The Disturbing History of ICE's "Death Cards"

"Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers pulled over several cars in Eagle County, Colorado. They took the people away in handcuffs, according to a witness, and left the cars idling at the side of the road. When family members of the disappeared immigrants arrived, there was no sign of their loved ones. What they found instead were customized ace of spades playing cards that read 'ICE Denver Field Office.'"

"Sitting in the U.S. National Archives building - Archives II - in College Park, Maryland, sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, I'd spent parts of several afternoons watching film footage shot by - and of - U.S. troops in Vietnam back in the 1960s. One of those silent military home movies always stuck with me."

"That short film opened with a Vietnamese woman clutching a child next to a group of 10 or 15 other children huddled together. They all look wary. Worried. Scared. The camera lingered on a young girl, perhaps five years old, clutching a baby. If that girl survived, she would be around 64 years old today."

ICE officers conducted arrests in Eagle County, Colorado, leaving customized ace of spades playing cards bearing the ICE Denver Field Office insignia at the scene. This practice parallels Vietnam War-era tactics used by U.S. troops to intimidate and psychologically terrorize civilian populations. The author draws connections between historical military brutality documented in archived Vietnam footage and contemporary immigration enforcement methods, suggesting a pattern of institutionalized intimidation. The playing cards serve as deliberate psychological weapons meant to instill fear in immigrant communities, reflecting how enforcement agencies have adopted and perpetuated dehumanizing tactics across decades.

Read at The Nation