“Inhumane”: Marine Veteran Calls for ICE to Release His Father After Video of Brutal Arrest Goes Viral
www.democracynow.org
As ICE increases its raids on immigrant communities, footage of the arrest of one man, Narciso Barranco, shows seven federal agents — all masked — pinning the 48-year-old gardener to the ground and repeatedly punching him in the head before pushing him into an unmarked vehicle. His son, Marine veteran Alejandro Barranco, recently visited him in an ICE detention center. “He looked beat up, he looked rough, he looked defeated. He was sad. It’s just not right,” he says. Barranco, whose three children have all served in the U.S. military, was arrested while working as a landscaper at an IHOP restaurant in Santa Ana. “We are seeing an extreme abuse of power on the screens of our phones,” says Santa Ana councilmember John Hernandez, who adds that Barranco is a “hardworking Santa Ana resident of over three decades, who has raised three children who have all decided to sacrifice their freedom for this country that we love.”

Content warning: Linked article contains embedded video with extreme physical violence. Please take care of yourself if you choose to watch.

Narciso Barranco’s horrific assault, caught on camera, is the most recent viral example of the now ubiquitous trend of masked immigration enforcement agents committing non-discriminant human rights abuses. Narciso has been in the U.S. for 30 years, has three sons in the US Marines and had started the process of naturalization when he was targeted by ICE seemingly at random. His son, 25-year-old veteran Alejandro Barranco, speaks out about his father’s racial profiling and inhumane treatment during and since his abduction and detention. Contribute to the family’s GoFundMe here.

For the past year, we have seen conservatives shamelessly targeting disabled and immunocompromised people, especially Palestine solidarity protesters, by trying to pass mask bans, disingenuously trying to draw a link between the use of life-saving medical face masks and antisemitism. Why? Because protest and disability justice threaten the status quo. When regular people wear masks, it’s because in the world since COVID-19, we know the importance of keeping ourselves and each other safe.

When law enforcement agents and ICE seek to conceal their identities using non-medical masks, unmarked vehicles, and plain clothes, and refuse to identify themselves, their agency, their business, it’s because they seek to act with impunity and flagrant disregard for our rights when directly attacking civilians.

ICE agents, on paper, are required to identify themselves. Increasingly, progressive legislators are seeking to ensure compliance with this baseline standard. In CA, the No Secret Police and No Vigilantes Acts have been introduced toward this end. The mask bans include exceptions for medical masks, SWAT teams, and wildfire protection gear. Which leaves us with the question of what [neo]fascist ICE agents would hate more: showing their faces in public, or appearing to care about public health by wearing a KN95?

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action. Emphasis original.)