MacArthur Park, San Francisco, and the ICE Catastrophe

As some of you may know, I occasionally tune in to 77 WABC in New York—not because I agree, but because I want to hear what the far right is saying out loud. Not behind closed doors. Not in policy memos. On the air.

This week, after footage surfaced of federal agents and National Guard troops swarming MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, the hosts didn’t hesitate. They said the park is a drug haven. They said it’s run by gangs. They said the area is “lawless,” “infested,” “occupied.”

They said the raid was justified. They said it was necessary. They said, almost gleefully, “It’s about time.”

That’s how you normalize militarized domestic operations: Not with facts. With fear. Not with data. With labels.

You don’t need warrants when you’ve got narrative. You don’t need evidence when you’ve got enemies.

They painted MacArthur Park not as a public space in distress, but as a threat to the nation. And so they framed the incursion not as a raid, but as a rescue.

But here’s the truth:

Yes—MacArthur Park has struggled with poverty, with addiction, with homelessness. But so has Kensington in Philadelphia, Skid Row in L.A., and the South Bronx in the '80s.  I remember Tompkins Square Park in the 90s.  Needle Park.

And yet, we don’t send tactical teams into every trailer park in Ohio. We don’t surround meth labs in West Virginia with CBP officers. We don’t dispatch National Guard troops to monitor fentanyl in white suburbs.

We send resources. We send outreach. We send policy responses—unless the people in the neighborhood are poor, brown, and politically invisible.

Then we send a message.

And that’s what happened at MacArthur Park: A message, written in steel and strength.

Because what happened in MacArthur Park wasn't a policing strategy. It was a dress rehearsal.

A test to see how much force the public will tolerate…when deployed against the people the public has been trained to fear.

And the timing wasn’t random.

It came right after Congress passed a $54 billion budget for ICE detention facilities—more than the entire Department of Justice. It came on the heels of $8 billion in hiring for new ICE agents. It came alongside $5 billion for military support at the border.  And billions and billions more in infrastructure, surveillance, biometrics, AI, recruiting.  It's a bonanza for the tech industry.

This is not a security strategy. This is a business model. A fear economy.

And make no mistake: the operation in MacArthur Park was not about arresting anyone. It was about conditioning everyone.

Conditioning the immigrant community to live afraid. Conditioning the public to see militarized immigration raids as normal. Conditioning the rest of us to look the other way.

Because if they can do this in broad daylight, in Los Angeles— In a park named after an American general, In front of children at summer camp, With the mayor of the city standing right there— And no one stops them—Then what exactly are the limits?

“If you want a picture of the future,” Orwell warned, “imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

And look—just a few hundred miles to the north. San Francisco. Right after the raid at MacArthur Park.

There, ICE agents lay in wait outside immigration court, targeting people leaving their scheduled hearings. Not fleeing. Not resisting. Just showing up—on time, by the book, as ordered—and being snatched anyway.

Now think about what they told us.

Remember Tom Homan, Trump’s “Border Czar”? Remember Donald Trump himself, in speech after speech? They said they were going after “the worst of the worst.” They said the targets were murderers and rapists and criminal aliens.

Okay. So tell me:

What murderer shows up early for a scheduled court date in a federal building? What cartel hitman brings a manila envelope full of paperwork to plead a case for asylum? What violent criminal walks calmly into immigration court—sits down—and waits to be called by a judge?

The answer is: People who believe in due process. People who still think the system might listen. People who have been told all their lives that if they follow the rules, they’ll get a fair shot.

And that—that—is who ICE is now targeting. Not just the undocumented. The documented. The scheduled. The cooperative.

Because this was never just about “illegal” immigration.

It’s about expanding the definition of criminality until everyone becomes fair game.

And here’s the part no one in Washington will say out loud:

They’re going to the courthouses now—because they’ve already run out of “bad hombres.”

Because Stephen Miller picked a number. A big number. Weekly arrests in the tens of thousands. Mass removals. Dramatic visuals.

But when the reality didn’t match the fiction—when most of the migrants weren’t criminals or gang members but farmworkers and teenagers and grandmothers—they didn’t adjust the policy.

They widened the circle.

That’s how mission creep begins. You promise a purge. You can’t find enough villains. So you make the definition of “villain” bigger.

And right when you do that—the funding kicks in.

$54 billion in detention capacity.

$8 billion in ICE agents.

$5 billion for military integration.

A permanent pipeline of contractors, vendors, recruiters, and data firms.

That’s not a policy. That’s an industry.

A detention deportation -surveillance economy. One with donors, lobbyists, and quarterly projections. One with stock tickers and vendor deals. One that measures success not in justice—but in bodies moved.

And once an industry is profitable, it becomes political. And once it becomes political, it becomes protected.

And once it’s protected, it becomes permanent.

So think about that. Think about the moment we’re in. Think about San Francisco—people arrested for showing up to court. Think about Los Angeles—children in summer camp ducking behind walls while federal agents ride horses across the grass.

And now think about the budget behind it all.

More money than the Department of Justice. More than the CDC, NIH, and Head Start combined. More than we spend on public housing. More than we spend on fighting cancer. And yes—more than the entire British Army.

Let that land.

We are now giving more cash and power to a domestic immigration agency—an unaccountable paramilitary force—than we gave to the global empire we once rebelled against.

In 1776, the colonies revolted against King George III for maintaining a standing army “without the consent of our legislatures,” for “quartering large bodies of armed troops among us,” and for “rendering the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”

Sound familiar?

ICE and DHS operate outside city control, without warrants, and now—with military backup.

When Jefferson listed the grievances that justified revolution, he named “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” Today we call that deportation.

He named “abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province.” Today we call that ICE detainers.

He warned that when the government becomes destructive of the people's rights, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”

Now we’re not calling for violence. But we are calling for vision.

Because this isn’t about policy anymore. It’s about power. And how quickly power forgets its purpose.

The purpose of government is not to terrorize families. Not to ambush courtrooms. Not to invade city parks under cover of fear.

The purpose of government is to protect liberty. To uphold justice. To ensure that no person—citizen or not—is stripped of dignity at the end of a rifle or the back of a bus.

This moment—this budget, this raid, this silence—is a test.

A test of who we are. A test of what we will accept. A test of whether the Constitution means anything at all when the targets don’t look like us, vote like us, or speak the same language.

Because if it doesn’t matter for them, it won’t matter for us either. Not for long.

So this is where we are now. A militarized raid in a public park. A family detained after leaving court. A federal budget that builds walls, not schools. That funds boots instead of books. That hands billions to an unaccountable force whose mission is not safety—but separation.

And make no mistake: this is not the endgame. It is the opening act.

Because what you fund, you grow. And what you grow, you normalize. And what you normalize—you stop seeing.

Until the horses in the park become routine. Until the agents at the courthouse become expected. Until the camps become permanent.

Until we forget we were ever outraged.

But that’s why we speak.

That’s why we write.

That’s why we gather and march and stand and refuse.

Because we haven’t forgotten.

Because some part of us still believes in the promise—even as the machinery of fear tries to grind that belief out of us.

Because James Baldwin still whispers to us: “The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”

Because Thomas Jefferson still reminds us: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

Because Orwell’s boot isn’t yet on the neck—but its bearing down.

And it’s not too late to knock it over.

We do not consent. We will not be silent. We will not normalize armored vehicles in city parks. We will not look away while due process is turned into bait.

This is still our country.

And we are not afraid.

Not anymore.

Show up.

Bear witness.

Speak.