ICE and your young adult child

No but my advice to a US citizen would be different to advice to someone on a student or work visa (starting with I wouldn't come to the US on either of those visas right now). They cannot deport an american citizen. they can certainly make life difficult for them before that conclusion is reached.

It very much depends on his accent and skin color. If they perceive him as “foreign” they will likely treat him that way.

The question of whether to get involved is an ethical one, since the US is after all his country. But I know that most activist groups will try not to place people who are at particular risk in situations where they are likely to encounter ICE directly. There are other ways, as has been mentioned, eg by delivering supplies to people who are afraid to leave their homes.

I’m not sure ICE are differentiating in the mid west correctly

Ok I now see I missed that he is a dual citizen. Unfortunately, the only thing that changes is that he cannot be deported. The other risks are still very much in play.

I understand your dilemma Op. I think if it were my child (and it quite likely could - at school in North America not US. A decent person who is politically active in climate zone) I would emphasise them helping people targeted by ICE in the most effective way they can without getting into direct confrontation. So e.g. food deliveries to families scared to leave their property, financial aid, helping children get to school etc. I find that my children are way more clued in /cautious than me about being careful about political social media posts during university /job /visa applications etc etc. I would strongly discourage anyone from “direct” confrontation with these ICE agents as they are armed , poorly trained and seem to have a genuine disregard for the law and humanity. I’m a hypocrite as I’ve begged them not to visit the US (geographically close kids from their school used to visit at weekends) or apply to US unis (they would qualify for full financial aid from their school system). You can oppose fascism quietly and effectively up to a point when I guess we might all have to decide where we stand.

@ByCyanMoose the OP's child is a US citizen.

Carry your passport at all times. DH had a horrible threatening incident with under cover police on a train in California near Mexican border. Was a few years ago now. He’s white but they were still extremely aggressive and horrible threatened to arrest him!

I cannot emphasize enough to you that this is a very dangerous time to be studying in the United States. If he appears at a protest or makes any statements on social media, he can and will be deported. And even the deportation will be vastly preferable to the days or weeks he may spend in a federal detention center leading up to it, and the strong likelihood of being injured by ICE agents during the arrest itself.

He must carry his documents with him at all times in case he is stopped and ordered to present them on the spot. If he is nonwhite, the risk is increased manifold, because ICE is known to stop people based on nothing more than their appearance and foreign accent. Numerous American citizens have actually been stopped and ordered to present proof of citizenship based on the color of their skin, and some have been detained if they are unable to do so. Bear in mind that in the United States, citizens are not even required by law to carry any form of ID.

He should avoid any location where ICE is thought to be present: there are groups on WhatsApp, Signal etc that provide warnings of this. That is also the reason people are always blowing whistles in the videos of confrontations: to warn others that ICE is nearby.

if by some mischance he does come in contact with an ICE agent, he should say nothing other than in answer to direct questions. Insulting them, talking back etc may be taken as an invitation to hurt him.

I would say this too.

If police or ice say stop, stop.

The brownshirts started out like this in clearing protests.....look how THAT ended up.

Don’t disobey any order given by ICE or argue with them.

If you think that they have exceeded their legal mandate, the time to argue that is in court, not by the side of the road when emotions are running high.

It’s not worth him dying tell him to come home.

This whole period is a lesson in who would collaborate, who would stand by and let it happen.

In terms of the world, I'm horrified. In terms of 1930s Germany, we don't need any fancy social experiments or psychologists. Just watch in real time.

I live in the US and at least one - possibly two - of my children would go to protests and the third works with marginal communities on the street so often would be in a situation dealing with police etc.

I tell them to be careful and to walk away from trouble if they see it escalating. Same advice I gave them growing up before all this ICE shit hit the fan.

Do you want to encourage him to protest?

Well - the people who hid jews were able to do that presumably partly because they didn't get themselves shot or identified as anti-government activists in protests early on (whether or not it would have made any difference if every person like that had protested early on is another question).

Anyway, I don't know enough about the details of the US situation to know about the risks and benefits of protesting right now in the way people mostly are. It's an eternal dilemma I think - timing when to speak up based on whether you think that's going to help more than working quietly in a different way.

@user3867599 I honestly don't know if what I'm about to say is a valid thing in the current situation

I was lucky enough to do some work in the US. I always carried identification with me but I would have done that in any country that's not mine. I do actually carry my driving license with me all the time here, even though I don't drive anymore.

I am not white, (I'm often mistaken for mixed race although I'm actually not) and the first few times I went there for work, I never thought about the colour of my skin.

I did think about it later when all the race stuff seemed to really take off - I mean, suddenly race baiters and Grifters began making a lot of money out of it.

It was a lovely place to work and to just be in generally.

I did see a couple of places being raided by immigration enforcement in NYC in the 2000s and I just walked past - as I would do in the UK. There's a business that's been closed in my local High Street and we are fairly sure that that's the reason why it was closed though there doesn't seem to be much information publicly available. They were surrounded by police and closed very suddenly. There were customers inside at the time.

My expereince in the US was pre-lockdown so wearing a suit for work was pretty normal and I probably just looked like a regular person going to work or being on a lunch break.

It wasn't something I thought about.

I have expressed puzzlement on here about the current situation because there seems to be either a lot of misinformation going round, or things have changed so much in the last 10 years, that my opinion and experience is invalid. It may well be - 10 years is a huge amount of time in terms of political and societal change.

I hope your DC enjoys America. I would certainly have gone back for a visit by now if not for elderly parent issues. I have never felt anything other than 100% welcome there.

editing to add - sorry MN is loading really slowly and I can't see all the posts in one go - if he wants to protest, he runs a very different risk than he runs in this country.

Law-enforcement carry guns in the US. It would not occur to me to interfere with law-enforcement in the US - ever.

I suppose the only thing you can tell him is to think very carefully about where he's getting his information. There is a shocking clip, which appears to be correct, with Renée's wife saying what sounds like "Why do they have real bullets?"

I'm baffled by this. Why would they not have real bullets? I just assume any law enforcement person I come across in the US is armed, including the ones that just say hello, good morning, etc when you're walking out of your hotel. Which I find they did quite a lot. It was all fine with me.

They spent a good amount of time in our city. Carry some ID if you have an accent or skin color that would get you noticed.
Consider a whistle, can be useful in street collection situations.
Don’t go looking for trouble, if you want to help join a local group.
There were groups that shielded dc at school pick up for example. Other groups helped distribute legal information about excluding ice from businesses and signs relating to this.
Some provided legal advice.
What skills and knowledge does your dc have? Do they want to be actively involved?

It sounds like you don’t really want advice but confirmation that they should protest, which no one with a conscience is going to do in case something bad happens to them.

Would they like to stay in the US?

What ethnicity is he? Because the truth of the matter is, there are US citizens who are just going about their daily business and being brutally detained. They are certainly not people 'putting their head above the parapet' or trying to cause any trouble, they're just ordinary people going to work or taking their kids to school. The advice is surely different, sadly, depending what he looks and sounds like.