10 Bullets: A cartoon by award-winning cartoonist Bill Day. 

The National Guard members who appear to be wandering aimlessly along the riverfront are decoys.

Only a few miles away, away from the riverfront and downtown, in numerous Memphis neighborhoods with immigrant families, there is terror, fear, and repression that come from ICE agents who can roll up on anyone at will and without warrant and throw anyone, regardless of age or frailty, to the ground. 

The brutality is no surprise since many of them signed up to get the $50,000 bonus paid from our taxes and that welcomed all comers – Proud Boys, rednecks, headbangers, racists, extremists, and anyone who likes to throw their weight around.

In many Memphis neighborhoods, parents are afraid to send their children to school, devout families forego church attendance, and grocery store shopping is done by one family member to prevent an entire family from being disappeared. 

Provocations to Justify Federal Force

It’s a disturbing commentary on life in Memphis as a result of the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force, and the insult is magnified by the words of the governor and Trump’s Generalfeldmarschall, Stephen Miller, and Rechtsanwalt Pam Bondi, Memphis is being held up as an example of obedience and acquiesence when faced with federal interventions.   

In a city that is still struggling from the murder of Tyre Nichols by police, Miller said the Trump Administration is unleashing law enforcement to be ruthless.

In other cities, the consequences of his provocations can be seen in ICE killing eight people in the fmonth of this year, ignoring court rulings, firing pepper balls that drove a Presbyterian minister to the ground, a two-year-old zip tied and paraded in the street, the fatal shooting of a man after pulling him over after dropping his children at school, roughly detaining multiple people, and teargassing Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.  That’s not even mentioning the 32 people who died in ICE custody last year.  

Ms. Bondi consistently provides her own fact-free comments about Memphis, asserting that cashless bond is a major cause of crime in Memphis and is supported by District Attorney General Steve Mulroy.  Never mind that Shelby County does not have cashless bond as she continues to repeat the right wing talking points about this county’s duly elected head prosecutor. It’s likely she got her information from state senator Brent Taylor whose criminal justice policy is best summed up this way: “I’ve got my opinion.  Don’t confuse me with the facts.”   

These extremists call on us not to believe what we see with our own eyes: hard-working immigrants putting on new roofs, handling renovations, landscaping yards, working in doctors’ offices, waiting on us in restaurants, and contributing to our local economy.

To capture the angst of the people suffering the most from the saturation of federal officers, daily news media outlets need to do better to report on the distress that permeates some neighborhoods and to report on the local immigration court.

Don’t Remain Mute

Even if Mayor Paul Young considers the best course of action is to cooperate with state and federal officials on fighting crime, he should still speak out louder against Trump’s authoritarian impulses.  Even if he considers acquiescence with federal officials to be the best option, he should express concern about deadly activities in Minneapolis and other cities.  

The mayor is praised for keeping Memphis off the list of cities that Trump routinely claims are war zones but in return, the president and his sycophants brag about reducing crime in Memphis that more accurately should be directed to Memphis Police Department and alliances that were preexisting before Safe Memphis Task Force.  Already, Trump brags that he has brought order to Memphis and some people, mainly business types, think that when he ultimately claims that he has eliminated crime in Memphis, it will work to the city’s advantage as a positive message to the country.

The problem is that it is also a message that says Memphis and majority Black cities with Black mayors cannot govern themselves, and Memphis is relying on the most petulant, unreliable collaborator it could find – the president of the United States.  He can be positive today about Memphis and trash it tomorrow.  

Regardless of the silence chosen by many elected officials, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris excluded, they should at the least protest against the racial profiling that lies at the heart of traffic stop after traffic stop and arrest after arrest by the about 1,500 and 2,000 federal agents in Memphis.

The Census Bureau says about 9% of Shelby residents, or 82,948, are Hispanic and Shelby County has 16,094 migrants with immigration cases.  In following the rules and reporting in, they risk being disappeared as thousands of others have done, joining the 70% of immigrants arrested by ICE who have no charges or convictions and the 60,000 people held in the unbearable conditions of ICE detention camps.   

Show Your Papers Like 1930s Germany

They spend each day wondering if this will be the day when ICE upends their lives and lies about their threat to the country, all while immigrants have driven the growth of major cities’ economies and nationwide, boost the economy by $9 trillion over 10 years. 

We can debate whether the collaboration with state and federal agencies is the best course of action, but elected leaders should not remain mute as 1930s Germany is replicated in Memphis with the “ihre papiere bitte” era.  It is no longer America if people are required to show their papers to assuage ICE although even this does not guarantee American citizens will not be swept up by them.

Even if leaders have opted to be in the room where decisions are made, they should still express concerns about the drip, drip, drip of authoritarian actions that are slowly eroding this democracy.  It is this erosion of norms, values, and institutions that demand all of us to speak out.

To generate support, the White House engages in propaganda, misinformation, and lies at press conferences where the media are given incomplete information, slanted data, and distortions, and we cannot tell which agency is doing what without clearer disaggregation of the arrests and confinements.

Our Religious Mandate

Americans cannot sit out this debate about ICE because it is a debate about our national values and democratic principles.  Trump’s policies, including those under way in Memphis, are dangerous threats to our way of life and a betrayal of our founders’ constitutional rights. 

Many of Trump’s most fervent supporters cast his agenda as a holy war and define it in religious terms, including the popular notion that he has been sent by God to save America.  They discount Biblical imperatives like Hebrews 13:2: “ Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it,” or Matthew 25:35, when Jesus says: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

Our faith calls on many of us to reach out to immigrants, but they are no longer strangers.  They are now our friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

Even if city officials are emphasizing cooperation and collaboration, they should not be anesthetized against opposing the ICE tactics and the anti-democratic agenda they represent. 

It has been said that the permanent culture of outrage, corruption, and victimhood in the Trump Administration means we are moving toward authoritarianism. The truth is we are already there and silence only perpetuates it. 

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