There are indications that leftists in opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are impersonating ICE officers, presumably to interfere with legitimate ICE operations. At least one city official in San Diego is raising the alarm about this development.
One San Diego County supervisor is concerned about civilians posing as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents using fake ICE clothing and tactical gear and sowing fear and discord.
Terra Lawson-Remer, chair of the Board of Supervisors, wrote in an Oct. 17 e-newsletter that she is leading efforts in the county to issue cease-and-desist letters to companies that sell fake law enforcement gear that allows members of the public to misrepresent themselves as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Now, Lawson-Remer is no friend to the Trump administration, to ICE, or to their efforts to remove illegal aliens from American soil. But even so, she makes a good point about the risks involved in this idiotic practice.
One can apparently buy fake ICE gear on any number of online retailers:
Amazon.com is one online retailer that is selling items labeled with the “ICE” acronym. This week, baseball caps with “ICE” sewn across the front and an American flag on the side were selling for $36.95, while other caps with just “ICE” across the front sold for as low as $14.99.
A black windbreaker with the phrase “Border Patrol” on the front and back, in bold white lettering, can be bought on Amazon for $29.99. Unlabeled bulletproof vests sell on Amazon starting at $32.99, and generic fake police badges can be bought for as low as $13.99. It's difficult to tell what agencies the badges are supposed to represent.
Other retailers sell ICE clothing. SHEIN, the popular fast-fashion site that sells trendy clothes for extremely low prices, sells a short-sleeved women’s T-shirt that says “ICE Federal Agent” across the front in large, bold yellow letters. That T-shirt sells for $9.95 on SHEIN’s website.
The left will try to frame this, no doubt, as "racists on the right impersonating ICE officers to harass brown people." That's a typical piece of shallow thinking, but the reality is much more dire than that.
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This fake gear could be used to directly interfere with ICE, DHS, and Border Patrol operations. Yes, it could be used to victimize illegal aliens and other people, but it seems far more likely, given recent events, that fake gear could be used to distract actual ICE agents, to interfere directly with apprehensions, even to misrepresent ICE agents to the media. It's a problem just waiting to happen, and even if the "cease and desist" efforts are successful in stopping retailers from selling this gear, it's ridiculously easy to reproduce it with relatively inexpensive equipment.
Here's the thing: Impersonating a federal officer is a felony. 18 U.S. Code § 913 states in part:
Whoever falsely represents himself to be an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, and in such assumed character arrests or detains any person or in any manner searches the person, buildings, or other property of any person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
That would appear to be the answer: Arrest them, indict them, try them, jail them, pour encourager les autres.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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