We can't be manipulated by fear

ICE, kidnappings, and the false promise of safety under fascism

Elsy Noemi Berrios, 52, was driving to work at the end of March. Her daughter, Karen, was next to her and started recording when ICE showed up, stopped their car, and demanded her mom step out. In the video Elsy refuses to leave the vehicle and asks the officers to show her a detention order. “I do not need to show you the warrant,” one of the agents says. Then the fed suddenly shatters a window, unlocks the door, and removes Elsy from the car. “You guys can’t take her just because you want to,” her daughter can be heard screaming.

The Trump regime claims this 52-year-old mom is a member of the MS-13 gang, but no evidence has been provided, because it doesn’t exist. This is what we’re being told is safety. The fascists are telling us to be more afraid of this mother than of agents breaking into cars and kidnapping people. And we’re just supposed to accept it. But today and every day we have to reject the logic of authoritarianism, reject the twisted weaponization of fear, and fight back.

Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash

Few cases, few people force the fascists to display their warped and dangerous logic like Mahmoud Khalil. This week an immigration judge ruled that he can be deported. The case is far from over, there will be appeals and escalations in his defense, but the Trump regime has already placed its reasoning on display for us to understand and shoot down.

The “evidence” against Khalil comes directly from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He wrote a short memo, digging up a 1952 Cold War law that “empowers the government to order someone deported if their presence in the country could pose unfavorable consequences for American foreign policy.” The truth, as stated clearly by Democracy Now, is that “the U.S. is seeking to deport him based purely on his beliefs.” Rubio’s memo cites Palestine protests where Mahmoud simply expressed his views, which are falsely labeled antisemitic, and virtually nothing else. Opposing genocide is now reason enough for deportation, according to the White House.

And we’re supposed to feel safer now. We’re supposed to be afraid of college students who protest the slaughter of innocents and we’re supposed to be glad that they’re being snatched from campuses by masked federal agents. As a Jew in America I’m told I ought to be one of the most relieved. I’m supposed to side with the fascists because they love Israel, and the decimation of our flimsy legal system in the service of this authoritarian regime is supposed to make me happy.

So let’s be as clear as possible. The weaponization of our fear is ass backwards. None of us are made safer when mask kidnappers grab people, or when the law is bent and molded to fit the purposes of the regime after the fact. I am more afraid, exponentially, of this fascist onslaught than I am of any protest on a college campus. All of us have more to fear from this authoritarian regime that ignores and twists laws and disappears our neighbors than we do from immigrants of any stripe.

Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash

We’re told to believe we’re made safer by a government that disappears people to a mega-prison in El Salvador and then defies judges who demand they brought back. This week the Trump administration didn’t comply with an order from Judge Paula Xinis to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, abducted from Baltimore in what the feds later said was an “administrative error.” During a hearing this week Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign “repeatedly stonewalled” the judge, then claimed that her orders were “impracticable.” They disappeared a man for no reason, other than the fact that he’s Latino, and are refusing to bring him back home. But we’re told to fear this family man, union member, and neighbor more than an authoritarian government kidnapping people and refusing to abide by the law.

Even the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the Trump administration must work to get Kilmar released. Unanimous. Contentious political cases never get that sort of ruling from the country’s highest court. No matter how the fascists try to hide behind legalese, make excuses, or stonewall, everyone outside their fanatic base sees that they’ve gone too far. Disappearing random people for no reason other than their ethnicity doesn’t fly. Crucially, the argument that we’re made safer by these abductions has fallen apart, fallen flat.

This goes far beyond ICE. For decades the right and its affiliated media has helped heighten a fear of crime, a fear of migrants, a fear of terrorism. Then, when they get power, they implement “solutions” that in fact make this country more dangerous, like handing billions to police and border patrol. Democrats have often worked hand-in-hand with Republicans on these issues, running to the right on immigration and crime over the years instead of presenting real answers. Now, the supposed solutions are being weaponized by the far-right, with border patrol trying to search phones, illegally detaining and turning around people with visas, and eagerly implementing a fascist program that is in many ways an extension of their existing functions.

None of this makes us safer. It all expands the power of this dangerous regime, which is determined to strip the right to vote, destroy vital services, and wreck the economy. In passing the SAVE Act (which makes it harder for millions to vote), in advancing a budget that aims to defund Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars, in ceding tariff authority to Trump the entire Republican Party is showing that this is how they operate, showing that their supposed concern for safety has always been just another sick performance and power grab. Just like the fascists in the White House, the whole GOP parades around stories of crime while trying to kill the social safety net and the economic stability that actually contribute to a safer society.

So it’s time to stop being used. For too long all it’s taken is the mention of one horrifying crime for millions to rush headlong into the “law and order” rhetoric of politicians who care nothing for the law and whose only sense of order is oppressive systems and the consolidation of their power. The American public has acted like a marionette, leaping every time the strings of fear and safety are yanked by politicians and the corporate media. Millions have jumped at “migrant caravans,” fentanyl stories, and the mere mention of terrorism, and all we’ve gotten is a fascist police state.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Mariame Kaba often says that knowing who to be mad at is part of the work, and I would add that knowing who and what to be afraid of is also part of the work we all need to do. For decades we’ve been fed a list of who we’re ‘supposed’ to be afraid of, and it’s time to reject the bait and switch scheme where petty criminals are dangled in the public eye by people who then grab power and perpetrate systemic violence on an infinitely larger scale, hurting millions. It’s time to reject the lies of those who tell us to fear shoplifters while they steal our rights, our jobs, our communities and more. It’s time to reject the narrative of dangerous migrants while fascists abduct our neighbors and refuse to bring them back. The real cause of this crisis isn’t immigrants or any of the scapegoats we’ve been told to fear, it’s those who weaponize our safety day after day, using it to seize power and control.

Fear is a pillar of fascism. Some people think you can fear migrants and still meet this moment, but it’s impossible. We need to fully reject fear of our neighbors. We need to see who is making us less safe, and how they’re manipulating us to achieve their aims. We need to reject their narrative, their approach, and meet their fear-mongering with solidarity. That’s the only way we’ll truly be safe. That’s the only way we’ll beat back these fascists who have nothing to offer besides scams where they promise safety and instead steal it out from under us. We have one way forward — building a society where fear is no longer a viable currency.