As we mentioned in last week’s Substack, we’re going to start posting full Tendency pieces here from time to time. To kick things off, here’s one fresh off our virtual presses, penned by our in-house satirist, Carlos Greaves.
“The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a federal judge’s order prohibiting government agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the Los Angeles area that challengers called ‘blatant racial profiling.’” — New York Times
Welcome to your first day on the job as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. We hope you enjoyed your $50,000 signing bonus and were finally able to pay off your legal fees related to January 6 and/or your divorce.
As an ICE agent, you’ll be responsible for detaining undocumented immigrants, who have completely overrun American cities, like Boston, Massachusetts. Because when people think “Boston,” they think “city with too many Brown people and not enough White people.”
As you’re smashing car windows and pulling people out of their cars, you might be wondering how to determine whether the person is undocumented or not, or even whether you should be violently detaining them in the first place. That’s why we’ve put together this simple guide to help you determine who to target.
The first step is to filter out the people ICE is clearly not targeting. You can do this by asking the person simple questions, like:
“Do you know who Father John Misty is?”
or
“What is your favorite Era?”
If they answered yes to the first question or named a Taylor Swift album for the second question, no further interrogation is needed.
Next, you should determine whether the person could be undocumented. Keep in mind, it can be tricky figuring out who is or isn’t from another country. For example, all of these men are from Latin America:
That’s why it’s always safer to assume the person is undocumented, even if they later turn out to be a US citizen. When in doubt, arrest anyone darker than this paint sample:
Of course, there are many other signs that may indicate a person is undocumented. Any of the following activities could be considered suspicious:
Standing outside a Home Depot
Standing inside a Home Depot
Shopping at homedepot.com while sitting on the couch at home
Picking apples
Apple picking
Picking up a few apples at the grocery store
Shopping at an Apple store
Typing on an Apple computer while sitting at a coffee shop
Looking poor
Dressing poorly
Dressing so poorly it’s clear you’re actually rich because you have so much money that you don’t even have to try.
Speaking Spanish (if you live in Los Angeles, you should be speaking English)
Speaking any language other than English
Speaking accented English (excluding posh British, Irish, or Scandinavian accents—those are fine)
Speaking perfect English (you just never know)
These guidelines might make it seem like ICE agents have full license to interrogate, harass, and detain anyone, including US citizens, for any reason, without due process. And that is absolutely correct. Whether a person is undocumented or not is anyone’s guess, which is why the safest bet is to question everyone.
In fact, as ICE expands its operations in cities like LA, Chicago, and Boston, a key part of ICE’s efforts will be setting up random traffic stops and checkpoints throughout the city and making educated guesses about who to detain and who not to detain. These “Guess Stops” will be staffed by special agents known as Guess Stop Officers, or “Guess-Stop-O” for short. The Guess-Stop-O will make crime disappear by making undesirable people disappear.
But don’t worry, most of you will have nothing to fear. Unless you’re darker than that paint sample. Then you’d better have your papers handy.
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IMAGE CREDITS:
Top left (Guillermo del Toro): Photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Top right (David Ortiz): Photo by Arturo Pardavila III, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Bottom left (Alberto Fujimori): Photo by Christian Lambiotte, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Bottom right (Lionel Messi): Photo by Кирилл Венедиктов, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Brilliant.
I think I will hear it as guessstopo from now on. Mel Brooks might just steal this from you 😂