ICE Enforcement May Be A Mass Disabling Event

ICE have proven again and again that they will target the most vulnerable. Their aggressive actions may even become a mass disabling event. Why aren't more people talking about it?

Yesterday a story broke in

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about ICE spending $700 million dollars on weapons. Chemical munitions, guns and components to make guided missiles.

Why would ICE require guided missiles? They’re not at war. They’re not having to fight against people who are using destructive weapons against them. Their job is to enforce immigration policy. Their use of chemical munitions, pepper spray bullets and less lethal ammunition is already dangerous and questionable, but adding in the possibility of missiles is terrifying.

I believe ICE enforcement is poised to become a mass disabling event, and I’m concerned that very few people are discussing it.

They’re already targeting the disabled and most vulnerable. They’re bullies, and when bullies get access to increasingly destructive weapons, nothing good happens.

For example, last weekend a story broke about an autistic 15 year old who had gone missing and ended up in ICE custody.

It was quickly followed by the story of a 13 year old who ICE sent to a juvenile detention facility 500 miles away from his home.

Then there was the 15 year old girl who was violently dragged from her vehicle and thrown to the ground as she screamed “I’m not resisting!”. She had just had kidney surgery and the altercation put her back in the hospital.

This is to say nothing of the children who were zip tied and thrown into UHauls in a middle of the night Chicago apartment building raid.

ICE seem intent on going after the most vulnerable in society, and that includes children and disabled people.

I’ve already written about Rodney Taylor and Alma Bowman, two disabled adults who’ve been held for months in Georgia ICE camps without reasonable accommodations or due process.

At what point can we talk about how ICE is carrying out a eugenics plan on behalf of the fascists?

Targeting disabled people and children is an easy way to cull the population. They’re going after those least able to fight back.

They’re doing this while we have to listen to Dr Oz saying people must “prove they matter” to get healthcare, and RFK Jr lamenting how autistic kids won’t ever “pay taxes or serve in the military”.

This regime is hard at work painting disabled people as “useless eaters” in the hopes that society will look the other way when ICE snatches them up and disappears them.

Let’s face it, had the 15 year old who went missing not been autistic it would be a much bigger story.

It should be a much bigger story.

So I’m going to tell it and plead with the general public not to leave us behind.

Image Description: A photo of an ICE agent from behind. His vest says “Police ICE” on the back.

Why Was ICE Involved in a 15 Year Old Boy’s Disappearance?

Emmanuel Garcia is an autistic 15 year old who was with his mother selling fruit on the corner of Clay and Hampstead road in Houston.

He went to the bathroom, and the next thing his mother knew he was gone.

She immediately went to the Houston Police and filed a missing person’s report. Emmanuel is often non-verbal and she feared for his safety.

Six days passed with no word on his whereabouts. His mother feared the worst and held a public press conference pleading with the public to find her son.

Shortly after she received a phone call advising that he had been located. That was the good news.

The bad news? The Houston PD had found him the day after he was reported missing. Rather than contacting his mother or checking the missing person’s report, they involved CPS and ICE.

Why? Because he was a brown disabled kid.

Let’s not pretend this is anything more than overt racism and discrimination. They had her missing person’s report. They could have very easily returned him to his mother. Instead they chose to hand a child over to ICE and all but ensured his mother suffered days of anguish wondering what had happened to him.

They didn’t try and reunite him with his family. He ended up in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and his mom is still fighting to get him back.

We should all be enraged that this was allowed to happen. There’s no reason to treat children this way, and it’s happening to far too many immigrant kids across the US. If you’re an immigrant and disabled? You’re even more at risk.

The story is still unfolding and details seem to constantly change, but the latest was the Houston Police Chief stating the boy may not be ‘actually autistic’.

I beg people to understand what’s happening here. The gaslighting and blame of a disabled child. Those of us with chronic illness experience this all the time. We’re often accused of faking or not being ‘disabled enough.’

Whatever happened to Emmanuel, one thing is certain… Had he been white it wouldn’t have happened. If by some stretch it did, we would have answers by now. The public would be demanding accountability.

Instead we have very little media attention and a story that is likely going to be swept under the rug. We may never know if Emmanuel makes it home to his family.

And before you assume that disabled adults are ‘safe’, I ask that you pay close attention to Alma Bowman and Rodney Taylor.

Alma is a disability activist who spent nearly three years in ICE custody during the first Trump regime.

When she was released, she worked with the government as a whistleblower to expose atrocities occurring within the detention facility. She recounted stories of forced sterilization, hysterectomies performed without consent and various abuses of power.

She was instrumental in helping close the Irwin Detention Centre.

In March, when she showed up for her monthly immigration check in, they took her again.

It’s clearly retaliation for being a whistleblower, and yet she’s been languishing in a detention facility for months. She’s once again being denied reasonable disability accommodations and her health is suffering.

The same thing is happening to Rodney Taylor, a disabled double amputee who came to the US when he was just two years old.

He owns a barber shop in Atlanta and is a beloved member of his local community. He was just days away from receiving new prosthetic legs when ICE grabbed him and threw him into a detention camp.

Their reason? A decades old burglary conviction for which he had been granted a full pardon.

That’s right, he was pardoned by the state of Georgia and somehow ICE still thought it was ok to detain him.

He’s been denied access to his new legs and as a result his health has declined considerably. He’s been placed in solitary confinement and has filed a Habeas Corpus lawsuit to demand to his release.

These are not the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals that the Trump administration promised to go after.

