Where do these guys come from?, you ask yourself when you see the videos of the masked people on social media. Mostly young men who drag supposedly illegal migrants out of their cars, press their faces against the asphalt, handcuff them, break into their houses or shoot those who show solidarity at close range, like most recently in Minneapolis.
US journalist Laura Allesed shows how easy it is to become part of the fascist thugs, i.e. the US agency ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). She applied for a position at an ICE job fair in Texas, initially out of curiosity, she reports in the online magazine Slate. The fact that she was offered a job a few weeks later without even the most basic aptitude test shows how irresponsibly ICE recruits. And so what danger the officers pose.
Laura Allesed is 38 years old, joined the US Army after school and was deployed to Afghanistan twice. She suspected that this would at least get her one step further in the application process, she writes. Although she left out her current job as a journalist on her CV, she still used her real name. If you google her, you will immediately come across her critical texts about US President Donald Trump. It is even listed on the right-wing website “AntifaWatch”. So she didn’t expect any feedback.
After about a six-minute conversation consisting of perfunctory questions, she was told they would be in touch.
“Uncle Sam needs you.”
Die ICE-Recruiting-Website shows how propagandistically the authority advertises its jobs. Above the slogan “America Needs You” is the Uncle Sam illustration, which has been famous since World War I. The message: “America has been infiltrated by criminals and thugs. We need YOU to drive them out.”
About a month after the interview, the journalist received a preliminary job offer with a request to submit documents, including a copy of her driver’s license, consent for a background check and an affidavit stating that she had never been convicted of domestic violence.
Although Allesed missed the email and therefore did not submit any of the documents, she was asked to take a drug test by email three weeks later. She wrote it, but had smoked cannabis a few days before. When she logged into the site a week later, she was surprised to find information that she had already accepted the job – despite the drug test, despite the documents not being submitted, despite the lack of a background check. She ultimately rejected the offer, she writes.
Staff increase of 120 percent
After Information from the Department of Homeland Security Since the start of the new Trump term in office around a year ago, around 12,000 additional ICE officers have been recruited in addition to the 10,000 already existing. A total of more than 220,000 applications are said to have been received.
It’s frightening how negligent the application process is. Scary, but hardly surprising. Anyone who is not part of the MAGA cult recognizes the brutality with which ICE operates on America’s streets and would hardly come to the conclusion that the officers are well prepared or trained. Allesed’s experience now confirms what the circulating videos have long suggested.