"I didn't want a haircut, but I worried that I needed one. I am a light-skinned Black American: My hair and beard are thick and curly. On Thursday, I had both cut extra short in an effort to look less like someone ICE might find interesting. That is to say, for the first time in my life, I tried to look a little whiter."
"I had seen video after video of federal agents occupying Minneapolis, flagrantly racially profiling innocent people on the streetdemanding that American citizens, including police officers and Native Americans, show their papers, and even detaining someand it seemed that the same chaos was coming to southern Maine. I also made another change in advance of ICE's arrival: I stopped carrying the 9-mm compact handguna Glock 19 equipped with a Holosun red dotthat I keep underneath my shirt most days, in full compliance with Maine's concealed-carry laws."
"When I heard news that Maine was about to get the Minneapolis treatment, a fear gnawed at me: What happens if I'm harassed or grabbed by an ICE agent for walking down the street without my passport, and an agent feels the pistol beneath my sweatshirt? What happens, God forbid, if my Glock dislodges from my appendix holster while I'm being roughly detained?"
The fatal shooting of a Minnesota ICU nurse by federal agents has exposed aggressive ICE and Border Patrol tactics, including occupying Minneapolis and racially profiling people on the streets. Videos show agents demanding papers from American citizens, detaining some, and treating police and Native Americans the same. Rumors of an ICE surge frightened the Somali community in Maine, prompting precautionary measures. A light-skinned Black resident shaved his hair to appear less conspicuous and stopped carrying a legally concealed handgun out of fear of lethal escalation during stops. The episodes suggest federal agents are flouting legal limits and threaten civil liberties and public safety.
Read at www.theatlantic.com
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