*No paywall*The story starts with teachers pleading for empathy for 3 immigrant students. It ends with a border patrol agent pleading for empathy for 3 other students at the school — his own. Might be a theme here. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti... - ThreadSky

franciswilkinson.bsky.social • 11 days ago

*No paywall*The story starts with teachers pleading for empathy for 3 immigrant students. It ends with a border patrol agent pleading for empathy for 3 other students at the school — his own. Might be a theme here. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-04/how-sackets-harbor-got-ice-and-tom-homan-to-cave-on-deportations?srnd=undefined

Comments

sourfishyfry.bsky.social•11 days ago

This is great, thank you for writing it. The agent who disappears children while whining about his own kids hearing about his deeds really nails MAGA’s culture of violent abusers claiming victimhood.+ I appreciate the way you wrote it. Thomas Homan needs to be held accountable for his crimes.

midwifekrysis.bsky.social•11 days ago

What a story.

lilienfeld1.bsky.social•11 days ago

Agent Baize may not like the references to the Nazis and the Gestapo (I personally think Homan and Steven Miller are vying for the 2025 Himmler Humanitarian Award), but the reference are now so commonplace because they fit so well. Maybe he should consider how to change ICE so they don't fit as well

ojelibom.bsky.social•11 days ago

Lord only knows what the border patrol agent's kids hear at home. I don't understand the dad's choice of employment at all other than stunted intellect.

cascadetommy.bsky.social•11 days ago

“All kids matter”, the kids taken into custody, sent to Texas en route to who knows where, and returned due to extraordinary efforts of the community; and the kids of someone who helped take the kids into custody.

Let’s ask the Biden and Obama sons and daughters how they feel about this.

franciswilkinson.bsky.social•11 days ago

“If the children actually belong to Sackets Harbor, if respected, dedicated and persistent local women had drawn the borders of the town in a way that clearly enveloped “our kids,” then uprooting the children from their home might be a more perilous endeavor.”

franciswilkinson.bsky.social•11 days ago

The message discipline was all the more remarkable compared with the shifting emissions from DHS. A timeline of public communications from the govt shows the feds losing control of the narrative in real time. Each day the educators waged their campaign, leverage shifted from the feds to the kids.

franciswilkinson.bsky.social•11 days ago

One moral to this story is that courage counts. It changed the balance of power. And changed lives for the better.

jeffbarrus.bsky.social•11 days ago

The agent refused to say whether he participated in the family's arrest, which is an admission of guilt.

nigeloshea.bsky.social•11 days ago

I mean it's not a very big community, was it the OTHER ICE office?

bonfire25.bsky.social•11 days ago

'One possible explanation for his acute attention to the Sackets Harbor case, and for its fortuitous outcome, is that Homan wants to RETIRE (in Sackets Harbor) among people who respect and admire him rather than fear and despise him.'

Good luck with that!

dustbunny44.bsky.social•10 days ago

Seems to be key here: Homan called off his department and returned the local detainees so he himself could live more peacefully in his chosen town. Of course the activism is also key; without it he would not have to stand down his goons. Implies if he lived in another state he wouldn’t care.

gordonvincent.bsky.social•9 days ago

The irony in his plea is galactic in scale.

paula2131.bsky.social•11 days ago

So your conclusion is that kids whose parents do Naz! things should be looked upon with the same empathy the children of immigrants deserve? Your conclusion was not the staggering hypocrisy of an ICE agent pleading for his own kids but offering NONE to others? You missed the theme entirely.

sourfishyfry.bsky.social•11 days ago

I read his conclusion as ironic—pointing out the hypocrisy and absurdity of the ICE agent’s position.

paula2131.bsky.social•10 days ago

I thought he gave it short shrift but made it the focus of his skeet.

sourfishyfry.bsky.social•10 days ago

I can see that read too.

paula2131.bsky.social•11 days ago

If you want a story about empathy, I would read the shit out of a story on the ICE agent’s kids pleading for their classmates safe return. Show me that those kids aren’t being turned into baby brown shirts themselves.

