Donald Trump and Kristi Noem and Tom Homan must stop failed quota numbers used by ICE in their illegal dragnet

Let me get this? So, children are captured and detained by ICE because the evil operations must reach deportation quotas❓  OMG❗💢

Deportation quotas are a 2026, version of Vietnam body counts
In Vietnam, soldiers were rewarded based on body counts. ICE deportation quotas are a chilling reminder of that policy.

Echo essay published in the MinnPost in Minneapolis Community Voices by Ralph Brauer. 

Officials and the mainstream press debating our immigration crisis are ignoring the elephant in the room: the policy of setting deportation quotas. To a historian, this policy ominously recalls the infamous Vietnam body count.

The flawed brainchild of then U.S.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the body count supposedly measured the success of combat operations by tracking the number of enemy soldiers killed in each encounter. 

When troops realized they were being graded on how many corpses they could amass, this macabre idea quickly ran off the rails. Seymour Hersh discovered “there were three-day passes for the men who achieved high body counts; sometimes whole units would be rewarded.” As Hersh showed with stomach-churning detail, it did not matter whose body was counted or how they died.

If this sounds familiar, it should. The administration has dictated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deport 1 million people by the end of the year. If we divide this number among the states it yields an average of 20,000 per year, per state.

The Migration Policy Institute calculates Minnesota has 100,000 undocumented immigrants. Complicating this, 41% of families have children under 18 eligible for birthright citizenship. Three-quarters of the work-eligible undocumented are employed, with 20% in manufacturing, 11% in construction, and 10% in health care. Imagine the impact on communities if they lose these workers. It is estimated that the Minneapolis occupation has cost some businesses 50-80% of their revenue because ICE causes workers to stay home and drives away customers. We don’t yet know what it has cost the state economy.

ICE has also provided questionable information about how many arrests are truly the “worst of the worst” or the fate of those who disappeared into its American gulag. Last November, the conservative Cato Institute estimated 73% of ICE detainees have no prior criminal conviction. The Homeland Security website says, “70% of all ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the United States.” These widely divergent numbers suggest ICE body counts are as reliable as those from the Vietnam War.

Unreliable information poses another problem. Hersh discovered Vietnam War troops received “no meaningful instruction in the Geneva conventions or in the proper treatment of prisoners of war during training in Hawaii or in South Vietnam.” Much like the Army struggled to train the flood of Vietnam draftees, ICE scrambled to rush agents into the field, causing cutbacks in training.

That training is complicated by the lack of clarity about objectives and tactics to achieve them, which is at the root of problems with the Vietnam and ICE body counts. As the war dragged on, the question grew about how the enemy could muster increasing resistance when it supposedly lost so many soldiers. (Evil❗) Stephen Miller’s command that ICE deport a million people by the end of this year seems to be pulled from President Donald Trump’s hat and raises additional questions.

Does the administration want to remove only violent criminals or any non-citizens❓Do we deport a taxpaying business owner with a family for a decade-old speeding ticket❓ What about asylum seekers or those currently filing for admission❓ What information is used to make those arrests❓

Answering such questions demands spelling out clear rules of engagement that parallel those of other law enforcement agencies. ICE defenders constantly turn the debate toward deporting violent criminals who are here illegally. These zealots seem unconcerned if this is done in accordance with the rule of law and our values. Maybe we should ask them: “If local police behaved like ICE, would you tolerate it❓”

What if police forced citizens to carry their papers to the grocery store like ICE❓ What if police dragged a 50-year-old naturalized American from the wrong house into the snow wearing only boxer shorts like ICE thugs? What if police ignored court orders like ICE❓ What if police wore masks and said they did not need warrants like ICE❓ This may be OK in some fascist dictatorship, but not in a nation that fought a revolution against unreasonable searches and seizures.

To ensure ICE follows the rules, the country must insist on clear rules of engagement and verification that all violations are investigated and punished. This includes deliberately ignoring court orders and disregarding suspects’ constitutional rights. As Seymour Hersh would remind us, body counts can lead to atrocities like My Lai. Too many have already been shot by ICE. How many more will we lose before the country acts❓

Ralph Brauer, a retired historian who lives in Northfield, Minnesota, is the author of the recent book “The Age of Discontent.”