July 10 Friday roundup

In the latest podcast episode, I talk about a recent study suggesting that authoritarianism is contagious in social settings, looking at how it might apply to stopping the collapse of democracy in the United States we’re witnessing right now. You can watch it on YouTube or listen on Apple, Spotify, and elsewhere. If you’d like to check out the links in the written version, you can read Tuesday’s post.

I'm traveling today, so this will be a brief post. But I wanted to weigh in on the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE earlier this week. Salgado Araujo was shot in the stomach and died as part of what the Department of Homeland Security is trying to describe as a “targeted enforcement operation.” As is typical, officers are claiming that they had to fire for their own safety, believing they were about to be run over. 

However, reporting has already made clear that Salgado Araujo wasn’t the actual target of the operation. In addition, the other men who were present in the van at the time of the execution all reported that "there were never any ICE agents in front of the van." Instead, "the men came in shooting from the sides.” The other men in the van who witnessed the shooting of Salgado Araujo said he had not rammed law enforcement officers at any point.

Late last month, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for investigations into the many immigrants who have been dying in DHS detention. Such calls are necessary, given that the agency consistently avoids investigating its employees, even in the wake of deaths and obvious misconduct.

As Asawin Suebsaeng wrote for Zeteo, the public now seems to be paying less attention to ICE arrests and detention. People may feel that the federal government has ratcheted down its persecution since the removal of Kristi Noem and the forced retirement of Gregory Bovino from Border Patrol. But Trump’s minions haven’t let up on their ethnic purges nationwide. In reality, the government is moving as quickly as it can to make arrests on the ground, exposing vulnerable people to harm and even death.

Trump and his allies may already realize that they are running out of time in their project of terrorizing immigrants and reshaping the racial makeup of the U.S. And I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating that history shows that the administration will keep attempting to spark pogroms, putting people in camps, and even killing people, in targeted ways and through malicious incompetence. By the time a country reaches this fever pitch of using mass detention without trial as a weapons, it typically won’t cease doing so unless it is actively stopped—either by its own people or by outside pressure.

As the United States is the dominant power in the world right now, other countries don’t have any simply way to pressure the White House to cease its rampage. Though I do think other nations could be doing more, the truth is that if the camps are to close anytime soon and stay closed, it will likely require millions more everyday people to stand up right here in the U.S.

Whatever you’ve been doing to protect others in the country from the violence that has been unleashed on them, I encourage you to keep doing it. And if you haven’t yet started helping those who are being indiscriminately hunted because of their race and ethnicity, I encourage you to reach out to local immigration nonprofits and connect with area churches with significant immigrant congregations to find out how to help. You can also support legal organizations making sure that immigrant detainees have representation, along with organizing in your community to end 287(g) collaborations with ICE.

Again and again, citizens and undocumented people alike have shown their bravery and their effectiveness at protecting their neighbors. Don’t assume someone else will deal with this catastrophe, which has become a crisis threatening all of us. Millions of people, along with American democracy itself, are in jeopardy.

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