JD Vance Defaults To Denial And Victim-Blaming When Confronted About ICE Racial Profiling
One thing I find interesting about the Trump administration, and white conservatives in general, for that matter, is that they go so far out of their ways to show off how racist and xenophobic they are, then they turn around and get bashful and defensive about it when you call them racist and xenophobic.
Why not just own it?
For example, at this point, the evidence that ICE and Border Patrol agents are routinely engaging in racial profiling when targeting migrants — both documented and undocumented — that even local police chiefs are sounding the alarm on it, particularly, in Minnesota, where President Donald Trump has been far from shy about letting his bigoted ramblings fly unchecked when denigrating the state’s massive Somali community. In fact, Trump has unabashedly sat down in front of cameras and talked about the entire ethnic group — those in the U.S., including Rep. Ilhan Omar, and those in Somalia — like they were the absolute scum of the Earth. Trump talks about Somalis everywhere like they collectively ran over his favorite childhood pet. It’s insane.
So, why then do the sycophants and professional leg-humpers who make up Trump’s administration feel the need to do their shoddy job of keeping up pretenses when they’re asked about the racial profiling and general bigotry and white nationalism that is happening under this regime?
On Thursday, Vice President J.D. Vance — the bigoted propagandist who spread hate speech against the entire Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, essentially writing the blueprint to, “They’re eating the cats…they’re eating the pets” — was asked during a Thursday news conference about Twin Cities police chiefs reporting that their off-duty officers of color have been racially profiled by ICE.
“Earlier this week, local law enforcement accused federal agents of racial profiling,” a reporter asked Vance. “Why are there so many U.S. citizens being caught up in this operation?”
Vance — the guy who is so desperate to downplay white bigotry that he’ll refer to middle-aged racists as “kids,” and has made it clear he’ll only directly address racism when he’s lying to white people about them being victims of it — predictably danced around the allegation and defaulted to lies about agents being attacked.
“Well, I think your question assumes something that’s not necessarily in evidence, which is that when there are American citizens who have been caught up in some of these enforcement operations, very often it is people who have assaulted a law enforcement officer,” Vance said. “They’re not being arrested because they violated the immigration laws; they’re being arrested because they punched a federal law enforcement officer. That is a totally reasonable thing.”
Listen, since the start of Trump’s immigration crackdown, he and everyone else in his administration have been claiming agents are “under siege,” and constant physical attack in every major city they’ve been deployed, and in every one of those major cities and states, witnesses, local officials, local police, and video footage say it’s not true. In Chicago, a federal judge not only called federal agents out for lying about being attacked by protesters, but she came armed with video evidence that showed agents were the ones initiating violence in instances where they claimed protesters initiated it.
When Vance said to the reporter, ” I think your question assumes something that’s not necessarily in evidence,” I’m not sure if he was referring to evidence of ICE’s racial profiling — for which there is plenty — or evidence of agents getting violent after first getting “punched,” of which the government has provided none.
So, what else you got, J.D.?
“Now to the accusation of racial profiling, it’s something that we take very seriously. We will take accusations of racial profiling back to Washington, we’ll certainly look into them as they come up,” Vance continued. “But this is not a group that’s going around and looking for people who violated the law based on skin color. They’re looking for people who violated the actual law—the law of our immigration system.”
Vance — my guy — agents have been caught on camera demanding that random Black immigrants show proof of citizenship just “because of your accent.”
As I wrote previously:
The Trump administration, specifically the Department of Homeland Security, continues to deny that immigration cops are stopping and detaining people based on their skin color and accent, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has even scolded reporters for suggesting that they do, despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken legal battles all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to give its agents the legal right to racially profile civilians. Noem also recently told immigrants to keep proof of citizenship on their person at all times, indicating that they might be subject to the profiling she claims is not happening. ICE Director Tom Homan said himself that “ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them,” and that “they just go through the observation…based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”
According to an ICE agent, White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller once demanded an increase in immigration arrests, asking, “Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” — a clear indication that he expected agents to go where Hispanic migrants typically work, and to identify people to detain based on their race, their occupation or the language they speak.
Again, why not just own it at this point? I would have more respect for these people if they would just respond to reporters’ questions by saying flat-out: “Yes, we’re white nationalists. No, we don’t want non-white foreigners here, and yes, we’ll gleefully toss ethics, humanity, and the Constitution to the side if it means ridding the U.S. of as many of them as possible! America was built on racial profiling!“
Just come right out and say it. You won’t be telling any of us what we didn’t already know anyway.
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