This is an unfortunately all-too-appropriate story for the Martin Luther King holiday.
Following up on this news item:
Economist Colin Camerer writes:
I suspected this. Sad case of poor incentive design (ICErs create expensive externalities bc of legal, reputation. etc costs of processing bad detentions and arrests.
Textbook amateur mistake.
But was it a mistake? Based on various government statements and actions, I have the impression that arresting, assaulting, and even shooting people in violation of the law is what they want to be doing, perhaps out of some mixture of belief that everyone targeted is guilty (otherwise why would they be getting in the way of the cops in the first place), partly out of a terror campaign (if nonviolent protesters fear for their safety, that can dissuade people from protesting, and if the assaults and shootings are arbitrary, this just increases the deterrence factor), and partly from an ideology by which anything they do is righteous and legal.
I’m not quite saying that the government did this on purpose, making incentives to encourage illegal and dangerous behavior; it’s more that they didn’t really care, and, if anything, illegal and dangerous behavior is a plus for them. And politically this could be hurting them. Setting the incentives how they did may have been a political mistake, but I suspect that Camerer is naive in framing the situation as if the government is trying to avoid the bad detentions and arrests.
To paraphrase the famous saying: It was worse than a blunder; it was a crime.
Camerer should see this by . . . thinking like an economist! When there’s a policy that seems like it doesn’t make sense, think more carefully about the incentives. And of course this policy applies much more generally, as in the literature on regulatory capture.
How is this different than meeting ticket quotas?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_quota
Seems like a standard LE incentive structure. Really, government incentive structure in general. The state prefers clean, easily recorded stats over the correct ones. And department A feeding pointless work to department B is considered a good thing. Everyone needs to blow their budget or else it will decrease.
Agreed. Assaulting and shooting people is worse than giving traffic tickets but, yeah, it’s the same idea: if the incentive is do more of some behavior, it’s reasonable to think that the people setting the incentives are cool with that behavior.
I would argue that the ticketing incentives are unconstitutional as well. Creating a motive to violate due process laws seems a bit suspect.
IMO, the brutality of ICE exists because brutality exists. Or, the failure of the US immigration is simply an excuse for those who want to exercise brutality. There’s no reason that these arrests and deportations can’t be handled non-violently — or at least the vast majority of them (proof of this statement, I suppose, is the history of violence of ICE before Trump was re-elected).
In any case, my point: if one wants to remove the brutality of ICE, this is going to involve a reformed immigration system. And this likely is going to be very difficult because of the many corrupt interests who want to insure that there’s a steady amount of illegal immigration.
So, my conclusion, this brutality is really about the horribly inept US (federal) political system and how it can’t solve, or fix, what’s clearly a solvable and fixable problem. And so, the problem has been left to the extremists.
Totally agree with the post and the comments. I find it hard to call this incentive system a “mistake.” At this point it is clear that this is the intent of this administration – and, implicitly, by this Congress and (still to be decided) the Supreme Court. Brutality indeed seems to be the point. The only defense offered is that illegal immigrants violated the law and must be held to account. This “law and order” defense was weak to being with, but falls apart completely when juxtaposed with Jan 6 and the subsequent pardons. The fact that some significant percent of the population either finds that irrelevant or doesn’t care is most disturbing. Barbarians at the gate (that may not be the most appropriate reference, but the words seem to fit).
Thank you for posting this. Every day the news bombards me with yet more atrocities. By the way I live in Minnesota so one of these days worse may be coming to my neighborhood.
+1
Dale is not the only one who lives in Minnesota. As it happens, I personally was almost collateral damage because of the ice thugs. My wife along with a neighbor on our block got together to drop off supplies for people on the other side of the Twin Cities who are afraid of venturing out on the street. Among the items gathered up from our homes was our supply of toilet paper. This meant that I had to venture forth later in the day on foot so as to be personally resupplied; the walking was truly treacherous to the point that I envisioned the headlines explaining why someone my age was found in the gutter surrounded by toilet paper rolls. Thoughts of John O’Hara’s famous novel, “Appointment in Samarra” ran through my head.
For the connection between O’Hara’s novel and Trump’s fascism,
https://analytic-room.com/essays/fascism-the-appointment-in-samarra-by-era-loewenstein/
Interesting essay; thanks for sharing.
History is not a bus we ride on with a placard on the front giving a destination.
I like the essay but I disagree with the concluding sentence: “Fascism seems to be an unavoidable part of the human condition.”
This I do not believe. I am unaware of anything resembling fascism in 99.7% of modern Humans history (dating back some 300,000 years ago). Then with agriculture systematic violence arose that could maybe be classified as fascist or proto-fascist.
“if one wants to remove the brutality of ICE, this is going to involve a reformed immigration system.”
