Progressives Need to Stand Up for LaMonica McIver

It’s become clear that the most dangerous thing for a public official to do during the Trump administration—other than fly out of Newark—is to try to get ICE to follow the law or the Constitution. If you resist ICE, or in any way try to prevent Trump’s paramilitary forces from illegally abducting people and renditioning them to concentration camps, you could be brutalized, investigated, or arrested.

Undocumented immigrants have long known that ICE has the power to violate their rights and kidnap them without due process. More recently, both citizens and documented immigrants have come to understand this as well. But under Donald Trump, the agency’s power to ignore the rule of law extends even over elected representatives of the government. The mayor of Nashville, Freddie O’Connell, has gotten in trouble for trying to stop the illegal arrests without due process of nearly 200 immigrants. Wisconsin state court judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for refusing to allow ICE to arrest a person sitting in her courtroom, which ICE is not allowed to do.

Last week, we saw the most dangerous display of ICE’s unconstitutional powers when they arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Baraka, along with Congress members LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Robert Menendez Jr., went to tour the newly reopened Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey; they were attempting to conduct oversight of the conditions there, as they are legally allowed to do as elected officials. Masked ICE officials, however, blocked their visit. When the elected officials did not back down, ICE moved to arrest Mayor Baraka. The congresspeople made a circle around him, but that didn’t stop ICE, which responded as it customarily does: with violence. They pushed through the human circle and arrested the mayor.

The charges against Mayor Baraka were eventually dropped. That’s a good thing, but it also highlights that his arrest was unwarranted in the first place. ICE had no reason to arrest him and eventually had to admit it. But is anybody going to hold a single ICE official accountable for their illegal arrest of a sitting mayor? We all know the answer to that question is “no”—and ICE does too, as its next move made viciously clear.

On Tuesday, Trump’s Justice Department went ahead and filed charges against one of the other victims of ICE’s violence, Representative McIver. Former Trump bobblehead turned interim US Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba charged her on two counts of “assaulting” ICE officers—which she did not do.

A day later, Representative Nancy Mace, who is always happy to remind people that white women play a starring role in the maintenance of white supremacy, has moved to have McIver expelled from the House of Representatives.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called the charges “extreme” and “morally bankrupt,” and they are, of course. But this incident is more than another degree of heat added to a pot that is already boiling. Charging a sitting member of the federal government with a crime for exercising their congressional responsibilities—and assaulting them to boot—is another marker of our descent into fascism. It is yet another warning—and another opportunity for the public, the media, and the world to wake up to the fact that America is now a police state subject to the whims of a madman. We are a rogue nation and the international community should treat us accordingly.

It’s not a coincidence that the Trump administration is opening this new line of assault on American democracy by charging an elected congressperson who happens to be Black. Trump, as always, isn’t even trying to hide the racial animus behind these charges. Here’s what he said when asked about McIver:

“Give me a break. Did you see her? She was out of control. Those days are over. The days of woke are over. That woman—I have no idea who she is—that woman was out of control … the days of that crap are over in this country. We’re going to have law and order.”

I’m sure I don’t need to remind most of you that “woke” is the MAGA code for the n-word.

When it comes to elected officials fighting against Trump and ICE, we can expect to see a lot of Black Democrats on the front lines. There are a few reasons for this, foremost among them that Trump’s attacks are always directed most forcefully and brutally against communities of color, which Black Democrats are more likely to represent. Another reason is that many white Democrats will, in the words of Chris Rock, “ride this white thing out and see where it takes me.” Whiteness is protection in this country, and very few white leaders will be willing to give that up.

So it will fall to Black Democrats to put their careers, their bodies, and their freedom on the line. And Trump, in turn, will use all the power he has, legal and illegal, to crush those Black Democrats—and call them names while he’s doing it. We’ve already seen him call Representative Jasmine Crockett a “lowlife.” We know, and she knows, that the administration is just waiting for any excuse to arrest her and make her another one of their political prisoners.

Some Black leaders will be willing to do this work. After all, to be “Black” and a “leader” is to constantly be at risk from white supremacist forces, regardless of who is president.

But if you want even more Black folks to get in the trenches against this man, then you better have their backs when they are asked to pay the consequences. How the white media and the white liberal and progressive base handles the McIver persecution is going to be very telling to other Black leaders as they consider their next steps. So far, we’ve seen strong statements from leader Jeffries—backed by congressional Democrats, the Congressional Black Caucus, and other politicians, especially the ones from New Jersey. But the outrage still feels relatively contained to the political community. When ICE arrested and charged Judge Hannah Dugan, the nice white lady from Wisconsin, there was (appropriate) moral outrage from all sectors of non-MAGA society. The reaction to the arrest of a Black mayor and charging of a Black congresswoman hasn’t seemed to break through the white noise in quite the same way.

The charges against McIver are a form of political intimidation, meant to discourage people from standing up to Trump’s government. That intimidation will only work if the people don’t have McIver’s back. Nobody is going to be willing to be a political martyr for the resistance if the resistance doesn’t give a damn when they are persecuted. If people cannot see their way clear to lock arms around McIver and go to the mattresses in her defense, then, well, that says a lot about whether this country, or even just the base of the Democratic Party, really wants people to “fight” ICE and stand up to Trump.

If you are one of those people who has been wondering when the elected Democrats will fight back against Trump, then your job is to make LaMonica McIver a righteous superstar. But if all you can say is “That woman—I have no idea who she is,” then any potential Democratic leaders will know that you’re not interested in “Democrats” fighting back, you’re just patiently waiting for white folks to get their heads out of their asses.

And you’re going to be waiting a long time for that.