peltast1.bsky.social•11 days ago

So, per the story: a rich family taking interest in the kids and direct harassment of Homan led to ICE reversing themselves.

mkvidahl.bsky.social•11 days ago

Homan wants “to belong to the community.”
Shame on Senator Schumer and Rep Tenney.
The ICE Agent needs another job because currently he IS the Gestapo, whether he likes or dislikes being called that is irrelevant.

nigeloshea.bsky.social•11 days ago

I was also pissed but not surprised to hear congressional leaders did nothing.

carefulegardener.bsky.social•9 days ago

Such a long story just to build to the Ice guy being ‘apparently’ glad the kids were brought home? The best part is that his kids felt the weight of judgment and scrutiny. Hopefully a lesson they will remember.

andyullucci.bsky.social•11 days ago

Great story.

dustbunny44.bsky.social•10 days ago

This (detentions, not the returns) seems to be happening all across the USA in small towns you’ll never hear of unless you query very local media.

caleval.bsky.social•11 days ago

Not advocating anything, genuinely asking the many angry posters: what is supposed to be the governing rule here? It's ok to enter a country illegally, to work illegally, so long as you bring some kids? How should lawful government deal with these situations?

oozeley.bsky.social•3 days ago

you're canadian you don't even go here

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

By making immigration easier, and not brutalizing people who are already here minding their own business, *especially* children.

caleval.bsky.social•10 days ago

You're not being clever by giving no answer in the guise of calling out current cruelty. Easier immigration and more decent treatment does not address how exactly are governments supposed to deal with those who enter and work unlawfully. Do nothing?

leahshaffer.bsky.social•10 days ago

You can try to establish a guest worker program, or various little steps to bring illegal into legality. Dubya tried, his own party said No.

caleval.bsky.social•10 days ago

Canada has a guest worker program and the guests routinely refuse to leave, demanding citizenship. It's contributed to a complete collapse in support for immigration across the political spectrum. There needs to be a way to manage that isn't just a free pass or extremists will win.

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

You really need to define "extremist" here. Who is living in Canada that you don't want there?

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

Pretty much, yeah. Under Obama, INS was explicitly told to deprioritize immigration proceedings against people who had no criminal record or other interactions with law enforcement, choosing to spend our time and effort dealing with people who went out of their way to cause harm on US soil.

caleval.bsky.social•10 days ago

Then you're abandoning immigration to those with the capacity to defy the law, either with resources like money and human trafficking, or pure physical ability. Survival of the fittest, not the most needy or most deserving. Definitely not more "just" or fair than trying to manage a lawful system.

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

Everyone has the capacity to defy the law. For most of my life in Boston, you couldn't throw a rock without it bouncing off the heads of dozens of Irish people who had overstayed their visa 5, 10, 40 years ago and just...got on with their lives. Suddenly its a problem when Guatemalans do it? Weird.

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

If you want to be strictly utilitarian about it, what does it cost the US in dark green dollars to deport people, find and pay for foster care for any US citizen children they may have, eventually pay for those children's needs both educationally and socially after forcible separation from parents

jamtoday.bsky.social•10 days ago

pre-hearing detention and flight back to wherever they came from, for *every undocumented immigrant here*, and what is the financial value that we have gained by removing those people from our communities - not only the loss of their labor and impact on economies both local and national - but loss /

jamtoday.bsky.social•11 days ago

The ICE agent isn't pleading for his kids, he's pleading for himself. He doesn't like being called "gestapo".

dudesweet.bsky.social•11 days ago

Oh no! Consequences for my actions? I’m being oppressed!

lynne-sails.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yup, sorry, I find myself not giving a crap about his sob story after watching how ICE agents conduct themselves over and over. Abolish ICE. Not a single agent should be rehired in ANY law enforcement capacity.

Bring in ICE IS A CHOICE. Not the same as fleeing for your life to protect your kids.

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