Mayor Paul Young confirmed late Monday in a contentious town hall meeting with Hispanic residents that the Memphis Police Department is cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
His statements before a crowd of hundreds in East Memphis came as a remarkable development considering that city leaders for years had denied any collaboration between the police force and ICE.
Young said his aim in allowing the cooperation was to steer federal agents away from mass deportation and toward helping MPD investigate murders and other violent crimes.
If he fought the administration of President Donald Trump, as officials in Chicago are doing, the federal government would respond with even harsher tactics, he said.
“I believe that the posture of Chicago has caused the federal government to flood the community with ICE agents focused on immigration,” Young said, drawing occasional applause. “That is why I have chosen to make sure that our police department is working with the federal teams to direct them towards our problem, which is crime.”
But the mayor received sharp pushback from some in the crowd at Mullins United Methodist Church where a big group of mostly Hispanic residents turned out to hear Young speak alongside Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis.
“This morning, they took away a mother. The mother left behind a one-year-old child,” Maria Alejandra Oceja said in Spanish. A key leader of community group Vecindarios901, Oceja said it’s one of many similar cases of parents arrested and children left behind.
At another point, a woman shouted at the mayor from the back of the church. “Should we wait until all of our family members get taken away?”
But Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, who attended the Monday night meeting, told the Institute for Public Service Reporting that he has been receiving regular reports from the task force.
“I think people expected it to be about crime. And even on immigration — immigrants who are criminals — that’s not what we’re seeing,” Mulroy said.
About 20 percent of the arrests are immigration-related, he said. What proportion of those involve immigrants accused of committing crimes?
“I don’t know precisely, but not many,’’ Mulroy said. “There doesn’t seem to be any indication of reports of criminal activity other than unlawful presence in the United States.”
Entry into the country without inspection can be charged as a crime, yet unlawful presence in the United States is generally treated as a civil immigration offense, not a crime.
The light federal enforcement in non-border areas meant that most unauthorized immigrants in Memphis managed to live normal lives: working in construction and other industries and frequently buying homes, sending children to school and sometimes launching their own businesses.
Today, the situation has changed dramatically. The Trump administration and Congress are dedicating billions of dollars toward large-scale deportation, regardless of the immigrants’ criminal records.
Seventy-two percent immigrants in detention centers today have no criminal convictions, according to the Transactional Access Records Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
If he fought the administration of President Donald Trump, as officials in Chicago are doing, the federal government would respond with even harsher tactics, he said.
“I believe that the posture of Chicago has caused the federal government to flood the community with ICE agents focused on immigration,” Young said, drawing occasional applause. “That is why I have chosen to make sure that our police department is working with the federal teams to direct them towards our problem, which is crime.”
This is 100% how the Nazis win. This is so fucking sad and pathetic to see someone in a leadership position play right into their fucking hands like this. I watched it happen in New Orleans as the governor took over our city via the state police and then ICE, and it’s playing out basically the same in Memphis.
For the millionth fucking time: These people are not playing by the same rules. They do not view you as equals. They are passive aggressive invaders, and they view this takeover as establishing dominance in a natural social hierarchy.
They will not “go easier on you if you cooperate.” Every little bit of ground you cede is lost to the people who have taken over, which is why you should be pushing back as much as you possibly can whenever you possibly can. Get a fucking backbone and use some fucking legal defense!!
Probably the saddest part about all this, is that the people that give into these demands, think that since they’ve cooperated, at the least they’ll be safe even if the rest of the city won’t. They don’t understand the social media smears and online attack campaigns against them are created by the people they’re cooperating with.
The short term plan is to get you to cooperate and make their invasion easier. Once they no longer need you, you’re not going to be rewarded for your loyalty. The long term plan is to turn the city against you too. Once that happens, you’ll be ousted and they will attempt to install their own mayor.
Btw, if Feds happen to have something they’re using as leverage/blackmail to persuade elected officials to cooperate, know that it never ends with anyone being let off the hook. You can turn all your fellow democrats against you and basically hand over the keys to the city in an attempt to save yourself, but once you’ve served your purpose you’ll be indicted anyway. Source: Cantrell becomes first sitting New Orleans mayor indicted by federal grand jury
The short plan is to get you to cooperate and make their invasion easier. Once they no longer need you, you’re not going to be rewarded for your loyalty.
Anyone who doesn’t believe this can look at the richest ketamine addict in the world. If $200 billion doesn’t keep you in the inner circle then nothing will.
There is no honor amongst oligarchs who view themselves as being granted a position at the top of the food chain by divine intervention. That’s why the rules that they make to control all the little people below, never actually apply to them.
Everything that Elon/DOGE was the public face of when he took a chainsaw to the government, Peter Thiel had already begun strategizing during Trump’s first administration.
During his first administration, Thiel inserted his former employee (Michael Kratsios) to help out with technology in the White House. Kratsios is now Trump’s Science Advisor despite having no actual qualifications for the position (what a fucking surprise). The ousting of Elon began right around the time Kratsios received Senate confirmation. Thiel set Musk up to take the public blame, then once again, ousted him in a coup just like he did at PayPal. Now Thiel is receiving very shady government approval to open the first U.S. crypto bank, and Elon’s contracts are being cancelled.
A recent history of media narrative control and how quickly the reality being created and fed to the American public can change in a little under 4 months:
Young said his aim in allowing the cooperation was to steer federal agents away from mass deportation and toward helping MPD investigate murders and other violent crimes.
Fucking delusional
Yes, the mayor is a Democrat.
Davis was sworn in as the Memphis police chief in 2021.[7] In 2021, she created the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods Unit (SCORPION);[8] which is associated with killing of Tyre Nichols. She is the Memphis Police Department’s first black female chief,[9][10] and is also the first female police chief of Memphis.[11]
In January 2023, Davis described the killing of Tyre Nichols as being a “defining moment” in the Memphis Police Department’s history.[7] She terminated the employment of five police officers associated with Nichols’ death.[1]
She was also famous for “Red Dog” police tactics which
used “aggressive crime fighting strategies in high crime areas citywide”
“This morning, they took away a mother. The mother left behind a one-year-old child,” Maria Alejandra Oceja said in Spanish.
Obviously, this child would have become a criminal, possibly even a terrorist, or even (gasp) a democrat… clearly, there was no other way.
I saw a video recently of an ICE agent that got pulled over for a DUI with his kids in his car, and he started off all cocky and shit talking the cop for even pulling him over. Then he ended up begging him not to take his kid from him and saying he shouldn’t lose him over one little mistake.
And it’s just… What tf do you even say to people who have no problem doing something like that to other people, when they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s one thing to imagine ICE agents as like 19 year olds with no world experience and frontal lobes that are still developing.
But how can somebody be so callous about causing so much heartbreak and trauma when they know that it must feel like you’re stuck in your worst fucking nightmare. And that doing this everyday to completely innocent people, who literally didn’t even make the decision to drink and drive with their kids in the car, is just your normal job. Like how do you sleep at night?
Honestly, maybe he doesn’t, and that awful feeling has something to do with why he would feel the need to drink to get through a normal day.
Sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
