Outlaws
25th January 2026
First off, if you had a picture of a guy with a five o’clock shadow and a cowboy hat on a wanted poster, I’ll have to disappoint you. I’m talking about a historical practice by governments, most notably Rome and England, of declaring someone outside the protection of law. In US history, the phrase “Wanted Dead or Alive” comes to mind.
What it comes down to is that the government has declared in some official way that a person is outside government assistance: no police protection, no right to trial. In our later, cozier times maybe even no ambulance service.
Someone aware of being in this situation could be expected to behave accordingly. The world becomes a prison yard, and being hyper aware of any threatening behavior by others or, in gang parlance, being “disrespected,” requires an over-reaction to everything if you don’t want to look like a target. You’re in enemy territory and help is not coming. Anyone menacing needs to be made an example.
In Minnesota and elsewhere, the police have been instructed not to assist ICE in any way. The practical impact of this is that ICE agents now have to make arrests expecting to be followed in vehicles and surrounded by hostile crowds, some of whom expect prestige by pushing things that much further. No one’s going to expect the crowds to conform to a Chronic Demonstrator’s Code of Conduct.
The agents are very much in a hurry: get in, get out, and expect no help from the police. Put yourself in this situation. You’ll respond, “I wouldn’t put myself in this situation.” Okay, understood. But I’m betting you wouldn’t behave as if you were in Dragnet, you’’d more likely act as if you were in Blackhawk Down.
I propose that, if we want everyone safer, it would be good for the politicians at the state and local level to expect the ICE agents to be treated as citizens, and to receive similar protections. That would mean having professional local cops on site, which would pay benefits beyond the immediate increase in safety. It might reset the agents’ expectations of the pace they have to proceed and the aggression they have to bring to the situation. They might even develop working relations with the police, who have thousands of hours’ more street time and might come to serve as the role models I’ve often considered them. There are complaints of ICE’s inexperience — well, here you go. Experience rubs off.
Oh, and it would be nice if the places where they were eating and sleeping received a normal amount of protection also. That is, if we don’t want them to behave as if they’re in a war zone.