ICE’s impunity is a formula for more violence

AMERICA STARED into the void this week, but pulled back. Federal action in the streets of Minneapolis goes well beyond immigration. It is a test of the government’s power to use violence against its own citizens—a dividing-line between liberty and tyranny. And it will not be the last.

本周，美国曾一度凝视深渊，但最终悬崖勒马。联邦政府在明尼阿波利斯街头的行动，其意义已远超移民问题本身。这是一场关于政府是否有权对自己公民动用暴力的考验——是一条横亘在自由与暴政之间的分界线。而且，这绝不会是最后一次。

After immigration agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24th, and the Trump administration slandered a good Samaritan as a would-be mass murderer, America was spiralling towards civil unrest. Happily, protesters showed restraint. Public opinion has turned against ICE, the catch-all brand for America’s deportation machine. Even some conservatives have doubts. And Donald Trump grasped that immigration, once one of his strongest issues, has become a liability. On January 26th the president sought to ease tensions, including by putting the operation in Minneapolis under new management.

1月24日，移民局特工杀害了亚历克斯·普雷蒂（Alex Pretti），随后特朗普政府将一位见义勇为者污蔑为企图实施大规模谋杀的凶手，此举一度令美国滑向内乱的边缘。所幸，抗议者们表现出了克制。公众舆论已转向反对ICE（移民及海关执法局），这个缩写如今已成为美国驱逐机器的代名词。即便是部分保守派人士也心存疑虑。唐纳德·特朗普也意识到，移民问题——这一曾经最强有力的筹码——已然变成了负资产。1月26日，总统试图缓和紧张局势，措施之一便是更换了明尼阿波利斯行动的负责人。

And yet the stand-off between ICE and local people continues·. Mr Trump has not renounced his power to impose a paramilitary force on unwilling states. Americans should be on their guard.

然而，ICE与当地民众之间的对峙仍在继续。特朗普先生并未放弃将其准军事力量强加给那些不情愿的州的权力。美国人民应当对此保持警惕。

ICE has a reason to be in America’s cities. Mr Trump has a mandate to deport illegal immigrants. Having dramatically curbed illicit flows across the southern border, he claims to be seeking “the worst of the worst”. But that is not what his enforcers are doing. Recently, only 5% of those detained have been people convicted of violent crimes. Instead ICE’s brutal means indicate ends that are darker than immigration-control, for several reasons.

ICE进驻美国城市并非毫无理由。特朗普先生拥有驱逐非法移民的授权。在大幅遏制了南部边境的非法越境潮之后，他声称正在搜捕“恶中之恶”的罪犯。但这并非其执法人员的实际所为。近期数据显示，在被拘留者中，仅有5%是被定罪的暴力犯罪分子。相反，ICE那残酷手段的背后，似乎隐藏着比移民管控更为阴暗的目的，原因有以下几点。

One is that the administration appears to believe ICE should be a law unto itself. In their zeal to fill quotas and live out their macho “destroy the flood” culture, ICE agents have revelled in the wanton use of force. Administration officials have nonetheless told agents that they enjoy “absolute immunity” as they go about their duties and, a judge complains, have defied court orders. They rushed to brand Mr Pretti, and Renee Good, a woman shot earlier, as terrorists. They have strained to ensure that investigations into those killings are safely under their own control. Impunity is a formula for more violence.

其一，本届政府似乎认为ICE应当凌驾于法律之上。为了完成指标并践行其所谓“阻断洪流”的硬汉文化，ICE特工热衷于滥用武力。尽管如此，政府官员仍告知特工们在执行公务时享有“绝对豁免权”，甚至有法官抱怨他们公然违抗法院命令。他们急不可耐地将普雷蒂先生以及早些时候被枪杀的蕾妮·古德（Renee Good）女士打上恐怖分子的烙印。他们还竭力确保对这些杀戮事件的调查完全处于自己的掌控之中。这种有恃无恐正是滋生更多暴力的温床。

Another reason to worry is that ICE and its leaders are trampling the constitution. By insisting that witnesses and protesters are criminals, they are denying people their First Amendment rights to free speech and association. In a state like Minnesota, when the head of the FBI says people cannot bring a gun to a protest he is denying their Second Amendment rights. And when ICE agents stop or arrest people without cause and search their houses without a court warrant, they are denying their Fourth Amendment rights.

另一个令人担忧的原因是，ICE及其领导层正在践踏宪法。他们坚称目击者和抗议者是罪犯，从而剥夺了人们根据第一修正案享有的言论自由和结社自由的权利。在明尼苏达这样的州，当联邦调查局局长声称人们不能携带枪支参加抗议时，他剥夺了人们的第二修正案权利。而当ICE特工无故拦截或逮捕民众，并在没有法院搜查令的情况下搜查民宅时，他们又剥夺了人们的第四修正案权利。

Last, deploying ICE to Minneapolis, a city with relatively few illegal immigrants, seems to serve a disturbingly broad agenda: to draw attention to ethnic Somalis caught up in a benefits scandal there; to punish “sanctuary cities” that limit the help they extend to ICE; or perhaps as theatre to scare people and deter all kinds of migration to America. Mr Trump could also be trying to boost support for Republicans by portraying Democrat-run cities as disaster zones where lawless immigrants are protected by violent radical-left extremists.

