Masked Men & Muzzled Laws: The Federal Jackboot at the Surgery Door

It can happen here. And it is, but not with a cross and a flag, but with a mask and no identification

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By David Shuster

In the sun-drenched streets of Ontario, California, where one might expect to find nothing more sinister than tennis elbow or bone spurs, the great American experiment in civil liberty recently took another punch to the gut. This time it happened not via lies to a microphone, in a courtroom, or anywhere near a Home Depot.

No, this occurred in a surgery center, of all places, in a temple of Hippocrates with the charge to heal others. Yet, nowhere is safe in today’s America where any square foot of land can be turned into a battlefield by that ever-bumbling leviathan known as Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

The one run by Kristi Noem, the lady of many outfits—one day a cowboy, the next a soldier—but never, on no single day, has she dressed up as someone who can explain what the hell habeas corpus means. Something she might want to know for the job she holds.

So there was Denis Guillen, a landscaper originally from Honduras, peacefully trimming grass outside this medical building. Guilty of nothing other than working hard and wielding a leaf blower without a U.S. passport. So the masked men with a penchant for unprovoked violence suddenly appeared.

They were unidentifiable and as it turns out, unaccountable. The Trump agents proceeded to try and snatch up Guillen, who preferred not to be disappeared. So like any sane person would do when pursueed by masked men without a badge, he fled into the medical clinic.

Staff inside—nurses, doctors, the people who are trained to heal, and not destroy like members of ICE, were also never trained to host a hostage drama. They politely asked the I.C.E. "agents" (a word that now means anyone with a badge-shaped piece of plastic and an extra Y chromosome) for identification.

The reply to this simple request? Violence. A request for a warrant? Met immediately with a refusal, as if due process were optional.

One might expect this sort of crap in banana republics, not under an American government that, at least on paper, pretends to value—and even be legally held to—the Bill of Rights. But what we have here is not enforcement. It is government thuggery under the guise of law.

Another horrific assault on not just an innocent human being, but the very idea of America, by some people who should perhaps start preparing something other than “I was following orders” for a future Nuremberg-like appearance. They may want to look that one up.

And the punchline to this travesty? A statement issues by Homeland Security, in all its Orwellian majesty, accusing the medical staff of "obstruction" for locking their doors and trying to prevent what any sentient being might mistaken for some kind of gang or terrorist attack.

Yes, the ones treating patients, acting in the interests of our socieity, and calling 911 in terror to report a “kidnapping,” which is exactly what this was, are at fault here. Not the jacked-up Trump secret police offering no identification or warrant.

Legal experts have since pointed out that these I.C.E. agents - without a warrant or willingness to identify themselves, were engaged in what could be defined as abduction. But when the executive branch fancies itself above the law, the Constitution becomes just another flimsy piece of paper for Trump to trash. Like business agreements, wedding vows and any contract to pay a sub-contractor who’s worked for him.

Meanwhile, Denis Guillen's friends and family haven't heard from him since he was disappeared by these hopped-up ghouls. Guillen has vanished into the bureaucratic void, detained, but never properly charged.

His crimes, we are left to assume, include leaf blowing while Latino and existing while undocumented.

The video: Mr. Guillen assaulted by ICE cretins, and Barbara Stone telling her harrowing story

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But it doesn’t end there. In San Diego, a 71-year-old grandmother named Barbara Stone—an American citizen and legal observer—was hauled off by ICE after recording agents skulking about the courthouse.

Her offense? Having the gall to hold up a camera in a public hallway, an act protected by the First Amendment.

To document the state is now to obstruct it. To observe it is to threaten it. And if you challenge the government’s authority with a question like “Do you have a warrant?” -- you’re liable to be met with brute force. Even if you’re an American citizen (see video below):

The real tragedy here is not simply that a clearly crumbling Trump—both physically and cognitively—has had his ICE agents have abandoned even the pretense of legality. It’s that our nation is growing numb to it.

With every raid, every assault on dignity, every episode of masked men treating brown-skinned workers like prey, we inch closer to a mirror universe of who we claimed to be. To being a country completely unrecognizable to the one that once claimed to espouse principles such as fairness, equality, compassion, and due process.

Of course, the Trump administration insists this is about “criminal aliens.” This is a euphemism as dishonest as any the Trumpsters have declared (and, for that matter, it rings a bit hollow coming from a 34-count-convicted felon), but not too dishonest for our media monopolies to repeat without questioning. (We have an answer for this)

Because what is criminal here is not the presence of immigrants. It is the lawlessness of those who are supposed to be enforcing the law.

These raids are not justice. They are theater. A disgusting pageant for corporate-media clicks and voters intoxicated by fear and utterly ignorant about the Constitution. What we are witnessing is not law enforcement—it is federal vigilantism masquerading as policy.

And it has an economic cost. Entire industries including agriculture, hospitality, and construction are suffering, even going bankrupt, as labor vanishes into detention centers and deportation flights. But then again, the financial drags are invisible to the wealthiest 1% who write the rules and rarely acknowledge who mows their lawns.

This is the true spirit of Trump’s government agents in 2025: callous, confused, and utterly devoid of any humanity or shame. Monsters living among us.

We may watch and hear the screaming. We may see the doctors pleading for law and reason. But don't ask for logic. Don’t ask for justice. Not for those like Mr. Guillen, who have already been taken away…

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David Shuster is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist who is best known for his work at NBC News and as an anchor MSNBC. He is a contributor to Blue Amp Substack and co-host of our weekly show (Thursdays, 2pm et, on Substack), “Amped Up w/ Cliff Schecter.”