Out MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow skewered the Department of Homeland Security for a horrifically carried out immigration raid at a San Diego restaurant last week.
“This federal agency is clearly totally untrained for this work and is clearly out of its depth,” Maddow said, explaining that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents dressed in full battle regalia raided an Italian restaurant as it was opening for dinner on a Friday afternoon.
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Maddow called the entire situation “bananas,” describing the way “multiple clown cars” of agents wearing “full battle rattle with helmets and long guns and flak jackets and goggles and masks, literally looking like they were going to rappel out of helicopters into the Tora Bora cave complex to fight al-Qaeda” ran into the restaurant and hancuffed the entire crew.
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She said it should not have been surprising that droves of people from the neighborhood gathered to protest the actions as they were unfolding. Nevertheless, the president’s agents “had no idea what to do” as people chanted “shame” at the agents.
“They were so completely unprepared and untrained and flummoxed by all of the neighbors and passersby, understandably yelling at them and telling them to leave people alone,” Maddow explained. “They were so scared and so unprepared and so untrained for this completely predictable situation that they set off multiple what appeared to be flash bang
She said doing so was “not a sign of strength” and “not a show of force” but rather a sign of weakness and cluelessness.
“These guys talked themselves into the idea that the country would be so excited to see them be really performatively cruel to immigrants… Turns out everywhere they try it, everyone in America hates it.”
The administration is attempting to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history, with a target of 3,000 deportations each day. The effort has resulted in a slew of unconstitutional arrests and deportations.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even recently claimed that “due process does not guarantee a hearing,” despite the fact that the 5th and 14th amendments of the Constitution do just that. In fact, due process was so important to the founders that it is the only mandate mentioned twice in the document.
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