ICE arrested me without cause. What I saw will haunt me forever. | Opinion

I live smack dab in the middle of an ordinary block in Minneapolis. I borrow occasional eggs or vanilla from the neighbor on my right when I get caught short baking. My partner shovels our elderly neighbor’s sidewalk; she knit him a hat in gratitude. The folks down the street watch our cats when we’re away. In other words, a pretty typical American neighborhood, perhaps not unlike your own.

Imagine if you heard that heavily armed, masked agents were going door-to-door where you live, violently grabbing people from gardeners to grandparents – no questions asked, no warrants offered. What would you do? Especially if you knew that having more community members as observers decreases the likelihood those masked agents will use violence.

That’s what my friend Brandon and I were doing on Jan. 11. We heard reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper spraying the car of an observer blocks from my house and went to warn others. I am a U.S. citizen and resident of Minneapolis for more than 14 years; this is a place where treating others as you wish to be treated is more than a saying.

When we drove to the scene, Brandon and I saw several ICE agents getting back into two unmarked vehicles. They turned down a side street and we followed for about 40 seconds, blowing our whistles and honking our horns – to warn our neighbors that ICE had come.

We did so knowing that monitoring and sounding the alarm about actions undertaken by government agents is our legally protected right. And any government that claims to be of, by and for the people must protect this right, not attack people of good conscience who exercise it.

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But attack us is what ICE did. The agents got out of their vehicle, surrounded our car and yelled at us to stop following. On their way back to their vehicles, one of the agents suddenly turned around, as if deciding, “Hey, why not,” and walked back to my car and pepper sprayed into the vents near the front windshield.

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Brandon and I were paralyzed with shock, as our eyes and throats started to burn. When we did not immediately turn the car around, the ICE agents returned and, without warning or asking us to exit the vehicle, smashed the front windows of my car, dragged us out and arrested us.

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They separated us. I was put in a car alone with three agents. When they got in and shut the doors, the taunting began.

One agent took a photo of me and showed it to the others, laughing. Another called me ugly. His colleague, apparently referring to Renee Good, said, “You guys gotta stop obstructing us – that’s why that lesbian b---- is dead.” In the presence of these masked men with weapons strapped to their bodies – men who claim to be safeguarding our cities – I felt only terrorized and vulnerable.

When we got to the Whipple Federal Building, they shackled my ankles. I asked four times to make a phone call but was denied that legal right. I had to beg for water and to be allowed to relieve myself in another crowded cell with a toilet behind a short wall.

On my way to that cell, I passed holding cells filled with people who appeared to be of Latino and East African descent. The despondent faces and the screaming, wailing and pleading from these men, women and children – reportedly as young as 5 years old – will forever haunt me. But perhaps more haunting still was the sound of agents nearby laughing. Are our lives all just a joke to them?

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Eight hours later, I was released without charges because even these agents had no credible claim I had done anything wrong.

ICE is arresting people without cause. We can stand up to tyranny.

President Donald Trump and his administration spread lies about our neighbors based on what they look like or how they speak, all while making us less safe.

In the Twin Cities alone, we’ve seen people arrested without cause while doing their jobs and a grandfather pulled out of the shower and taken into the freezing cold in nothing but his underwear and a blanket. Local schools were forced to cancel classes after ICE tackled staff and tear gassed students, according to the teachers union, while raiding Roosevelt High School.

These actions endanger us. They are designed to terrorize our community with unchecked, unaccountable brutality.

When ICE detained me, the two other people in my cell said they were Marine Corps veterans. These women said they enlisted for the same reason they felt compelled to act as ICE observers – to protect their fellow Americans.

One of those veterans – scraped up and bruised at both wrist and ankle from the ICE agents’ aggression – talked about how ironic and shocking it was that the first time she had a gun pointed at her it was by the very government she swore an oath to serve.

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I’m lucky to be back at home; I can return to my job, the people I love and my community. The hundred or so people I saw in that ICE facility may never again see the homes that they’ve built and the families they’ve nurtured. After being killed by Border Patrol and ICE in the past 12 months, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Keith Porterand dozens of others who died in custody are only memories to their families. And our Twin Cities remain under siege by masked militia answering to a regime that spreads lies and sows fear in order to divide us and distract us while its leaders gut our health care, drive up prices and hand more money to their billionaire backers.

But in the United States of America, people who believe in liberty and justice for all stand up to tyranny. We sound the alarm. We support our neighbors. Now is the time for us to join together. And to tell Congress to protect our freedoms by refusing to fund these assaults against us.