“PAPERS PLEASE” — Trump’s Very Own Gigantic Police Force July 9, 2025July 9, 2025 The Economist: ICE’s Big Payday Makes Mass Deportation Possible: For more than a month Los Angeles has been subject to countless immigration raids. Certain places are regular targets: car washes, Home Depots, bus stops, street markets. One video taken in the Ladera Heights neighbourhood shows federal agents pinning Celina Ramirez to a tree. They are wearing bullet-proof vests, masks, hats and sunglasses to hide their faces, and guns strapped to their sides. Ms Ramirez had been selling tacos near a Home Depot. The agents shove her into a van, deploy tear gas at onlookers who were recording the encounter, and race off. . . . ICE agents themselves are not all happy warriors. One former ICE official argues that working for the agency means angering half of the country all of the time. At headquarters, DHS leaders force employees to take polygraph tests if they are suspected of leaking to the media. Several career bureaucrats worry that the laser focus on immigration enforcement is detracting from counterterrorism, drug-smuggling or child-pornography investigations. Some are retiring early. “It’s very funereal most days,” says one former DHS official. “I think what’s happening at the department is making America less safe.” This is Trump’s America and now, because most of us live here, ours. Leaving aside the fortune in tax dollars going to arrest Celina Ramirez, et al, and then to house, feed, and fly her somewhere — and leaving aside the sheer un-American cruelty of it all — undocumented immigrants are widely estimated to pay more in federal taxes than they receive in benefits. Plus, whomever employers do get to pick the lettuce, wash the dishes, skin the hogs, and clean the toilets — good American jobs your son or daughter have up to now been boxed out of getting — will have to be paid more, which means the prices you pay will go up. For more on this, and what YOU can do about it: Indivisible’s Weekly Newsletter: the American Gestapo — and your weekly to-dos. Rob F: “I think it’s insane that ICE funding is more than triple the FBI and 62% more than the entire federal prison system.” YOUR PUNCHLINES . . . . . . to yesterday’s set-up: “A twice-impeached bully (with more than half the Senate voting to convict), a cheat, a liar, a felon, and an adjudicated rapist walk into a bar . . .” “Table for one, Mr. President? — Don S. “Good evening, Mr. President. What’ll you have?” — Ed. C. “I’ll have what Epstein’s having.” — Michael K. “Nice bar you have here. Hate to see anything bad happen to it.” — Steve H. . . . and breaks things, especially the mirrors, since he has no reflection. — Kathy M. PAYWALL Yesterday I posted: The Apprenticeship of Frank Yablans — just published 51 years after I wrote it. It has zero relevance to the problems of the world. (Which could be the best thing about it.) Some of you encountered a paywall, some did not. I contacted the editor of Vox, which owns NEW YORK Magazine, who said those new to the site this month should be allowed in (so they can offer a subscription). Maybe try again? They’re working on making some articles free; if and when the tech team adds that capability, I hope to let you know.