Republicans in Utah have used women’s safety as an excuse for all kinds of bills that attack the equality and rights of our LGBTQ citizens. So where is Republicans’ concern for women and children when it comes to ICE using masked men to grab people off the streets without warrants and throw them into unmarked vans?
Expecting anyone to go with a masked person without ID into an unmarked vehicle puts all of us at risk. Republicans opine that a disguised man could enter a women’s restroom, but don’t worry that kidnappers, pedophiles, murderers and rapists could attach an “ICE” patch to any jacket and, simply because they claim to be ICE, expect women and children to comply?
Republicans should be as outraged at the illegality and brutality of current ICE tactics as anyone. We should protect our vulnerable citizens and our democracy by demanding that ICE agents work within the same rules police do: official uniforms with nametags and shields/licenses, no masks, bodycams, marked vehicles, judicially signed warrants, and lengthy training in knowing the law and de-escalation tactics. (Not to mention, they should be investigated and held responsible for excessive force and murder.) That’s just basic common sense. And, until now, has been common practice.
But ICE is currently operating as nothing but a group of overpaid gun-toting fascist gangs of thugs lawlessly running the streets with impunity and shattering the very Bill of Rights that Republicans claim to hold so dear.
Yet, of course, Utah’s Republican majority shut down SB136 that would have required ICE agents in Utah to be unmasked and keep them out of places of worship — most meager requirements for a safe society and a mere drop in the bucket of what has long been required of our police officers.
Shame on you.
Tabitha Thompson, Sandy
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