STATEMENT: On the ICE Arrests
An Address to the Anti-ICE Protesters
We, too, watched the footage from Minneapolis: an innocent, unarmed civilian woman shot dead by an ICE agent. The image was unmistakable, and so was our response. We were enraged.
That rage is not only understandable—it is justified. To feel no anger in the face of such injustice is not neutrality but complicity. Anger, in moments like these, is a moral response. It signals that something intolerable has occurred and that acceptance is no longer possible. For this reason, our anger should not be suppressed. It should be sharpened and directed into resistance.
Yet anger alone is not enough. When anger loses its sense of direction, it burns itself out. If our rage stops at the slogan “Abolish ICE,” it may briefly disrupt the surface of the system, but it will leave its foundations untouched. History is full of movements that exhausted themselves by striking at symptoms rather than causes. Anger becomes a force capable of transforming reality only when it is aimed at the correct target.
This brings us to a question that cannot be avoided:
Who, or what, is our true enemy?
Many answers come readily to mind. Some will say that the enemy is the individual ICE agent who pulled the trigger. Others will argue that the enemy is ICE as a federal agency, or Donald Trump as a president, or even the federal government. These answers might be emotionally satisfying, but they remain incomplete.
Individuals and institutions matter, but they function largely as components within a larger system. They are operators, administrators, and enforcers. Removing one operator—or even dismantling one institution—does not necessarily halt the machine that produced them. A machine does not cease to function simply because a single part has been removed.
Our true enemy lies deeper than any one person or agency.
Modern technology is our true enemy.
What, after all, grants ICE such godlike power? It is not the badge, which is merely symbolic. It is not the uniform, nor even the handgun. These are superficial markers of authority. The real source of ICE’s power lies elsewhere.
It lies in smartphones and laptops, in cars, helicopters, and drones.
It lies in armored vehicles, highways, and airports.
It lies in massive databases, facial recognition system, and AI.
These technologies constitute the material foundation of ICE’s power. They transform it from a conventional law-enforcement body into an apparatus capable of constant surveillance, rapid tracking, and overwhelming force. Without these technologies, ICE would be something fundamentally different—far less efficient, far less omnipresent, and far less terrifying.
Even if the agent who killed Renee Good were imprisoned, justice served in the narrowest legal sense; even if ICE were formally abolished; even if Donald Trump were impeached; even if the federal government were to be abolished—these technologies would remain intact.
And they would not remain unused.
Another force, operating under a different justification and a different name, would inevitably take them up. Out of the same technological base, a second ICE would emerge—or something even more sophisticated, more automated, and more brutal. The problem would reproduce itself, because its material conditions would still be in place.
For this reason, the Anti-ICE protest must not end as a mere release of anger. It must become the beginning of a deeper inquiry. Protest should not only express outrage; it should also clarify understanding.
We hope that this experience becomes an opportunity to reflect on what our true enemy is—not simply a particular agency or administration, but modern technology. And we hope that this protest marks the first step toward cultivating the thought, preparation, and capacity required to confront the far larger and more systematic forms of technological oppression that lie ahead.
Anger should not be the end of our response.
It should be the beginning of Anti-Tech movement.
Join Anti-Tech Action.
