editor Digital Matt Cooper sums up what you need to worry about—and what you don’t. He also dissects Trump’s dud of a speech Thursday night, which promised blockbuster revelations but “landed with all the force of a cotton ball.” The bottom line: Be worried, but don’t panic. Read here and here.

“Disaster insurance for all?” Repeated wildfires have left California homes all but uninsurable. State Farm and Allstate have fled the market, leaving homeowners frustrated and unprotected in the case of a catastrophe. Could a disaster insurance equivalent of “Medicare for All” be the answer? Editor Kainoa Lowman explores the pros and cons of this idea, proposed by a leading candidate for state insurance commissioner, Jane Kim. Kainoa concludes that it’s probably too pricey to be practicable but could have the effect of forcing a much-needed debate on solving California’s insurance problem. Read here. 

A sea change in the war against sexual violence. Despite a decade of research, award-winning Deanne Stillman struggled to find a publisher for her investigation of the rape and murder of two girls by a Marine in the town of Twentynine Palms, California. This year, on the 25th anniversary of its publication, Twentynine Palms has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times as a “best book of the year.” What’s changed, Stillman says, is a shift in public attitudes toward sexual violence and its victims. “For decades … women remained in the shadows, lest they face excoriation, threats, and erasure,” she writes. “This is all still happening, but not to the degree that it once was. Indeed, something of an emotional security space has emerged, and the floodgates have opened.” One turning point, she argues, was the case of Frenchwoman Gisele Pelicot, whose wrenching memoir turned her into a global heroine in the fight against sexual violence. Read here. 

Plus…

The author of Enshittification has a new book on what to think about AI. Anita Jain writes that Cory Doctorow is surprisingly complacent about humanity’s fate.  Christoph Irmscher finds that America has always fallen short of its egalitarian ideals. In his review of Kim Phillips-Fein’s Country of Lords, Christoph chronicles the ugly impacts of racism on our pretensions to equality.  Contributing writer Jonathan Alter faults PEN America President Dinaw Mengestu for his theatrical—and hypocritical—resignation over an article protesting the silencing of Israeli writers.  Stanley Institute researchers E. Fuller Torrey and Wendy Simmons imagine a letter to Trump from the discoverer of Parkinson’s Disease, proposing a renaming. 

Coda (law rules edition…) 

If you read only one thing this week (aside from this newsletter, of course), read federal judge Kathleen Williams’ extraordinary order nullifying Trump’s “settlement” with the IRS after his $10 billion lawsuit against the agency. 

The bottom line: You can’t have a legitimate settlement if the underlying lawsuit is fake. 

In this case, Trump’s control of the IRS meant that Trump was suing (and “settling” with) himself. Trump’s lawsuit, Williams found, was a pretext to gain legitimacy for the outcome—lifetime immunity from audits and a $1.8 billion slush fund (which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has disavowed): 

“Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court. The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding ‘no’: the Lead Plaintiff and the Government are one, a fully realized unitary interest. … And because this fact was so obvious and insurmountable, the Court finds that the matter was brought for an improper purpose—to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or in fact.”

Trump will, of course, appeal the ruling, but the law is pretty clear. Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, are facing sanctions for their abuse of the courts. This includes Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose confirmation hearing to be the permanent Attorney General took place last week. That so many GOP senators have no problem confirming Trump’s personal lawyer to head the Department of Justice is a stain on the institution. 

As always, thanks for reading, and please don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe. Independent media depends on people like you! 

Have a great week!

Anne Kim, Senior Editor

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