Yes, but I see no path to a reformed immigration system in our current two-party framework. The Republican party has offered essentially no dissent from the Gestapo-like tactics being implemented by the Trump administration, despite the unpopularity of this approach to immigration enforcement. The Democrats, on the other hand, have not really proposed any specific policy. The “vibes” of the Democratic approach is something like open borders, and abolition of within-borders enforcement, also an unpopular approach.
Probably an immigration policy that would garner substantial popular support, or at least assent, is some reasonable restriction, as to both how many, and who, on immigration, to be enforced rigorously both at the border and in-country, but without the use of gratuitous violence by paramilitary forces with no accountability to carry out the law. Neither party shows any sign of being open to anything like this.
ICE wasn’t brutal under Biden, and deported more immigrants than the Trump administration before.
Right, building Trump’s wall and keeping immigrants in cages isn’t brutal. I forgot.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/05/biden-border-wall-texas-starr-county/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/25/rights-groups-oppose-president-bidens-expansion-ice-detention
Did you all get brutal as the word of the day or something?
Here is today’s relevance of “brutal:” ICE mistakenly took an elderly Hmong man into custody in Minneapolis today. Aside from the fact that it was a mistake, the video (I’m fairly sure it is not an AI created video) shows the handcuffed man being put into the ICE car wearing no pants or shirt, just his boxers. Today’s high temperature in Minneapolis was 2 degrees. Do you suppose that ICE agents receive a bonus based on the amount of danger they put people in when they arrest them? Or does ICE just attract people who love brutality? My imagination must be too limited because I just can’t see any conceivable justification for treating him like that, regardless of whether he had been the correct person to arrest or not. If brutality is not the word of the day, just what word fits such actions?
Is there a specific news source that used it? Seems like a relatively uncommon word. Reminds me of when “the west” started being used everywhere, soon followed by russia invading ukraine.
Also, the government can be far more brutal than described for your event. Are people in this thread completely inexperienced with interacting with law enforcement? I would reserve brutal for far worse, because after checking it now I feel mislead.
Absolutely, this event (pulling the handcuffed mis-identified elderly man into the frozen Minneapolis weather) is far from the most brutal government action in the US. It isn’t close to the killing of Renee Good, not to mention the many uses of police and military power both in the US and outside of it. But I offer this fairly mild example because it is so pointless. There was absolutely no need for it to be done that way (in most serious abuses of power, there are at least debatable circumstances, such as whether a government agent felt threatened). In this case, I can’t imagine any defense for the way ICE behaved. So, while it is minor compared with many more serious events, it offers a clear example that ICE behavior is not constrained by any sense of proportionality, ethics, or reason. It also goes beyond the cited incentive for ICE to make arrests – unless the lack of clothing this man was due to the need to arrest him quickly so they could proceed to make more arrests as quickly as possible. If the incentive is that strong, or the ethical restraints on behavior so weak, then I fear we are in even worse territory than I already believed.
A guy refused to cooperate so they brought him in for bureaucratic processing. Its exactly what I would expect to happen, and whether not letting him put pants on etc was a violation of protocol should be handled in the courts.
Have you ever refused to cooperate with law enforcement? Like not letting them search your car? They will find ways to “punish” you, your best defense is seeming wealthy enough to send a lawyer that will make them fill out a bunch of paperwork and do trainings to “punish” them back.
This isn’t even a notable event.
Anoneuoid
Respectfully, I disagree with minimizing this event. It is a slippery slope when we start looking away from treating people without dignity, saying it is a matter for the courts. I hope to never treat another human being the way this man was treated. I don’t know if he was “resisting” arrest or not – but why does that matter. When a 70+ year old man is handcuffed and the outside temperature is zero, what possible moral guideline says it is ok to drag him into the cold (not to mention the claimed failure to have a warrant, look at his ID, inform him of his rights, etc. – all of which I’ll claim are potential areas for dispute about the facts)? What higher purpose is involved? No, this is not a serious event, especially in comparison with so many others. But, as I said, it is so pointless unless the point is to demonstrate a total disregard for human dignity. Which is apparently exactly the point.
From what I read about it, it was refusing to cooperate, not resisting. Most likely he refused to answer any questions, including ones like “where are your pants so you can put them on”. Ie, just refused to say anything without a lawyer. But, I don’t know any more details than you. Either way, calling this brutal is counterproductive.
Depending on the details, which I don’t have, my understanding is that he has a constitutional right to not cooperate or answer questions even if he isn’t a citizen. It would depend on whether they have a warrant (signed by a judge), articulable facts to lead them to conclude that he’s not legally in the country, committed a crime, etc.
Again, it seems pretty clear that the authorities are deliberately violating those constitutional rights. My speculation is that they are doing so largely to push SCOTUS to widen its ruling from the situation limitrd to LA. Of course it could simply be that they don’t respect those constitutional rights and think they can just get away with violating them.
As I was saying:
“An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo instructs agents and officers that they can enter a person’s home to arrest them without a judicial warrant, a move that immigration lawyers and advocates say violates the Constitution.”
