ICE Agents Stranded in Shipping Container with Migrants

ICE agents are stranded in a shipping container in Africa with “deported” migrants, subjected to illness, heat and the threat of rocket attacks from Yemen.

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From Trump v Musk to ICE, the worst people we know are having a hard time today as nearly a dozen ICE agents are stranded in a shipping container in Africa with “deported” migrants, facing threats of malaria, high temperatures and rocket attacks from Yemen.

“Nearly a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and a group of eight deportees have been left stranded at a U.S. military base in Djibouti, East Africa, after a judge blocked their removal to South Sudan,” Newsweek reported.

“Federal officials, agents, and detainees are now confined in a makeshift detention center in a shipping container at Camp Lemonnier, facing risks from disease, extreme heat, poor air quality, and warnings of potential rocket attacks.”

ICE officers are getting sick due to the conditions.

"ICE officers continue to feel ill with symptoms such as coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints. These symptoms align with bacterial upper respiratory infection, but ICE officers are unable to obtain proper testing for a diagnosis," Melissa Harper, acting deputy executive associate director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, wrote in a court filing.

Gee, this makes one think that maybe the “greatest country on Earth” shouldn’t be shoving migrants into a shipping container in Africa, even if they had been granted their rights, which these migrants have not.

“Trump officials transferred the migrants to the East African nation in response to a judge’s order. They now face threats that include rocket attacks from Yemen…. Nearly a dozen immigration officers and eight deportees are sick and stranded in a metal shipping container in the searing-hot East African nation of Djibouti, where they face the constant threat of malaria and rocket attacks from nearby Yemen, according to a federal court filing issued Thursday,” the Washington Post reported.

This is a grand opportunity to explore the humanitarian values behind sending people to countries where they aren’t citizens, with no due process.

As I’ve been saying from the beginning, this process is not deportation. Deportation is described as “involves formally removing someone from a country, usually after a court hearing or expedited removal, if they are found to be ineligible to stay.”

Deportation is usually repatriating people to their country of origin; it is not sending them to a prison in another country.

The government website even says criminals can be released from prison and returned to their country of origin, “Foreign nationals who have committed nonviolent crimes may be subject to Rapid REPAT. They can be released from prison to voluntarily return to their country of origin. Learn more about Rapid REPAT and its eligibility requirements.”

And so it is that the Trump administration found itself in trouble after U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy said they had “violated his order prohibiting officials from sending immigrants to countries where they aren’t citizens without a chance to ask for humanitarian protection.”

They could have flown them back to the U.S., but we know Trump doesn’t want to be seen allowing anyone in the country except for white South Afrikaners, even if it means his own ICE agents will be stranded in a suffocatingly hot shipping container in Africa.

“Trump officials could have flown the immigrants back to the United States. Instead, they were taken to Djibouti, where in late May officers turned a Conex container into a makeshift detention facility on U.S. Naval Base Camp Lemonnier, according to Mellissa Harper, a top ICE official, who detailed the conditions Thursday in a required status update to the judge.”

Amnesty International is not impressed with what they see as the Trump regime’s violations of international human rights laws by removing people to El Salvador.

“The principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international human rights law, unequivocally prohibits states from returning, removing, or transferring individuals to any country where they would face a real risk of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, or ill-treatment. By removing individuals to El Salvador under these circumstances, the United States has placed them in grave danger and failed to uphold its obligations its legal obligations.”

As we explained ad nauseam during the Biden administration, upholding the law and our values costs money. It costs money to vet requests for asylum. It costs money to send people back to their country of origin in as humane manner as possible. Border control done in a way that upholds values of freedom and democracy costs money.

Republicans blocked Biden’s requests for more money to handle the influx of migrants and asylum seekers during a time of international unrest and mass migration.

Republican Values Explained

What Republicans were actually against was humanitarianism.

We can see that in how they are treating migrants — and even citizens wrongly detained by their (at times seemingly untrained) ICE officers. The cruelty is the point. They are teaching their base to froth at the mouth with delight over inflicting pain on “others.”

The dehumanization is the point.

The ICE agents willing to enact these inhumane policies no doubt never saw themselves as an other, and yet here they are. Stuck in a shipping container in Africa.

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has $185 billion to carry out his mass deportation agenda.

Is the ICE officer payment worth potentially being stuck in a shipping container with the threat of rockets from Yemen hitting you, if you survive malaria? No doubt the kind of person willing to work as an ICE agent for Donald Trump’s agenda thinks this will never happen to them, because they are the “good” people.

But sadly, a dangerous inhumane policy doesn’t differentiate regarding who one voted for or how “good” of a person they think they are.

The real issue with Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda is it a violation of basic human rights. A country that brags about being free cannot send people sans due process to an El Salvadoran prison or a shipping container in Africa. Even if they had due process, these “options” are not humanitarian and do not uphold the supposed values of this country.

Yes, immigration is a problem in this country, and has been for decades. Congress dropped the ball repeatedly and kicked the can down the road. But this is not the way to deal with the challenge.

The problem with “othering” is eventually what people have been trained to accept as good for “others” will happen to them. Donald Trump is turning this country against itself, encouraging us to hate one another and to be the worst versions of ourselves.

And so the best way of resisting is to refuse to become that. To revel in creativity, to be a voice for the voiceless, to protest with joy. Those acts become revolutionary when they are selling the grim version of fascism that is the Trump doctrine.

As horrific as this administration is, resisting becoming them is our biggest challenge and will be our best reward and hope.

What do you think about ICE and Trump’s removal of immigrants? Share your thoughts in the comments below.