Don’t Take the Bait

In the time of Trump, “Don’t take the bait” is a rule that’s almost as important as “Do not obey in advance.”

Following the shooting death of Renee Good and other incidents where agents played fast and loose with the rights of both American citizens and immigrants, ICE seems to be doing everything it can to be an accelerant to the tensions. Wednesday evening, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that federal agents were trying to arrest a man from Venezuela who was in the country illegally, when he fled from agents. She said he “began to resist and violently assault the officer,” and was joined by two other men who attacked the agent with a snow shovel and broom handle. McLaughlin said the agent feared for his life and shot the man they’d been trying to arrest in the leg.

There are obviously questions about this scenario, including how an agent ended up alone and whether a reasonable agent would have thought his life was at risk. As The New York Times put it, “The federal government’s narrative could not immediately be verified.” A crowd of about 200 people gathered after the shooting, and according to the police chief, engaged in illegal acts, including throwing fireworks at police. After agents from ICE’s sister agency, CBP, showed up in what the Times called a large, military-style vehicle, protesters “swarmed the vehicle and yelled and threw snowballs at agents.” Retreating agents fired tear gas-type canisters, and agents who arrived subsequently sprayed chemical agents against the protestors who moved toward them. A protester lobbed fireworks toward the agents as they left.

Agents could have de-escalated the tension at any point in these developments, but did not. That forces us to ask why—is there a deliberate effort to provoke protestors into acts of violence? We don’t know the answer to that question for certain, but a social media post by the president this morning gave some hint.

Trump threatened to use the “INSURRECTION ACT” due to attacks on “the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”

No surprise. We’ve always known he was looking for an excuse to do this. We’ve discussed insurrection act here before. I wrote to you about it back in April, in a piece that also discusses the importance and effectiveness of peaceful protest. “Trump might try to take advantage of minor incidents, or even plants who engage in violence, to impose the Insurrection Act and use the military to put a halt to Americans who are out on the streets exercising their First Amendment rights.”

So as difficult as it may become to show restraint, it’s essential that we don’t take Trump’s bait as we protest. If he’s going to impose the Insurrection Act, as he likely will at some point, we don’t want to give him any cover for it. Each of us can help by sharing this message with those around us and making sure they share it forward.

Here’s what you need to know about the Insurrection Act:

• Normally, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. It explicitly outlaws using the armed forces to enforce the law within our borders, unless that action is expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.

• Enter the Insurrection Act, which permits a president to deploy the military in American cities and on our streets in very narrow circumstances involving insurrection, rebellion, or extreme civil unrest.

• Even in those circumstances, the military can only be used for “emergency needs” towards the goal of reestablishing civilian control as quickly as possible. This is where lawsuits may come in, especially since governors and local leaders are not only not asking for federal intervention, but in the case of Minnesota, explicitly asking the feds to leave.

• Typically, the Act is only used at a Governor and/or local officials’ request. The exceptions to that are 60 years ago and come from the heart of the civil rights era, when presidents sent troops to states like Mississippi and Alabama to protect people’s lives and liberty, like college students integrating state universities, not sending troops in to traumatize a civilian population trying to peacefully exercise its First Amendment rights.

• But the Act’s language is broad and gives presidents plenty of discretion to, for instance, use the military to arrest American citizens engaged in protest, if a president calls what’s going on an insurrection, rebellion, or civil unrest. And in an 1827 case, Martin v. Mott, the Supreme Court ruled that it is up to the president to decide whether the Insurrection Act should be invoked and that the courts may not review his decision. Although more recently, courts have intimated that a president’s assessment needs to pass the smell test, we should still expect to see them give broad deference to his decisions.

There are reports that federal agents are unrepentant following Good’s death at the hands of one of their number. Minnesotan Patty O’Keefe, an American citizen, was arrested and detained by ICE. While they were transporting her, she says one of the agents said to her, “You’ve gotta stop obstructing us. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.”

NBC is reporting that in its rush to hire, ICE is deploying new agents to the field without adequate training. An AI program they were using flagged new hires with no law enforcement experience as trained agents and surged them out to offices. The article says this was the case with “many” of them. The president directed ICE to hire 10,000 new officers by the end of 2025 and offered new recruits $50,000 signing bonuses using money allocated to the agency by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” DHS says those agents have been identified and are receiving training in the field.

It’s not just Minnesota. Geraldo Lunas Campos died at an ICE detention center in El Paso, Texas, on January 3. The Washington Post reports it has listened to a recording of a call between a staffer in the coroner’s office and Mr. Campos’ daughter, where she is told that pending the results of a toxicology report, “our doctor is believing that we’re going to be listing the manner of death as homicide.” At the time of his death, the agency said “staff observed him in distress,” but did not offer a cause of death. The Post reports that “a fellow detainee says he witnessed … Campos being choked to death by guards.” The El Paso facility is described as “a colossal makeshift tent encampment on the Mexican border.” Not only have the people being housed there reported “substandard conditions and physical abuse,” ICE inspectors found over 60 violations of federal standards for detaining migrants in just 50 days dating back to last September.

In new reporting this week, ProPublica found more than 40 episodes over the past year where immigration agents used life-threatening maneuvers, like the banned chokehold, on immigrants, citizens, and protesters. The reporting notes that the “agents are usually masked, their identities secret. The government won’t say if any of them have been punished.” ProPublica noted that the incidents they are aware of are not a complete accounting of incidents like this that may have occurred.

This is now about far more than Minnesota. This is about all of us. “Don’t take the bait” doesn’t mean that the threat isn’t serious, because it obviously is. This is about being smart as we head into the midterm elections. Nothing has the potential to discourage people from voting like the risk of being pulled out of their car by armed men as they head to their polling places, as ICE did earlier this week to a woman who was on her way to a doctor's appointment. If Trump deploys the military while voting is underway, the damage could be significant. Donald Trump is well aware of that, and we need to be too.

In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Trump had this to say: “It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms.” He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.” We’ve moved on from claiming he won an election he lost to saying elections are unnecessary. This is a president unfettered by laws, norms, and even the oath he swore to uphold the Constitution. So let’s be prepared. And don’t take the bait.

Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse. If you appreciate explanations and analysis like this, I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription. Your support makes the newsletter possible.

We’re in this together,

Joyce