Just Pure Thuggery

ICE, Bukele and the Death File are all stupid, ugly and incredibly unpopular

Author

mister mix
April 18, 2025

This is just a dumb, pointless waste of money in an attempt to intimidate people:

A co-worker of mine (who is a judge), traveled by train from Montana to North Dakota for work this week. The train made a stop in Havre, MT, where ICE agents—armed and dressed in full military-style tactical gear—boarded the train. 

They walked the full length of the train and questioned every single passenger about their citizenship status. According to the conductor, who has worked nearly 40 years on that route, this was a first. In all his decades of service, federal agents have never boarded his train like this.


This is not a hypothetical. This is not a scene from a dystopian film. This happened this week to my colleague, on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens, legal residents, and foreign tourists here on holiday, without a warrant, without probable cause—based solely on geography.


Under current law ICE has expanded authority to operate within 100 miles of any border. But HOW that authority is being interpreted and exercised has chilling implications for civil liberties, freedom of movement, and equal protection under the law.

Havre is one of the northernmost stops for Amtrak’s Empire Builder, the train that goes from Chicago, through Glacier Park, and then to Seattle. The only reason they did this was because they could. This train doesn’t cross the Canadian border, and if it did, it would in some remote area of Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta.

I’m watching Sen Chris Van Hollen’s press conference right now, and the clownish antics of thug Bukele, who tried to make it appear that Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia were sharing margaritas, got a pretty clear warning from Van Hollen:

Van Hollen details why he thinks the government of El Salvador is making a huge mistake in turning itself into a concentration camp for Trump

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-04-18T20:51:20.050Z

His points are: instead of branding itself as a tech mecca (Bukele instituted Bitcoin as legal tender), they’re branding themselves as a prison colony. Tourism from the US to El Salvador is growing, and that could easily change. And states could start divesting their pension funds from any company investing in El Salvador.

The margarita thing might seem stupid, and I’m sure that Fox News (which cut away from the press conference) might make something of it, but it’s such a bunch of tinpot dictator bullshit that a competent opposition could make hay with. Van Hollen also noted that they tried to have his meeting with Abrego Garcia next to the pool at the hotel where they met. The way to do that is just to show pictures of CECOT, where everyone knows Abrego Garcia was housed.

Which is it? Shaved-head “terrorists” in gym shorts or a hotel with a swimming pool?(Abrego Garcia isn’t in CECOT anymore, which Van Hollen discovered on his trip.)

The last bit of petty thuggery and nonsense is labeling a bunch of immigrants as dead by the DOGErs in the Social Security Administration. This is just nonsense:

“This reporting is false. These illegal aliens were never classified as dead,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement. “The ‘Death Master File’ was renamed the ‘Ineligible Master File’ prior to their names being transferred. Once U.S. Customers and Border Protection terminated their parole, these individuals were no longer eligible for benefits, and Social Security Administration quickly took action to protect the benefits of hardworking American citizens.”

That statement contradicts statements last week from a White House official and a senior Social Security official, both of whom explicitly confirmed that the immigrants had been labeled dead in hopes of spurring their departures from the U.S. As of Friday, the database is still named the “Death Master File” in Social Security’s internal systems, per records obtained by The Post, and referred to by the same name on the agency’s public website.

“We renamed the file but it’s the file” is going to make everybody feel better about grandma’s check not coming because her last name is Hernandez or Lopez.

People don’t want to have to show their papers to ICE agents in battle gear. People don't want to worry about family, friends or neighbors being disappeared to a gulag. People don’t want to wonder if their elderly relatives are going to miss a Social Security check because Big Balls fucked up. This shit is political poison. Loud opposition is not a political risk — as Van Hollen has shown, it’s a golden political opportunity.

Edit: We’ll know that some Republicans have called the White House to discuss political reality when shit like this stops.

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