“Never read the comments,” the sage wisdom of the internet says. That’s especially true on X, where internet trolls thrive unregulated.
But sometimes the comments give you a sense of what some segment of the population is thinking and what might become reality. That’s certainly true of a Nov. 19 post by a user named JLR Investigates, a self-styled “Gonzo journalist.”
That post shows a photo of a volunteer in Charlotte, N.C., standing watch at a discount grocery store in Charlotte, part of a group called Siembra.
The caption explains correctly: “Groups of them work 4 hour shifts along Central Ave watching for ICE/Border Patrol. She will blow her whistle if she sees them to warn everyone.”
I was there on Monday and watched Siembra volunteers all over the city. They are highly effective at alerting people to ICE showing up on the prowl for brown-skinned people to interrogate and detain — all without warrant or cause. The whistles are the most effective tools, an idea passed on from immigrant advocates in Chicago.
While there’s a massive resistance to the ICE and CBP action in North Carolina — hundreds of people are packing churches for training sessions — there also are plenty of folks who think what ICE and CBP are doing is necessary and lawful. The comments on this one X post illustrate that viewpoint.
While a few comments praise the woman and others who are standing with immigrants, the vast majority of the 500-plus comments mock her, criticize her and even call for her arrest. Here is a sample of verbatim comments under this post.
- LS Knip: “It’s always the older people what is going on with them?”
- CaryEllen: “Should arrest these people.”
- MSQUARED: “No patrol to keep kids and women safe though.”
- Chris Cuneo: “Arrest her for aiding and abetting”
- Dee: “Aiding illegals is a crime.”
- Lynn: “She will be arrested.”
- Sande Freundlieb: “This is pathetic and disturbing”
- ConcernedAmerican: “This is criminal behavior. Identify her and arrest her.”
- TheGreyMan: “Bust them for obstruction”
- NotaBotBonnie: “I think I might stand beside her and blow a fog horn when she whistles.”
- 1968 Camper Special: “Childless cat ladies with whistles”
A majority of the negative commenters call for this woman and other volunteers like her to be arrested — on the false claim that they are obstructing law enforcement.
“A majority of the negative commenters call for this woman and other volunteers like her to be arrested.”
And that idea is becoming reality in Charlotte, according to a new report from the Charlotte Observer today: “A man who alerted others to federal immigration agents’ location was cornered in a parking lot, arrested by them and held in an FBI office for about six hours, he and others told the Charlotte Observer. His attorney said he was not allowed to speak with his client.”
Joshua Long said he was charged with simple assault on a federal officer and was told he “skimmed (agents’) car while trying to evade them.” The Department of Homeland Security said its agents “arrested this U.S. citizen for vehicular assault against a federal agent.”
Long and others watching said this is not true. The Observer continues: “When he emerged from the FBI office on Microsoft Way around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Long had a fresh scab on his head. It was apparently from agents pinning him down on concrete. They also pointed a gun at him, he said.”
I know exactly where that FBI office is because I was stationed there Monday afternoon watching masked ICE and CBP agents go in and out of the secure gate in their dark SUVs — apparently returning to home base between their dispatches.
That’s where either ICE or CBP agents — it’s hard to tell the difference — on Monday detained a mom whom they arrested in her driveway after breaking her car window with a rifle. I also wrote about that on Monday.
This woman had honked her horn at the agents as they sought someone to detain for deportation. There were no reports that she in any way impeded traffic or physically interacted with the masked agents.
Immigration attorney Hector Quiroga told WFMY News: “Federal law does allow officers to charge someone with impeding an investigation if they believe a person’s actions interfere with their work. It surprises you, it shocks you, but you also know it’s kind of the new normal. The new standard of what we’re seeing is any little thing that the Department of Homeland Security believes is in some way interfering, they’re going to be dropping charges and arrest.”
The current state of affairs with the Trump administration, he advised, is this: “You can definitely see and observe what happened. But you have to be a silent observer — very much on the sidewalk, looking at what’s happening — so no argument can be made that you are interfering.”
According to the Daily Beast, this unnamed woman and another woman arrested close to the same time were held for hours and then released with citations. A lawyer we spoke with Monday who had entered FBI headquarters in an attempt to represent the two women was told the FBI didn’t want to get involved with any of this. The lawyer was turned away because the FBI “didn’t want to set a precedent,” he was told.
Part of the terror of the current roundup in Charlotte — mirroring what has happened in Chicago and elsewhere — is that the masked ICE and CBP agents do not care if their charges stick. They have arrest quotas to meet, and it is not their concern if the people they arrest get released for lack of cause.
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