They’re easy targets. They’re people who were working and contributing to their community and who don’t deserve to be locked away indefinitely.

So why are they grabbing people like Alma and Rodney? They’re filling a quota. Immigration is big business in the United States, with many of the detention centres being private for profit prisons. The more people they throw in them, the more money they make.

But it’s darker than that. It’s also a very deliberate move to create huge groups of ‘others’ within the population.

Anyone who’s not white is an ‘other’.

Anyone who’s disabled is an ‘other’.

Anyone who’s not straight is an ‘other’.

They’re conditioning us to see these people as expendable so that we will look the other way when they’re targeted, harmed and potentially killed.

ICE Enforcement May Very Well be a Mass Disabling Event

I began The Disabled Ginger to advocate for disability and chronic illness awareness. To increase disabled visibility and help people understand the need for more inclusion.

As I watch the atrocities ICE commits, I can’t help but think we’re witnessing a mass disabling event that very few people are talking about.

Sure, we hear stories when someone is injured by ICE. We occasionally hear of those who die in their custody.

But we almost never hear of the people they are disabling… and I fear those numbers may be higher than we will ever know.

What’s even more frustrating is that I’m not surprised we don’t hear about it. They’re barely tracking deaths that occur in ICE custody. What we do know is not encouraging. Yesterday a report was released stating that almost as many immigrants have died in custody in the last nine months than in the entirety of the Biden administration.

Over 1,200 people went missing from Alligator Alcatraz. They’ve just vanished. They might be dead. They might be in foreign prisons. They might be languishing in a detention facility somewhere with no access to lawyers or family.

Given how little media attention those lost souls are receiving, I think it’s safe to say no one cares enough to track the people who end up disabled due to ICE.

These facilities are known for having rampant disease spread due to overcrowding and poor conditions, as well as delayed or non-existent access to medical care. This is how disability occurs. People are mistreated, their medical needs are ignored and they end up with life long health issues.

The rampant ableism in our society is only assisting them in covering this up, because all too often people focus on deaths but completely overlook the disabled.

We must stop being overlooked.

What ICE is doing will absolutely cause disability, and considering the regime is cutting healthcare, social supports and disability programs, that’s incredibly dangerous.

When you have an administration that frequently says people must ‘prove they matter’ to receive healthcare or that people with disabilities and autism will ‘never pay taxes or serve in the military’… the writing is on the wall.

The people in Trump’s inner circle go out of their way to devalue disabled lives whenever they can, because they want the public to see us as expendable.

They want the public to blame us for high taxes, high inflation and anything else they’re struggling with.

They are scapegoating us so that when we die or disappear, no one will care.

We must say ‘No’.

We must say that our lives are just as worth protecting as everyone else’s.

We also must strive to protect one another since no one else will do it for us.

Protect Yourself When You Resist

Which brings me to my final point… it’s critical people protect themselves at protests, rallies and resistance events.

ICE has demonstrated they won’t hesitate to use chemical munitions, less lethal ammunition and some appalling arrest techniques. All of this force can cause disability.

We’ve watched as they’ve arrested protesters by zip tying them and putting them face down on metal carts.

We’ve heard horror stories of citizens like George Retes who was detained for three days in solitary confinement on suicide watch. He was just trying to get to work when ICE raided his place of employment. They smashed his windows and used tear gas before dragging him out of the car.

Tear gas is not a benign substance. These actions can and do hurt people.

So how can we protect one another?

• First things first, wear a mask. Not to hide your identity but to protect yourself and those around you. A well fitted respirator like an N95 is excellent protection against Covid and other airborne diseases, or you can upgrade to a P100 which will also offer protection against chemical munitions. Either way, it’s important to mask up to ensure we aren’t making one another sick. We need our health for the fight ahead.

• Learn what to do if you get hit with pepper spray or tear gas. You want to use water in your eyes, not milk. I see a lot of videos where people are using milk and that carries a risk of infection. Flush your eyes with water and seek medical care.

• Consider wearing eye protection. You can buy a full face respirator which will include eye protection or get a pair of glasses designed to withstand tear gas and pepper spray.

• Have an arrest plan. It’s important you know what to do in the event of an arrest, especially if you’re disabled or chronically ill. You likely won’t have access to your mask, medications or other accommodations while under arrest. Know how to contact a lawyer and have a buddy system that ensures someone knows where you are at all times.

• Make your events inclusive! That means ensuring that disabled people can participate, but also that when they participate they are protected. We’ve seen people in wheelchairs be forcibly pulled from their chair. We’ve seen people have their canes taken away. Mobility devices are an essential tool for disabled people and we need allies to help keep us safe. If you see an ICE agent taking someone’s mobility aid, get loud. Videotape it. Make sure it’s documented.

• We also need to call and email elected officials and demand that ICE stop using chemical munitions in residential areas. There was a video out of Chicago last week that showed them deploying large amounts of tear gas in a suburban neighbourhood. Homes were engulfed in smoke. If I lived in one of those houses that would be enough to send me to the hospital. I’m not the only one for whom chemical munitions pose an increased threat.

No matter what, it’s important we recognize the power we have as a community. There are more of us than there are of them.

If we work together, develop strong safety plans and commit to protecting the most vulnerable, we can and will make a difference.

We must refuse to do the fascists dirty work for them. Refuse to see anyone as ‘less than’ or ‘expendable’. Refuse to leave anyone behind.

What else can we do to protect one another? How can we ensure the safety of disabled people in ICE custody? What about at protests?

Leave your comments below and let’s figure out ways to resist as a community and protect as many lives as possible!