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V11i2FEB Government Violence
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justicepeacelove.com

The truth is, we’ve always been a violent nation.

Since the first arrival of European ships, millions of Indigenous people who had been living on this continent for millennia were systematically killed and displaced in order for colonists to possess the land. More than 90% of the original inhabitants of the Americas were wiped out through violence and disease.

Millions of Africans were violently captured, enslaved, and brought to this continent to work the land. The legal institution of chattel slavery, protected by our government at its founding, was maintained with violence against those who opposed it. Slave patrols, one of the original forms of American policing, were groups of armed men whose job was to hunt down and return slavery escapees, instill terror into enslaved people to keep them under control, and provide extrajudicial summary enforcement of enslaved workers. They also terrorized abolitionists to decrease the likelihood that efforts to end slavery would be successful. In other words, slave patrols worked for the government to violently control the people with cruelty, brutal beatings, and murder.

After the Civil War, slave patrols were outlawed, but their function continued with the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan. One hundred years later, government agents were still using violence to terrorize and suppress the people demanding equal rights. During the Civil Rights Movement, government officials and segregationists terrorized non-violent protestors. One of the most infamous examples was the 1965 attack on hundreds of peaceful civil rights marchers attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge, including the late John Lewis, in Selma, Alabama, during which the county sheriff and his deputies badly injured dozens with nightsticks, fire hoses, and tear gas. 

Government violence also leads to sanctioned vigilantism. On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers — James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman — were tortured and murdered by the KKK with the help of the Neshoba County, Mississippi sheriff. Only one of those responsible was convicted; and even then, it was only for manslaughter more than forty years later.

On May 4, 1970, four unarmed college students were killed and nine wounded by the Ohio National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University — young students killed by the government for exercising their First Amendment right to protest. The National Guard members who shot the students were acquitted.

And the violence against the people continues today.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Photo by Scott Butner, Photo from the January 10 ICE protest in Kennewick / Photo courtesy Good Loser / goodloser.me

The so-called crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration was allegedly targeting only the “worst of the worst.” The regime claims they are making America safer. 

But is the Department of Homeland Security really keeping us safe by terrorizing communities across the country, specifically targeting Democrat-led states and cities?

In a clear violation of the Constitution — notably the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up violence against thousands of people in the United States. In December 2025, of the nearly 70,000 people held in detention by ICE, less than a quarter had been convicted of a crime. The murder of Renée Good by an ICE agent made national news, but 32 others died at the hands of ICE agents in 2025. In just the first few weeks of this year, five people have already been killed by ICE. 

Very few of those targeted by ICE are criminals. ICE victims include not only undocumented immigrants, but also legal residents and U.S. citizens. It is difficult to determine how many people have been illegally detained, but an October 2025 ProPublica report found at least 170 cases of citizens detained by ICE. More than 20 of those were held for more than a day without access to a lawyer, a phone, or the ability to notify their families. ProPublica reports that citizens have been “dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear.” In spite of what the government claims, this level of violence and aggression is unwarranted and unconstitutional.

The Constitution guarantees the right of due process for all people, not just citizens. There is no requirement to prove you are a citizen to a government agent before you are afforded your constitutional rights. 

The First Amendment also gives everyone the right of free speech, the right to assemble, and the right to speak out against an unreasonable government. In other words, the right to protest.

And yet, non-violent protesters have been harassed, tear gassed, shot with pepper balls, violently yanked from their vehicles, and thrown to the ground. Many, like Reverend David Black of Chicago who was shot in the head with a pepper ball as he was quoting Jesus to ICE officers,  have been shot at point-blank range with ‘nonlethal’ projectiles, a practice that is extremely dangerous, and that has been responsible for the maiming of thousands of protesters — and the deaths of dozens — in the last five years. 

People are also being detained and questioned without probable cause. Last year, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, ruled that people could be questioned and detained merely by their looks, the way they speak, or their perceived ethnicity. This ruling gives ICE the authority to go after people that don’t look or sound ‘American enough’. J.D. Vance now says agents will be going door to door demanding proof of citizenship and information about their neighbors, another clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. 

Is any of this making us more safe?

Multiple studies show that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, commit far fewer crimes than U.S.-born citizens. In fact, an influx of immigrants often lowers the crime rate in a community. The myth that immigrants make communities less safe is a lie.

So, then, what is the point of federal agents patrolling the streets, disappearing people, violently confronting peaceful protesters, and detaining people in deplorable conditions? 

It certainly isn’t making America safe. 

The point of all this violence is the same today as it was in the days of the slave patrols. To make us afraid to speak out, afraid to protest, afraid to act in solidarity, and afraid to demand an end to the violence. 

We are told that violence is necessary to keep us safe. But we know better. And we are not afraid.

Ask Renée Good’s family; ask the families of the others who have died at the hands of ICE; ask the hundreds who have been assaulted, beaten, pepper sprayed, and detained by the government if the violence is making us safe. 

ICE was established to make us safer following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. 

They have failed in that mission.

Abolish ICE.

Postscript: I wrote this essay before VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti was beaten and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Since Keith Porter was killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve, ICE has already killed at least eight others. Thousands of others have been injured, abducted, and held in deplorable conditions. (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/28/deaths-ice-2026-) 

Ted Miller grew up around the world but now lives in Richland with his wife. He’s a runner, actor, singer, nuclear engineer, and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Ted believes that if more people worked toward love and understanding instead of giving in to fear and divisiveness, the world would be a better place.

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