The Fascist Taskforce

Other than just the fact that these people are scumbags for their job generally, the more you learn about ICE raids, the more you should realize that once all the immigrants are “eliminated,” they will turn their attention to other Americans. You think that if we got rid of all undocumented immigrants, ICE would reduce its forces? Ha ha ha ha ha, you sweet summer child. Meanwhile, this is what happens when they arrest US citizens for the crime of being brown.

As two masked men dragged her into an unmarked SUV, Andrea Velez tried to focus on details she might later remember – one man’s red shirt, the car’s leather seats, a black backpack inside.

At 9.20am on 24 June in downtown Los Angeles, the 32-year-old was heading into work at a footwear company when the men in gator masks jumped out of their car and started chasing vendors and other people on the street, she recalled. As people fled, Velez froze and held on to her bag.

Suddenly, she recalled, one of the men slammed her to the ground and placed her into his car. The men had “Police” vests, but otherwise were in plainclothes and didn’t identify themselves. She didn’t know why they had taken her.

The men, it turned out, were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deportation officers. They were looking to question people about “whether they were lawfully present” in the US, an agent later wrote. Velez is a US citizen who grew up in downtown, not far from the incident.

….

Velez and Luis Hipolito, a 23-year-old man later charged as her co-defendant, were taken to a parking structure. Video of Hipolito’s arrest later published by the LA Times showed four agents had aggressively detained him by piling on top of him and using pepper spray. As the two waited to be processed, Velez said she saw his face was swollen, he was having trouble seeing, his shirt was bloody and he appeared to be convulsing and hyperventilating.

His requests for medical attention were initially denied, she said: “He was in pain, but they were like: ‘It’s no big deal, you will get over it.’” Even as he struggled, he tried to comfort her: “He was making me feel safe.” Eventually, he was taken away in an ambulance, she said. Meanwhile, she saw ambulances going in and out of the federal jail nearby, which frightened her.

She said officers later forced her to pose for a photo where several of them stood in a line holding her with their backs to the camera, an unusual mugshot setup that has since become commonplace for DHS press releases and X.com posts: “They make it seem like we’re really bad criminals, the worst of the worst, when we’re just regular people.”

….

In an affidavit filed by the justice department, Joseph Arko, an agent working for a homeland security taskforce investigating “immigration crimes”, said the Ice officers had stopped in downtown to “question two individuals about whether they were lawfully present” in the US. As one individual fled, one of the officers alleged Velez “stepp[ed] into his path and extend[ed] one of her arms in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male”, Arko summarized. The officer claimed she was so “abrupt”, “he could not stop his momentum” and her arm “struck” him in the face.

Velez was stunned to read the allegations: “I never hit anyone. I’ve never hurt anybody, ever. Everyone who knows me knows the kind of person I am. I’m quiet, reserved, always doing the right thing, always following rules.”

Sixteen days after her arrest, the justice department moved to dismiss the charges against her.

Velez’s lawyer, Diane Bass, said she had requested body-worn footage and witness statements before the dismissal: “I never got them. That tells me they did not have the evidence they needed and this was a false and unlawful arrest. It is a shocking and disgusting travesty of justice, and no human, never mind an American citizen, should ever be treated like that.”

The justice department, US attorney’s office, Ice and the DHS did not respond to detailed inquiries about Velez’s case. A spokesperson for the bureau of prisons, which runs the jail, did not respond to questions about her account, saying in an email its mission is to “operate facilities that are safe, secure, and humane”.

The LAPD said in a statement after Velez’s arrest that officers initially responded to the area due to 911 calls about a “possible kidnapping” and that it was “not involved” in her detention. The department said its role on scene was “maintaining order”, and a spokesperson last week declined to comment further on her case, pointing to an earlier statement saying the LAPD was “not involved in civil immigration enforcement”.

Other detained citizens are still fighting their charges, including Hipolito, whose attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Name and shame. Dox them. Fuck these fascists. Make them suffer for their crimes against humanity.