Violence involving ICE in the US could happen anywhere, including here in Britain - Jayne Dowle

Is this what Nigel Farage would bring to our own British towns and cities? Men in masks and helmets beating down front doors, dragging screaming children off from their homes into vans?

Reform UK’s ‘Operation Restoring Justice’, a five-year ‘emergency programme’ intended to identify, detain and deport illegal immigrants, would be enforced nationally by what Farage calls the UK Deportation Command, a new force that would presumably eschew a polite knock on the door in favour of ICE’s ruthless tactics.

The plan, published in August, warns that ‘unlawful presence’ would have an ‘iron-clad consequence: swift removal’.

Those who support Farage should be careful what they wish for. In three years, if not sooner, come a General Election, Reform UK could be in charge. Would you want to live in a country where people were afraid to go out for fear of being caught up in state-sponsored street violence?

Is this what Trump, should his promises on negotiating an agreement to take over Greenland rather than using military force disintegrate, would bring to the people of this quiet Arctic self-governing territory of Denmark? Faced with the assembled throng of powerful businesspeople and world leaders at Davos, he stepped back from overt threats of violence, but as we know, the US President is quixotic, his mood can turn on a cent. Would he bring it to Canada even, the US’s neighbour to the north?

This is not scaremongering. We have to confront the unthinkable.

Pretti was shot just after 9am on a Saturday morning, as he joined other anti-ICE protestors to film officers’ actions with his mobile phone. The very presence of local people up in arms against ICE has – inevitably – been roundly derided and condemned by Trump supporters.

These protestors should be commended for their courage. Minnesotans with verifiable US citizenship are having to brave the streets to collect food and medicines for immigrants too terrified to leave their homes.

Parent-led patrols shepherd children to school and daycare so the youngsters aren’t rounded up by ICE agents.

Others, like Pretti, record apprehensions and arrests, and blow whistles and shout warnings to signal the approach of ICE agents so those who might be taken can run and hide.

These people, helping neighbours and strangers alike, are ordinary Americans, not anti-state agents, whatever the right-wing apologists might argue.

They are acting out of human impulse, to protect and help the vulnerable. What is especially sinister is that ICE is targeting them, the good people, the brave people, the humanitarians and those who bear witness to what is going on in their country.

In the moments before an ICE gang wrestled Pretti to the ground and appeared to fire at least 10 shots into his body within a span of five seconds, he could be seen trying to help a woman who had fallen to the icy ground in the melee.

Pretti brandished no weapon, a 9mm semi-automatic handgun was found afterwards in his holster. He was licensed to carry a firearm, as are many, many American people; MAGA propaganda is certainly awash with images of guns, and the US Second Amendment, the right to bear arms is an article of national faith.

The Trump administration quickly jumped in to condemn Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” attempting to “assassinate federal law enforcement” providing zero evidence for either claim.

Confected allegations, people dying on the streets, terrified children whipped away. Is that what those who still think Trump has got it right on immigration really want?

An American YouGov poll taken in mid-January found that a majority of people - 90 per cent of Democrats, 60 per cent of Independents, and 30 per cent of Republicans - believe ICE uses unnecessary physical force against U.S. citizens, authorised immigrants, and unauthorised immigrants. Trump’s strategic withdrawal of ICE from Minneapolis will do little to calm fears at home or abroad. If it’s happening there, it could happen anywhere.