Don’t you know the devil wears a suit and tie

I saw him driving down the 61 in early July

White as a cotton field and sharp as a knife

I heard him howling as he passed me by

Rarely do I begin one of these posts with a song lyric, but this one speaks to me right now It’s a song by Colter Wall, a retelling of an oft-told yarn about bluesman Robert Johnson meeting the devil and learning his secrets… at a price.

In the case now before us, the devil isn’t howling down a country road in a Cadillac. He’s a bureaucrat with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, trying to recruit willing desk workers for the unconstitutional, illegal, and yes, evil work of ferreting out the undocumented for prosecution and deportation. VTDigger:

ICE plans to hire at least a dozen contracted workers for the effort at its National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, which is located in an unassuming business park in Williston. … [The contractors would] use sites such as Facebook, Instagram and X… to generate leads about “individuals who pose a danger to national security, risk public safety or otherwise meet ICE enforcement priorities.”

Yeah, because of course people who pose a clear and present danger to national security are out there openly sharing their nefarious plans on social media platforms.

I mean, good grief, we might catch a few of the stupidest villains out there, but otherwise this is just another example of ICE setting its “enforcement priorities” like the boy who lost a quarter in a dark alley but looks for it under a lamppost because the light’s better. They need to meet Stephen Miller’s enforcement quotas, and they aren’t going to do that by going after the real criminals. Those people hide too well. And they fight back.

What they don’t do is out themselves on Facebook or Instagram or The Sewer Formerly Known as Twitter.

This is a modest extension of the Trump administration’s rapidly expanding enforcement regime, and barely an extension of the evil already being done in that “unassuming business park.” Digger again:

Workers there already generate leads for ICE’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, according to agency documents, compiling information field agents can then use to locate people ICE is targeting for deportation and other enforcement. 

Nice work if you can get it. I wonder if those desk jockeys played any part in the detentions of Davona Williams or the nine unfortunates plucked off the mean streets of Hardwick.

Like it or not, Vermont is part of Trump’s ever-widening web, part of his plan to instill fear among people of color, the gender-nonconforming, “the radical left” (read: anyone who votes Democratic) and anyone else he or his minions deem undesirable.

And hey, if you’re a Vermonter who’s comfortable — or even happy — to become part of this authoritarian plot, then there might just be a few career opportunities on the horizon for you.

Music, maestro, please.