ICE Needs Cars. Not really…
Well, Kristi Noem may be gone, but it seems her legacy lives on.
We’ve all seen the accusations and insinuations about Corey Lewandowski, whether she and he are doing the horizontal hora – me, I don’t really care, other than as an indicator that if they treat their wedding vows that lightly, what about their oaths of office? (I remember reading once that Ross Perot didn’t like people who salted their meals before tasting them, and was absolute death on cheating spouses. Often wonder whether we would be in a different place had he beat Clinton.) But something more concrete popped up.
Prior to exiting her position, Noem was subjected to a bipartisan evisceration in Senate and House Committee hearings, as members from both sides of the aisle lambasted her over the Good and Pretti shootings, ICE’s enforcement tactics, her alleged relationship with top adviser Corey Lewandowski, delays in disbursing FEMA aid to hurricane-ravaged areas of North Carolina, accusations about conflicts of interests for lucrative contracts her agency gave to McLaughlin’s husband and other allies, and even the admission from her memoir about shooting her dog, Cricket.
Okay, I have to say Mediaite does not sound like her biggest fan. But I found this also interesting, about Madison Sheahan, Noem’s Deputy Director and protege, who resigned in January to run for an Ohio Congressional seat.
Madison Sheahan, who DHS Sec. Kristi Noem made second in command at ICE, wasted millions of dollars from Congress/OBBB and ordered 2,500 vehicles wrapped with its flashy logo, which ICE doesn’t want and largely cannot use. Mediaite
“LOOKEE ME!!!” is generally not the look law enforcement agencies go for, especially those whose main modus operandi is unannounced raids.
Supposedly the vehicles are mostly parked while ICE tries to figure out what to do with them.
At around $80K each, 2500 vehicles works out to, what, $200 MILLION dollars? Parked? Now, I am sure they get a discount… but no matter what, you’re talking more money pissed away on these than most of us will ever see – combined.
There seems to be some ambiguity about how the decoration is applied. Some say the vehicles are “wrapped”, some indicate possible decals.
I’m open to partners – for say $2,000 each, whether wrapped or decaled, I’m thinking a bunch of guys with heat guns and laser blades could make some serious money off this. Not as serious as $200,000,000, but I’m not greedy.
Ohio, you have been forewarned.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Reminds me of being on recruiting duty for the Corps in 2008. We had the Chevy Malibu and someone at MCRC thought it would be FANTASTIC to wrap the back windows in those EGA/USMC graphics. One problem: you couldn’t see SHIT out of the back of the window. The damn things lasted about 6 months….numerous citations issued for obstructed viewing or something…and we all quietly got the word to rip them off our windows. Always wonder how much money was wasted on that shit.
Nowhere NEAR 200 million…but still nothing to shake a stick at.
And somebody got a NAM and FITREP bullet for their bright idea.
Probably a NavComm for “increasing the visibility of the Marine Corps image,” or some shit.
When I reported as an Army Recruiter in late 2008, we still had a 2005 Dodge Stratus with Army logo wraps. My Station Commander was a bit…different…so he didn’t want to assign me a car (or phone for that matter) until I wrote my first contract. When I did finally get an assigned car, it was that Dodge, complete with weird growth in the rear floorboard. Fortunately, that put me next in line for a new car, so within a month or two I got an ’09 Pontiac G6 with Sport package.
But don’t worry, awards and evals were given to those who thought up, designed, and approved the branding for our cars. By the time those wraps were removed for being too gaudy or outright unsafe to drive with, the people responsible had moved onward and upward.
Govt auction… I start the bid at $500
No 1980’s vintage Jaguars listed for the National Capital Region this week.
https://marketplace.gsafleet.gov/sales/browse-vehicles?vehicleLocation=Virginia&saleEventStatus=Coming+soon%252CActive&status=0%252C1%252C2%252C3%252C4%252C5%252C6%252C7%252C8
All the current GSA Auction vehicles.
https://marketplace.gsafleet.gov/sales/browse-vehicles?vehicleLocation=Virginia&saleEventStatus=Coming+soon%252CActive&status=0%252C1%252C2%252C3%252C4%252C5%252C6%252C7%252C8
I like the busses that are listed as “uneconomical to repair”. They must really be screwed up if the govt, after throwing God only knows how many boatloads of cash at them, finally called it quits on repairs. There may actually be somebody with some brains in the govt.
I think it’s going to be more than $2K to remove those decals/wraps and then re-paint the car to hide the removal.
Or are you going to use cheap illegal labor?
If they used vinyl wraps and they have only been on for a few months where they were mostly sitting, they will come right off without issue. Sometimes vinyl will adhere if they have been driven a while and picked up solvents and oils from the road, causing them to melt and then adhere and bond chemically to the paint.
I agree. Anything not a wrap can be painted over for little cost.
Cheap prison labor.
Yeah. Get the illegal they just arrested to clean it off
Just before deporting him/her.
BRING UP THE TREBUCHET!
Make sure the have a corner of the wrap started, tell them to get a good grip, and voila, quick and easy wrap removal.
In fairness whenever a government vehicle rolls into a trailer park, government housing project or the little Mexico end of town our “guest workers” make themselves scarce. Doesn’t really matter what the vehicle actually is or who is driving. It could be a military recruiter, unmarked police car, USGS, Department of Labor or any one of a number of agencies. The assumption has been for decades that if it could be ICE, then it isn’t worth sticking around and finding out the hard way.
Badging the vehicles confirms what it is and they will make themselves even scarcer.
You’d think they ICE learned it’s lesson about going in low-key the past few months.