最后，将ICE部署到非法移民相对较少的明尼阿波利斯，似乎是为了服务于一个令人不安的广泛议程：或者是为了将公众视线引向当地卷入福利丑闻的索马里裔群体；或者是为了惩罚那些限制向ICE提供协助的“庇护城市”；又或许这只是一场旨在恐吓民众并威慑各类移民涌入美国的政治秀。特朗普先生还可能试图通过将民主党管理的城市描绘成法外之地——在那里，无法无天的移民受到暴力激进左翼极端分子的庇护——来提振共和党的支持率。

The most disturbing possibility is that the president is creating a militia which answers only to himself. As our briefing explains·, from the Texas Rangers to Grover Cleveland’s use of the army and marshals in the 1890s, Americans have periodically worried about the unaccountable use of state violence. Abroad, from El Salvador to the Philippines, would-be despots often turn the army and the police against their people in the name of keeping order.

最令人不安的可能性在于，总统正在建立一支只听命于他本人的民兵组织。正如我们的简报所解释的那样，从德克萨斯巡警（Texas Rangers）到19世纪90年代格罗弗·克利夫兰动用军队和法警，美国人一直对国家暴力机关不受约束的使用心存忧虑。在国外，从萨尔瓦多到菲律宾，那些妄图独裁的统治者往往以维持秩序为名，调转枪口，利用军队和警察来对付本国人民。

Supporters of Mr Trump will treat this argument as wildly overblown. Early in its history America set up mechanisms to curb the president’s power. Citizens have the right to bear arms. The states have national guards to counterbalance the army. The Insurrection Act sets out rare circumstances when the president may legally use the army to control the mob. The courts and Congress can step in.

特朗普先生的支持者会将这一论点视为极其夸张的危言耸听。美国早在建国初期就设立了限制总统权力的机制。公民拥有持枪权。各州拥有国民警卫队以制衡联邦军队。《反叛乱法》规定了总统可以合法动用军队控制暴乱的罕见情形。此外，法院和国会也可以介入干预。

Yet ICE is ideally placed to sidestep protections. Illegal migrants are spread across America and Mr Trump asserts that Democrats deploy them as voters. Agents can therefore stage provocations pretty much anywhere with impunity, including during elections. When a protest eventually turns violent, it is politically useful and a justification for further deployments. And when politicians complain about ICE, as have the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis, the Justice Department can investigate them for obstructing federal officers.

然而，ICE却处于避开这些保护机制的绝佳位置。非法移民遍布美国各地，而特朗普先生断言民主党正在利用他们作为票仓。因此，特工们几乎可以在任何地方——包括在选举期间——有恃无恐地制造挑衅。一旦抗议活动最终演变为暴力冲突，这就成为了政治上的有利工具，并为进一步的部署提供了正当理由。而当政客们对ICE提出抱怨时——正如明尼苏达州州长和明尼阿波利斯市市长所做的那样——司法部便可以妨碍联邦执法人员为由对他们展开调查。

A theme of Mr Trump’s second term has been the accumulation of presidential power. Even if the 47th president does not use federal agents as an all-purpose coercive tool, the 48th or the 49th might—and, Republicans should remember, they may be Democrats. If Mr Trump has no anti-democratic designs on ICE, he should be eager to limit its actions.

特朗普先生第二任期的一个主题便是总统权力的集聚。即使这位第47任总统不把联邦特工当作万能的胁迫工具，第48任或第49任总统也可能会这样做——而且，共和党人应该记住，继任者可能是民主党人。如果特朗普先生确实没有打算把ICE变成一个反民主的工具，他就应该很乐意去限制其行动。

That would not be hard. The president should honour his pledge that the investigation into the killings of Ms Good and Mr Pretti will be “honourable and honest”. As a first step on the long road to winning back public trust, ICE agents should be better trained, stop wearing masks and start wearing body cameras and identification numbers. Deportation quotas lead to brutal tactics and must end. Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has blatantly lied. She should be fired.

这也并非难事。总统应该兑现他的承诺，即对古德女士和普雷蒂先生遇害事件的调查将是“光荣且诚实的”。作为赢回公众信任漫漫长路的第一步，ICE特工应接受更好的培训，停止佩戴面罩，并开始佩戴执法记录仪和身份识别码。导致残酷手段的驱逐配额制度必须终结。国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆（Kristi Noem）公然撒谎，理应被解职。

After this week, even that would not remove the spectre of a presidential militia. Hence the courts need to make clear that states can in fact prosecute federal agents who commit crimes; that ICE’s view of the constitution is wrong; and that the federal government cannot ride roughshod over the states. And Congress needs to hold the administration to account. An early test, due as this was published, was withholding funds from homeland security unless Mr Trump agrees to reform ICE.

经过本周的风波，即便采取了上述措施，也无法驱散总统私人卫队的阴霾。因此，法院需要明确裁定：各州实际上有权起诉犯罪的联邦特工；ICE对宪法的解读是错误的；联邦政府不能对各州横行霸道。国会也需要对政府进行问责。就在本文发表之际，一项早期的考验已然来临，即除非特朗普先生同意改革ICE，否则将扣留国土安全部的资金。

Americans woke up to a grave threat this week. But you cannot defend a republic with opinion polls alone. The guardians of America’s institutions should see Mr Trump’s change in tone not as a signal to relax, but an opening to force change.

本周，美国人从睡梦中惊醒，直面这一严重的威胁。但仅靠民意调查无法捍卫共和国。美国制度的守护者们不应将特朗普先生语气的转变视为放松的信号，而应将其视为迫使变革的契机。