Tim Steller's column: Feds trying to criminalize protest in Tucson, elsewhere

These days, if you protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, you’re no longer enjoying your American rights of freedom of speech and assembly.

You’re engaging in a criminal conspiracy.

That’s what the federal government would like you to think, based on the recent experience of a Tucson man with a couple of FBI agents. This episode, along with policy statements from Washington, D.C. and other incidents inside and outside of Tucson, show how they are framing free speech and assembly as incipient domestic terrorism.

A Tucson man, Miles Serafini, was home Oct. 17 when two agents came knocking on his door, as reported by Ken Klippenstein, a Madison, Wisconsin-based journalist. A doorbell camera captured their friendly introductions, leading to a line of questioning that eventually amounted to government intimidation.

“We came out here to ask you questions regarding a protest that happened on the 11th of June,” one of the agents said. “We’re going around asking questions for a few people who were brought up, and you were brought up.”

The agents asked to speak with Serafini, and he went outside to talk with them, though the later conversation wasn’t recorded. Serafini did not respond to my efforts to contact him. He told Klippenstein that he attended the protest June 11 at ICE offices near South Country Club and East Valencia roads but didn’t know anybody there and did nothing illegal there.

That protest, attended by several hundred people, was peaceful until the end when a splinter group of dozens of protesters clashed with security guards and damaged the building. Tucson police arrested three people at the time and two people later. The FBI also recently offered a $10,000 reward to identify a man they say damaged a building during the protest.

The agents were disappointed by Serafini’s answers, he said. The signs used at the protest were of particular interest to the agents, who wanted to know who supplied them, he told Klippenstein.

“I could tell by their questioning that they were trying to figure out the shadowy entity behind the protest.”

‘Domestic terrorism’

This should sound familiar if you’ve been paying attention to the Trump administration since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. They said then they would launch a campaign against left-leaning organizations, accusing unnamed groups of fomenting political violence.

President Trump formalized that policy in a pair of directives, the first designating “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization.” The second asserted that political violence was not the result of individuals acting out, but “a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence.”

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the Sept. 25 directive says.

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When asked about protests against ICE, some of which have turned violent, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called them “riotous assemblies” and said, “This is organized domestic terrorism.”

Labeling dissenters as “terrorists” is one of the basics of authoritarianism, employed from Putin’s Russia to Erdogan’s Turkey to Bukele’s El Salvador.

Here, it couldn’t be more obvious what they are trying to set up: A legal justification for cracking down on protests against ICE, immigration operations, and the federal government in general. It appears Serafini got caught in that. And he’s just the one with the courage to speak out — who knows how many more the feds have targeted and scared into silence.

ICE actions cause protest

You can see how their framing works in a reaction that ICE provided to a later Tucson protest at their offices here. At the time of that September protest, organizer Bennett Burke explained it, in part, by saying masked ICE agents have been “violating the requirement for judicial warrants, and using other unlawful, unconstitutional, and deceptive tactics that are tantamount to kidnapping.”

In a response obtained by KVOA Channel 4, an ICE spokesperson said, “Masks are worn for safety, not secrecy, as ICE officers and their families face increasing threats and assaults, which have risen by over 1,000% since last year due to dangerous rhetoric and demonization, like those made by the vigil spokesperson.”

When they criticize rhetoric about ICE as “dangerous” and “demonization,” they’re not just trying to shut down criticism of the government — a cornerstone of the American system — but they’re also demanding that you ignore why people are actually protesting them. People are angry at ICE because of its actions, not due to rhetoric about its actions. Things like:

• Arresting and detaining at least 170 U.S. citizens, in part due to the permission granted by the U.S. Supreme Court to racially profile Hispanics.
• Shooting two pastors, one in California and the other in Illinois, in the head with pepper balls or similar projectiles, while the pastors were peacefully protesting.
• Shattering numerous car windows, tackling students and using violence on a day-to-day basis against detainees, protesters and witnesses to such an extent that a federal judge in Chicago ordered them to stop using tear gas and specified violent tactics.

In other words, ICE has earned every bit of protest it has received by its own agents’ actions. And its future is even more ominous and protest-worthy: The agency is hiring fast, reducing the time in academy to around eight weeks as they try to bring on 10,000 new agents authorized by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Some recruits have shown up at the academy without being fully vetted first, NBC reported.

It’s only natural that many Americans would react with revulsion to the sight of masked bullies terrorizing people throughout the country. The fact that the FBI and other agencies are trying to turn people who protest this into criminal conspirators seems almost ridiculous.

“What a waste of their time to go after (stuff) that doesn’t exist,” Serafini said of the FBI effort to find a puppet master behind his protest.

Except it’s having an impact.

The visit to Serafini’s house was the day before the Oct. 18 No Kings protests. He had planned to attend, but after the visit, he opted not to. FBI intimidation worked.

Photos: Protesters clash with TPD and security outside ICE facility. Graphic images.