the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 4, 2025
For months now, agents carrying out deportation arrests have gone around masked, wearing vests that just say “Police.” They’ve refused to show IDs, or to provide warrants.
Those they’ve arrested have often disappeared into a network of immigration prisons, moved from one state to another, and been denied access to lawyers.
The Trump administration justifies all this by claiming they are going after migrant criminals. Or, when it’s obvious those they’re arresting aren’t criminals, that they’re going after undocumented immigrants. Or, when they’ve arrested people who have green cards or other legal status, that they are at least going after immigrants with limited rights.
But recently released video footage from an arrest on May 2 shows once again that citizens are not safe from these tactics. Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio is an 18-year-old high school senior from Florida. He was riding in a work van with his mom and two undocumented companions when they were pulled over and he started filming.
His video shows Border Patrol agents opening the door and grabbing one of the men inside before putting him in a chokehold. Agents can be heard shooting another man with a stun gun. Even though Laynez-Ambrosio repeatedly told the agents “I was born and raised right here,” he was told, “You’ve got no rights here,” pushed to the ground, threatened with a stun gun, and held for six hours. While in detention, officers threatened him with charges if he didn’t delete the footage, and he was eventually charged with “obstruction without violence,” even though the video shows him cooperating with agents’ orders.
In fact, the Trump administration has not deported as many people per day as were deported under Obama. But the bragging about brutality, hiding of faces, denial of “due process,” are not about deporting undocumented immigrants—these are tactics meant to intimidate. And as the case of Laynez-Ambrosio and others show, this intimidation is aimed not only at immigrants, but at people who are in the company of immigrants, or who might “look like” immigrants—and ultimately, at everyone else.
However many people they actually deport, getting us used to seeing masked “police” with no name tags and no warrants grab people off the street is a preparation for even more brutality.