They’re deliberately violating accepted interpretation of the Constitution because they want to push SCOTUS to change that interpretation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/22/ice-memo-enter-homes-warrant/
Federal agents arresting people isnt really constitutional anyway (besides US marshalls). ICE should require cooperation of the state/local police. Same for FBI, IRS, etc. But, we know how that goes. This line of reasoning is the same as the “sovereign citizen” one, believing in technicalities written on pieces of paper rather than reality.
Anoneuoid –
I don’t understand your point.
4th amendment protections are real in the sense that they affect many people’s lives for the better, and have for a long time. In that very important sense they are very real, and not mere technicalities written on a piece of paper. But of course, that doesn’t make them immutable.
They are explicitly under attack and may well be effectively rewritten by SCOTUS at the behest of the Trump administration.
As I recall there was a bipartisan bill in 2024 that was shot down? https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/what-is-the-bipartisan-border-bill/; https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-collapse-of-bipartisan-immigration-reform-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/
Recall that Trump asked the Republicans in Congress not to pass it, so that he would have immigration as issue to run on: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-kill-border-bill-sign-trumps-strength-mcconnells-waning-in-rcna137477
On the bright side, Trump is now underwater on immigration.
This being the stats blog, let’s look at the data:
https://www.ice.gov/statistics
FY 2025 has probably not been updated, but there were more operations (arrests, removals,, etc.) during the past administrations. Is it possible that the presence of cameras, protests and such also endangers everyone involved? Unless they completely replaced ICE officers from the past, how is it possible that it wasn’t daily news not too long ago? I mean, how did they produce those stats for 2022 and before?
The other thing I noticed (mostly by US-born population) is inaccurate terms being thrown around, like ‘migrants’, ‘illegal immigrants’, etc.
The legal definition is illegal alien, not illegal immigrants. All immigrants are legal by definition and are customers, so to speak, of USCIS and INS. There is no such thing as an ‘undocumented’ person, but rather illegal aliens that are very well documented in their countries of origin. They should be the only target of ICE, but I doubt those agents are even properly trained in such matters.
Additionally, naturalized US-citizens are not immigrants, except in a historic sense (they were immigrants at some point, but not any longer). We have only one type of citizenship and three avenues of obtaining it: birth, naturalization or derived.
This is a case where you should map the data — that is , where did the arrests occur. My impression is that under previous administrations, arrests happened mainly near the border, or else, people were taken into custody at jails, after they had served their sentences.
Navigator –
If you’ve ever exceeded the speed limit, should we refer to you as an illegal driver?
As I can only imagine you know, an objection to ‘illegal alien’ is often that it reduces a human being to a one-dimensional attribute tied to a legal violation. (In point of fact, court, including SCOTUS in various Opinion, have used both ‘illegal alien’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ somewhat interchangeably.)
Even granting that ‘illegal alien’ is a longstanding statutory term, it still carries that problem of one-dimensionality. If the argument is that this term is so uniquely useful and descriptive that it’s the only dimension that matters and
no alternatives should even be considered, then make that case directly ather than simply asserting it’s the only one that should be used.
I think that there’s potentially a strategic aspect to what’s going on in Minnesota along two (or maybe three) lines. I want to be careful here to avoid wandering nto conspiracy territory, I’m not claiming some grand coordinated plot, but these patterns do seem more than mere incompetence or malice.
First, these tactics are sure to promote strong, sometimes violent reactions. This sets the stage for the bar to be lowered such that more authoritarian practices can be justified in the future.
Second, this is pushing the SCOTUS ruling in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (2025) regarding ICE engagements in Los Angeles. That case (a shadow docket stay) held that ICE could use a “totality of circumstances” to demand identification based on observed characteristics like accents, language, ethnicity, location, or job type, but it was tied to LA-specific factors (e.g., high undocumented populations there). What we see here includes ICE agents claiming they can detain someone who might very well be a citizen simply because of their accent, as in recent Minnesota cases: the elderly Hmong U.S. citizen pulled from his home in freezing weather (mistaken identity), and videos of agents detaining citizens outside their homes explicitly citing “your accent” as the reason.
This raises key questions: Is it legal to require people to produce documents proving citizenship just because an ICE agent demands it? Can ICE detain people based primarily on factors like an accent? If you’re stopped by ICE, do you have to answer their questions even without an articulable basis to suspect you’re not legally in the country?
I think the administration is interested in pushing SCOTUS to expand that previous ruling nationwide, so we’re likely to see some errors (or tests) along the way. So there’s a third option between pure malice and incompetence: deliberate intent to probe boundaries, normalize aggressive tactics, and create precedents through repeated incidents even if the full consequences aren’t always explicitly foreseen or desired.
Certainly, as raised above, I think “the brutality is the point” explanation should not be underestimated.
This is the closest to something that makes sense in this thread. Does it hinge on the word “brutal” somehow? After that I wonder what “brutal” means when it comes to our other types of persons, ie corporations and soon to come “AI”.