Two Days Talking to People Looking for Jobs at ICE
Two Days Talking to People Looking for Jobs at ICE
This is a disgusting country, I thought, irredeemable visually, psychically, morally, and ethically, and whatever is likable about our people’s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world. Furthermore, it isn’t hard to bring politeness and evil into view at the same time.
Customs and Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service were all recruiting at the event, but ICE was the main draw. Far more applicants stood in line to submit their resumes for deportation officer than for any other position on offer in the cavernous room.
Naturally there were a large number of law enforcement types hanging around the convention—men with military fades, moisture-wicking shirts, and tattoos of the bible and the constitution and eagles and flags distended across their arms. But there were also a handful of women ICE applicants and a lot of men of color. The deportation officer applicant pool was, I felt, shockingly diverse—one might say it looked like America. The whole place looked and felt like America.
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“I learned all these skills in the army—smash and grabs, site exploitation—and never got to use them,” he said. “So I’m here to kind of do what I learned to do over there, but this time here, defending my country.”
Never getting to use those skills in real life is the ideal. Any sane person in the military learns a ton of skills that they hope only to use in training. Wanting to use these skills for real, and especially domestically should be grounds for psychologically screening these people out of not just the military but any sort of service position.
Using those skills can be fun in training or drills, actually. So, I get wanting to shoot, run, and do simulated combat. But why would anyone actually want to inflict that harm on someone else for real? They would have to be deeply disturbed.
No, no. These are not outliers in the military, the military prefers people like this. We can have you finding you conscience wake up mid-mission while you shoot kids in the Middle East or something.
My decade of experience working with the military says otherwise.
There is a small minority who joins to kill people, probably like 5%. It's way too high, but it's still in the vast minority. Most officers and NCOs, in fact, prefer thinking personnel so that war crimes aren't committed and laws are followed while still accomplishing a commander's intent. While I'll admit that there is a cavalier attitude toward collateral damage (which is a separate issue), war crimes, a la Eddie Gallagher, are generally not tolerated.
Of course, with a vet bro SecDef, war criminals will become more numerous and have a sense of impunity. It's why the vast majority of service members I work with have a disdain (some rather openly) for Hegseth.