Ciscomani Votes For Trump’s Brown Shirts

Juan Ciscomani voted YES on the House of Representatives bill 7147, which provided appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security, including Border Patrol and ICE. The bill contains no measures that would restrict the unlawful behavior of agents.

He cast his vote with knowledge of atrocities committed by agents: detaining four- and five-year-old children to lure their parents out of hiding; making apparent claims of immunity to enter private homes without judicial warrants, and spraying immobilized detainees with pepper spray in the face from the distance of three inches, a form of torture that can kill an asthmatic person. All three are violations of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

We also witnessed a gang execution of Alex Pretti, who was on the ground when two agents shot ten bullets into his body, taunting scared and mourning witnesses to this murder with increased boldness in attacks on anyone watching. The organization is actively building secret detention camps, including the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” that was ordered closed, but apparently is still operating undercover [Source: Palm Beach Post and Naples Daily News]. Camp survivors report lack of medical care, beatings, and deaths in custody [Source: The Guardian].

The unlawful actions of ICE, the racist tropes used to attract recruits, the promise of impunity, and the gradually expanding circle of attack targets all look like actions of a paramilitary formation that resembles Sturmabteilung, or Brown Shirts, a paramilitary wing of the Nazi party that helped Adolf Hitler gain and consolidate power. Representative Ciscomani seems to have nothing against these people.

The administration is now openly embracing white nationalism and othering of immigrants, just like Nazi Germany othered Jews, homosexuals, and Roma and other minorities. It defends the agents who recently killed American citizens and calls the murdered people terrorists, just like Nazi Germany called people who protested government actions. Representative Ciscomani seems oblivious to this. He is in dire need of a history lesson.

The policies of Nazi Germany, like the policies of the current Trump regime, led to the Final Solution, a drive to exterminate all European Jews. Auschwitz was the largest of the sites where the Final Solution was instituted. This took place after more than a decade of rising discrimination against Jews in Germany. The will to kill crept slowly, until Hitlerbecame the Chancellor [Source: Holocaust Encyclopedia], and accelerated with new laws designed to force Jews into hiding or emigration. Methods of mass murder were first tested on mentally ill Germans, starting in 1939. Auschwitz opened as a camp in 1941 and held, at first, Polish prisoners of war. The gas chambers of Birkenau started operation in 1942, reaching top efficiency in September of that year [Source: Wikipedia and Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum].

We are at the point where our government has started killing peaceful protesters to intimidate opposition and is trying to block access to the detention camps where some people die. Representative Ciscomani has decided to support these extrajudicial actions, and he seems to be quite fine with our country becoming an authoritarian state.

The thing is, Juan Ciscomani is not and will never be a “Legacy American”. He may think that, through his repeated support of the administration policies, he and his family will never be targeted by the government agents. Nazi Germany, too, had its group of servile and opportunistic helpers in occupied lands: the Vichy government in France, the Blue Police in Poland, and others. However, the authoritarian regimes always need enemies. When one enemy is defeated, they find another one. Eventually, the regime will get to Representative Ciscomani. He might hope that someone else stops the regime first, so that he can act like he has always been a part of the resistance after the Trump era is over. Nazi helpers did that, too, with varying degrees of success [Source: Wikipedia].

There is a better way. In a speech commemorating the 75th anniversary of camp’s liberation Marian Turski, a survivor of Auschwitz, implored us to act on injustice with what he called the 11th Commandment: “Thou shall not be indifferent” [Source: International Auschwitz Committee].

We all, Juan Ciscomani included, should heed Turski’s warning: “Because, if you become complacent, before you know it, some kind of Auschwitz will suddenly appear from nowhere, and befall you and your descendants.” Juan Ciscomani ignores the warning and chooses to support the regime. His recent actions are cowardly, opportunistic, or both. We will remember in November.