So if they rolled into the trailer park en masse, brightly colored ICE vehicles, the illegals head out right into the waiting arms of ICE agents with vans ready to fill. Hey, it used to work for Marlin Perkins…
If I ever had a need to visit an ER for anything, I’d go at about 0230 or a little later. There were usually 20-25 people in the waiting area. So I always wore my favorite Base Ball cap, the one that said “Border Patrol” on it. By the time I finished registering there were about 5 or 6 people left in the waiting room.
Most illegals seek refuge at work because no employer I know of would allow ICE on their job site to prevent work disruptions. Without labels, people may let ICE enter thinking they are police. Labeling ICE vehicles ensures there is no doubt about the type of vehicle and no chance they can get onto any job site.
An employer can just decide “no ICE” on the jobsite? Interesting. What other federal agencies are they allowed to just say no to?
Without a warrant, most of them, especially if they are law enforcement agencies.
The idea of a non-intrusive government is that they have to have business or a warrant before poking their nose in.
There are lots of exceptions such as exigent circumstances, within 100 miles of the border, certain high risk facilities such as an oil refinery or nuclear power plant and a few others but mostly a 15 year old teenager can tell a federal agent to go away and he can’t legally enter private property.
Other regulatory agencies such as the USDA conduct no notice inspections of food factories and farms and they typically cooperate with ICE. OSHA, EPA and other agencies also conduct no notice inspections and sometimes they cooperate with ICE as well. In fact giving notice of inspections may violate the law, depending upon what kind of inspection it is.
To the last point of your post about “no notice inspections”, an agency like OSHA must conduct administrative inspections for its own legitimate purpose, such as workplace safety. Using an OSHA inspection as a pretext for an ICE immigration sweep wouldn’t stand a chance in a courtroom.
Nothing readily available to back my statement up, but I seem to recall home builders complaining about how the don’t have the labor force available anymore. You can find Americans who will do the work, just not at the wages you are offering.
The problem of which you speak is in no way new. It isn’t so much about wages as it is about demographics.
Here is an article from 2023:
https://www.corridorcareers.com/job-tips/real-estate-homebuilders-are-facing-massive-labor-shortage-heres-why-it-wont-get-better-any-time
2017:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/29/homebuilders-struggle-to-fill-jobs-americans-dont-want.html
Mostly the problem is an aging America and a birth rate below replacement rate. We also have a large segment of the population with a work allergy that is “disabled”. We have exacerbated the problem by limiting legal immigration.
US unemployment is 4.4%, this is essentially full employment.
If these employers knowingly hire illegal aliens, as it appears from your post they do, they need to be charged and prosecuted.
Now that is one the funniest things I have read in a long time.
Why?
It simply doesn’t happen. No judge will approve the warrant for a raid of that nature.
The cost of bringing such cases is very high. The workers aren’t going to be around for witnesses at a trial as they will be deported. The company will provide all kinds of exculpatory evidence that shows the measures they took and that “everyone believed” the workers were legitimate. It will drag on for years.
If it ever looks like it might go to trial the company will pay a million dollars or so in fines, the case will be dropped and everyone will move on. The only ones at risk of seeing the inside of a jail cell are very small business owners that mostly employ illegal labor and leave an open shaky paper trail.
But suppose the government actually succeeds? They raid an employer, arrest the employees and deport the employees, take down the company and the owner goes to jail. The results will actually be much worse.
When Federal Agents misled a judge to get a warrant to raid a meat packing plant in Tennessee, saying they were looking for tax records and then went grabbed 90 workers for deport and committed various crimes, assaults and civil rights violations in the process the actions went on for years.
The owner did go to jail (although not for employing illegal aliens) and paid hefty fines. But not near as much as the settlements of the lawsuits and the negative impact on the economy both locally and regionally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Southeastern_Provisions_raid
So yeah, it doesn’t happen or so rarely it is quite notable.
It’s simpler than that. Prosecution of employers is extremely rare. Immigration enforcement strategy favors administrative actions and penalties (I-9 audits) over criminal prosecution. Investigations are time-consuming and expensive. Federal prosecutors prioritize cases with aggravating factors and that have the highest impact, such as human trafficking or severe worker exploitation, systemic re-hiring of terminated workers, identity theft/document fraud, human rights abuses, RICO predicate offenses, and so on.
Imagine if there was an actual requirement to use E-Verify.
Those employers you know ought to check out 18 USC Section 111 (Impeding Federal Officers), 8 USC Section 1324 (Harboring of Aliens), 18 USC Section 371 (Conspiracy), and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Every union will sue you if let ICE on site unless they have a warrant. State regulators will harass you if you cooperate with ICE.
Employers only have to let police on site for criminal investigations but immigration is not considered a criminal matter.
Without a doubt, and I should have been clearer. My comment was made with the assumption that ICE operates in conformance with the 4th Amendment.
I’m hoping they’re just vinyl decals, that would make removal quick and easy!
She should have ordered all those cars with 4 on the floor stick shifts, this way it would be hard to car jack the car.
You’re dating yourself, Jeff – 6-speeds are the standard manual transmissions of the day.
Beats the 15 gear 3 axle trucks I drove once in awhile at work. Get the RPM’s up and go from the lower 5 gears up to the next set without all the gear shifting if I remember unless you were on a Fed run (bank pickups going to the Federal Reserve bank in Manhatten NYC) upstate NY going up or down the mountain hills then strictly all low gears…
Good luck finding an American made car with a manual transmission. Corvettes don’t even have them anymore.
Guy in my complex sold his yellow 2002 if I remember stick shift Vet last week..The Vet was there for a couple of years covered up and last week, the owner and buyer were going over the car.. Last stick shift cars I drove beside Armored work trucks were a CJ5 jeep and ARNG stick vehicles 1975-1977
I think the last stick I drove was an M-151A1, and that was in the late 60’s.